HOLBROOK TRAVEL
Design lead for a travel website built around five kinds of travelers, live from 2015 to 2025
WEB DESIGN
DESIGN SYSTEMS
The short version
Holbrook Travel wanted more inquiries. I designed a website where every page led to a trip. It won a 2016 Travel Weekly Silver Magellan Award and stayed live from 2015 to 2025.
Holbrook has run educational and nature trips since 1974, from birding in Costa Rica to safaris in Tanzania. I was the company’s in-house designer and led the site’s design from the start, from the first wireframes to the traveler account and the blog.
THE BRIEF
Turn browsing into inquiries
Holbrook wanted the new site to bring in more trip inquiries, and to take routine questions off its staff. The old site made both hard.
Trip details, itineraries, and pricing were scattered across pages, and there was no way to browse by what travelers cared about. The layout was narrow and fixed, on a wood-texture background. Country and interest pages were long lists of trips, and trip pages had little more than a photo and a few short tabs.
The old site in 2014 and 2015: the homepage, the Costa Rica page, and a trip page. Some photos weren't saved by the Internet Archive.
WHO IT'S FOR
Five ways to start planning a trip
Holbrook's travelers didn't all start in the same place, so the site gave each of them a front door.
A place in mind
Some travelers already knew they wanted Costa Rica or Tanzania. Where We Travel opened by region and country.
An interest first
Birders, photographers, and garden lovers cared more about what they’d see than where. Follow Your Interest opened up their search by interest.
A trip to join
Some wanted a trip that was already planned, with dates set and other travelers signed up. Join a Trip listed every one.
A trip of their own
Others wanted to lead a group or travel privately with friends and family. Plan a Trip started there.
An educational expedition
Student travel has its own unique requirements, and teachers needed trips their students could learn from. Student Travel split into K-12 and higher education.
Those five became the main navigation, and every page type came from one of them.
THE SYSTEM
Building blocks, not pages
Holbrook had dozens of destinations and hundreds of trips, changing every season.
So I designed a set of building blocks (heroes, gallery cards, trip lists, tabs, two-column layouts) that combined into five templates covering about 100 pages. Holbrook's team could add a new country, interest, or trip without a designer. That's a big part of why it lasted.
Five templates for the whole site: home, category, interest and region, trip, and about.
Wireframe to final: a trip page.
HOW I LED IT
Design lead from the first wireframe
I led the design from the start, from the first wireframes to every final page, and Traktek built it.
I owned how the site looked and worked. The information architecture was a joint effort in-house, between Holbrook’s COO, who led the project, the CMO, the marketing manager, and me. Traktek, our technology partner, built the site and the systems behind it.
From wireframes to a system
I wireframed the site, then turned the wireframes into building blocks and five templates, designed for desktop and phones, with the details developers needed to build them once and reuse them everywhere.
Reviews at every build
I reviewed each build against the designs and worked through fixes with the developers, from the tabs and filters to the custom map.
Set up for the team
I worked with the marketing team on photography, credits, and the back-end collections, so they could add trips and pages on their own after launch.
DECISIONS
Every page should lead to a trip
With inquiries as the goal, most decisions came down to two things: keep people moving toward a trip, and keep the site easy for a small team to fill.
Trips high on every page
Trips to join and trips to plan sat near the top of the homepage, country pages, and interest pages, not at the end of a long list. Country information still mattered, because travelers who had booked came back to it before they left, so it moved below the trips instead of off the page.
No dead ends
Hero photos linked to the trip where you could see that place. Blog posts linked to trips, trips linked back to posts, and every trip page ended with more trips to join or plan.
Credit every photo
We needed far more photos than Holbrook had, so many were public domain or Creative Commons, and partners shared their own. Every photo carried a caption and a credit, so a credit line was designed into every hero and gallery.
Build a trip page in less time
We set up collections in the back end for hotels, lodges, and landmarks. When staff added one to an itinerary, its photo filled in and the map marker updated on its own.
A map in Holbrook’s colors
Every map was styled to match the brand instead of using the default look. It took real work to get right.
Tabs, not one long page
A trip page could have been one long scroll, which shows everything at once. But the longest itineraries ran past two weeks, and the price and dates got buried under them. Tabs kept the decision at the top and let each part stay as long as it needed to be. The cost was that some travelers might never open every tab, so the sidebar, with a person to ask, sat next to every one.
Two lists, not one
One combined list of trips would have been simpler. But joining a trip and planning one are different decisions for different people, so they got two lists side by side, colored orange and green, everywhere trips appeared. It took more space on every page, and it made the two paths impossible to miss.
HOMEPAGE
Every front door on one page
The homepage on desktop, with its numbered parts, and the full mobile homepage beside it.
1
Five ways in
The main navigation named the five kinds of travelers: Where We Travel, Follow Your Interest, Join a Trip, Plan a Trip, and Student Travel.
2
Start with a place
A full-width photo opened with a destination search. Hero photos linked to the trip where you could see that place in person.
3
Start with an interest
Six photo tiles led to birding, student travel, private journeys, natural history, photography, and garden tours.
4
Join a trip, or plan one
Trips to join and trips to plan sat side by side. Join cards had an orange edge and plan cards a green one, and the same block appeared on country and interest pages, filtered to that page.
5
What’s new
A feed mixed blog posts, social posts, partners, and traveler quotes, so there was always something new on the homepage.
Trips to join and trips to plan, the block that appears across the site.
WHERE WE TRAVEL
For travelers with a place in mind
Costa Rica, with its numbered parts, beside Where We Travel, Africa, the Galápagos, and Iceland.
1
A gallery first
Every country opened with a photo gallery.
2
Why go
A short introduction in teal, then the details for anyone who wanted to read more.
3
Trips there
The same trips to join and trips to plan block as the homepage, showing only that country’s trips.
4
The place itself
Below the trips, tabs about the country itself: a map of where Holbrook travels, sections on wildlife, conservation, and learning, and Travel Info and Resources. Travelers who had already booked often came back to read up before they left, so this stayed on the page, but below the open trips, because the goal was to book people onto their next one.
5
Stories from the blog
Posts about the same country ran down the side.
6
Custom comes standard
Country pages ended with a reminder that any trip could be customized.
FOLLOW YOUR INTEREST
For travelers who start with what they want to see
Birding, with its numbered parts, beside Photography, Garden Tours, Natural History, and Polar Regions.
1
In a traveler’s words
Interest pages opened with an introduction and a quote from someone who’d been, like a birder who saw 134 species.
2
Trips for that interest
Trips to join and to plan, from every country.
3
Reasons for this traveler
Each interest had its own reasons to choose Holbrook. For birders, that meant expert birding guides and spotting scopes on every trip.
4
More to read
Blog posts for that interest closed the page.
JOIN OR PLAN
For travelers who want to join, and travelers who want to lead
Join a Trip listed every trip with set dates, with filters by place and interest and a flag when only a few spots were left.
Plan a Trip, with its numbered parts, beside Join a Trip, Private Journeys, Group Journeys, and the build-your-own-trip form.
1
Choose your travel style
Plan a Trip asked one question first: an independent journey for family and friends, or a group journey you’d lead.
2
Ideas to start from
Sample trips for each style, so planners had something to customize instead of a blank page, and a form let them build their own.
STUDENT TRAVEL
For teachers and professors
Student Travel, with its numbered parts, beside K-12 and Youth, and Colleges and Universities.
1
Two paths
Student Travel split right away into K-12 and youth, and colleges and universities.
2
Trips for each
Sample trips for each audience, side by side.
3
Reasons for educators
Twelve reasons written for teachers, like educators traveling free and marketing support.
4
Tools for educators
What Holbrook could provide to help a teacher plan and promote a trip, from presentations and flyers to a trip prep manual.
THE TRIP PAGE
Everything about a trip, on one page
Every path through the site ended at a trip page, so it had to answer every question a traveler asks before booking.
A Galápagos trip page, with its numbered parts, beside trips in Costa Rica, Kenya, the Galápagos, and Ecuador.
1
The decision up top
The trip name, the partner, the dates, and one button to join or plan.
2
A gallery
Photos from the trip, each with a caption and photo credit.
3
Tabs
Five tabs that held the whole trip, more on those below.
4
A sidebar that kept talking
A real person to ask, quotes from past travelers, and blog posts about the same place.
5
Highlights and the trip leader
What you’d do, and who you’d do it with.
6
The price
The land cost, and what it did and didn’t include.
7
Why Holbrook
Reasons to book that matched the trip, like expert guides or flight arrangements.
8
More trips
Similar trips to join or plan, so no page was a dead end.
TABS
Five tabs on every trip
The old trip pages had tabs too. I gave every tab a clear job, so a traveler could go from first look to packing without leaving the page. Country pages and booked trips in the traveler account used the same tabs.
Overview, Itinerary, Pricing, Travel Info, and Resources, from four different trips.
Overview
The route on a map, the trip in a paragraph, the highlights, and the trip leader.
Itinerary
Day by day, with icons for the meals included and where you’d stay each night. Lodges and landmarks came from the back-end collections, with their photos and map markers.
Pricing
The land cost for each group size, how many leaders traveled free, and checklists of what was and wasn’t included.
Travel Info
Passports, visas, vaccinations, and health, country by country.
Resources
A packing list. Above the sidebar, buttons to print the itinerary or download a brochure.
Sidebars from five trips: who to ask, what past travelers said, and stories from the blog.
AFTER BOOKING
A home for every traveler
Once travelers booked, they had an account that held everything about their trip, on desktop and on their phone.
A booked trip in the traveler account, with its numbered parts, beside the dashboard and itinerary on mobile.
1
A group goal
A counter showed how many more travelers a group needed to reach its price.
2
The trip’s tabs
Overview, Profile, Itinerary, Payments, Participants, Flights, and Resources.
3
People to call
The Holbrook staff for that trip, with photos, emails, and phone numbers.
4
What to know before you go
Entry requirements and health information for that country.
The dashboard: upcoming and past trips, payment due dates, and credit for referring a friend.
Trip leaders saw more: payments, every participant's flights, and the full participant list.
Flights, payments, and participants, as a trip leader saw them. Emails are blurred.
THE BLOG
A blog with its own name
I also redesigned Holbrook's blog as The Holbrook Explorer, and its stories showed up across the site.
The Holbrook Explorer home, with its numbered parts, beside an article that ends with trips to join.
1
Its own masthead
A brush-script title on a dark topographic pattern, so the blog felt like a magazine, not a news feed.
2
Stories with a photo first
Trip reports, photo essays, and a photo of the month.
3
A sidebar for planners
Search, categories, a newsletter sign-up, and a link for group travel planners.
4
Trips at the end of every post
Each post ended with trips to the places it was about, like Chile and Costa Rica after a post on orchids.
A Share a Story page invited travelers to send their own photos and trip stories, and the same posts appeared in trip and country sidebars next to the places they were about.
THE RESULT
An award, more traffic, and ten years live
In the year after launch, Traktek reported traffic up 35%, page views up 41%, and bounce rate down 64%, and 80% on mobile.
The site won a 2016 Travel Weekly Silver Magellan Award, given jointly to Holbrook Travel and Traktek. The traveler account brought customer satisfaction and sales to record levels in its first year and took routine work off the reservations and call center staff, according to Traktek. The site stayed live until 2025, and Holbrook's team could add countries, interests, and trips without a designer.
The homepage in June 2016, eight months after launch, and in 2022. Educational Travel was later renamed Student Travel.
Most screenshots on this page are from 2022, seven years after launch. Next to the 2016 homepage, they show how little the system had to change.
Trip details scattered across pages
→
Everything about a trip on one page
No way to browse by interest
→
Five ways in, for five kinds of travelers
One-off pages
→
Five templates for about 100 pages
When Holbrook was finally ready for something new, they brought me back to consult on the redesign. That meant more than any launch.
What I learned
Start with how people think, not how the company is organized
Five kinds of travelers became five front doors, and the structure followed.
Build for the team that keeps it running
The site lasted ten years because Holbrook’s own team could add a trip without calling a designer.
