Author: Valarie Budayr

A Mission to “Shrink the World”-Guest Post from Janelle Diller (Co-Founder of the Pack-n-Go Girls)

My earliest memories are of traveling. We’re in our two-toned white and chocolate brown Ford station wagon headed from Kansas to Florida. Family friends have joined us for the 4,000-mile trip—four adults and five kids aged three to six are packed into a car that seems as big as a boat. As a bonus we take a quick flight to Havana. My only memories of that side trip are of tall, dark haired women with skin the color of roasted peanuts striding past us in stiletto heels and pencil skirts. My mother and her friend wore neither. At the impressionable age of three I already knew people had different ways of living.

While in many ways this may seem to be just a random memory, it’s not. It’s a precursor to what will come decades later as my business partner, Lisa Travis, and I launch Pack-n-Go Girls. Our mission is this: We want to shrink the world. We want little girls to dream of going to far away places and not just to the mall. If they dream about it, they’re a lot more likely to pack their bags and go some day. And when they get out there, they’ll discover that even though we may have colorful differences across the globe, they’ll also discover that people are the same all over the world.