The studio
A small studio, on purpose.
Route & Retreat does marketing for two kinds of people: travel advisors, who move people across the world, and retreat hosts, who move them somewhere deeper. That's the whole client list. Not hotels, not venues, not "any small business" — the people who move people.
A small studio, run by someone who's done this at scale.
Route & Retreat is run by Stacy Earl. I've spent more than 25 years in marketing — direct-to-consumer work and the business development strategy behind it — getting real people to notice, trust, and choose, and building the engine that turns attention into growth. I've led marketing for a consumer rewards app that landed at #11 on the 2024 Inc. 5000, a heart-health platform, and a national healthcare brand — the senior marketing leader at two of the three. In some of that work I was emailing millions of people and responsible for growing both acquisition and retention — the two numbers any business actually lives on. Different products, same craft: figure out who you're actually talking to, say the true thing clearly, and make it easy to act on.
I've been building websites since 1999 — back in the pure-HTML days — and have worked extensively in custom code, WordPress, Wix, and Squarespace since. So the site we hand you is built to fit, not a template with your name dropped in, and I'll tell you honestly which platform is right for you.
I also run a small travel company of my own — so I know your world from the inside. The inquiry that doesn't convert. The site that undersells what you actually do. The marketing that only happens when there's a spare hour, which there never is. Route & Retreat is the studio I wished existed for people like us: agency-grade work, priced on the page, built in accounts you own from day one.
25+ YEARS IN MARKETING · BUILDING WEBSITES SINCE 1999 · EXECUTIVE MBA, JOHNS HOPKINS · PMP
Two rules, both in your favor.
Cancel anytime. You own everything.
Your site, your list, your words — yours on day one, not on departure. If we're worth keeping, you'll keep us. That's the whole retention strategy.
Everything we build lives in accounts you own from the first day: your domain, your hosting, your email list, your analytics. We hold a login, not your business. Cancel and the site keeps running, the list keeps growing, the words stay yours. Nothing to migrate, nothing held hostage, nothing to buy back.