away travel owner

• After-Hours
• Market Movers
• Fear & Greed
• World Markets
• Markets Now
• Before the Bell
• Leading Indicator
• Global Energy Challenge
• Mission: Ahead
• Business Evolved
• Work Transformed
• Innovative Cities
• Reliable Sources
• Fresh Money
• Biz + Leisure

Center Piece

Perspectives, international.

• Switzerland
• Passion to Portfolio
• On: Germany
• Newsletters
• Accessibility and CC

Entertainment

Do Not Sell

The founders of Away changed the luggage industry after a travel mishap

Jen Rubio, one of the co-founders of Away, got the idea for a more thoughtful piece of luggage after she went through a travel nightmare on a trip to Switzerland. Her suitcase broke.

"I was at the airport, and all of my clothes just spilled out everywhere," Rubio told CNNMoney. "I had to find some straps and some tape to tape everything together."

Rubio went looking for a replacement. Her options were limited -- a well-designed piece that was too expensive or a cheap one of poor quality.

Rubio complained about the experience to Stephanie Korey, her friend and former co-worker at Warby Parker. They saw an untapped market, and set to work creating an affordable, durable hard-shell suitcase with wheels and a built-in battery pack for charging electronics.

Their luggage ranges from $225 for a small carry-on to $295 for a large suitcase. Away is also a lifestyle brand that includes a magazine.

Related: Robinhood co-founders want everyone in the stock market

Korey and Rubio, who both have consumer marketing experience from stints at companies like Warby Parker and Casper, bring different strengths to the company. But they know their roles.

Korey, the CEO, has an MBA and is more logic-minded. Rubio, whose title is creative director, manages branding and design.

When they teamed up, they planned their company structure on Post-It notes. The pair laid out notes with all the different functions and departments that their company would need. They divided up the tasks and found they each had an equal amount.

The two also share an entrepreneurial spirit.

Rubio's first business experience came from a lemonade stand, where she made her mark as something of a corporate raider.

"The kid down the street opened a lemonade stand about a week later, and I remember going to my dad and asking him for $20 so I could buy him out," Rubio said, calling it her first merger and acquisition. "I bought him out and made him work for me."

Korey had an enterprising business of her own: She set up shop in her parents' supply closet and sold them things they'd already bought.

"My first business from a gross margin perspective was quite ingenious," she said. "I sold them their own light bulbs and their own paper clips that they had already paid for, so it was great -- 100% gross margin."

Related: Bumble founder created the app after experiencing online harassment

The two plan to debut additional products for travelers soon -- a priority for Rubio, who is constantly on the road.

"My relationship with travel is probably my least complicated relationship. I just love it and it loves me back," she said. "This is so sad, but lately I've been feeling most at home on a plane with no Wi-Fi."

Rubio said going through airport security, putting her stuff in bins and boarding is the biggest constant in her life right now.

But she credits her frequent travel with making her a better entrepreneur by forcing her to adapt to change and push beyond what's comfortable. She said her experiences have also helped her create a company that makes travel easier for others.

"Our customers just really feel like this luggage kind of enables and empowers them to have better trips," she said.

Personal Finance

Cnnmoney sponsors, smartasset paid partner.

• These are your 3 financial advisors near you
• This site finds and compares 3 financial advisors in your area
• Check this off your list before retirement: talk to an advisor
• Answer these questions to find the right financial advisor for you
• Find CFPs in your area in 5 minutes

NextAdvisor Paid Partner

• An Insane Card Offering 0% Interest Until Nearly 2020
• Transferring Your Balance to a 14-Month 0% APR is Ingenious
• The Top 7 Balance Transfer Credit Cards On The Market Today
• Get $300 Back With This Outrageous New Credit Card

Away cofounder Jen Rubio says she never planned to be CEO. Here’s what changed her mind

Over the past year and a half, the luggage and travel brand Away has been through a lot. Allegations of a toxic company culture . A global pandemic that shut down travel. The departure, then return, then second departure of a controversial cofounder and CEO—and earlier this year, the exit of the outside CEO brought in to right the ship. There, through it all, has been Jen Rubio, the brand’s cofounder.

This week, the company decided that what it needed for its next phase was continuity. On Tuesday the board of directors named Rubio, who has been serving as interim CEO for the past two months, its permanent CEO. “It wasn’t part of my game plan,” says Rubio, who founded Away with fellow Warby Parker alum Steph Korey in 2015. “I was kind of in a mindset to hand the reins over.”

But when things changed, Rubio was ready to step up. And she says that she has come to believe that now is the perfect time for the company to be “founder-led.” “For me to be the leader that bridges the gap between the entrepreneurial spirit of our origins and the mature, stable, someday public company we want to be, it feels like the right thing for the company and for the team,” she says.

Founder-led for a travel rebound

In late 2019, Away brought on Stuart Haselden, a veteran retail executive who had spent the prior five years at Lululemon. But while Away once required that kind of deep retail experience to steer its ambitious growth, Rubio says that now, with the company anticipating a big rebound in travel, what the brand most needs is “strong vision and inspiration.” “That’s something that founders can provide in a really different way,” she says. “An outside CEO might be a little more risk averse or slower to move—and there are so many opportunities ahead of us.”

While Away suffered, like most in the travel industry, for much of 2020— sales dropped 90% last March and April—Rubio says the brand is seeing a recovery even before travel fully rebounds. Customers don’t need to be completely ready to get on a flight to buy a suitcase, after all. “People are really excited to travel again, and they’re planning for it,” she says. “Away is part of that pre-trip planning process for many people now.”

The opportunity for Away, then, is to offer the kinds of products that people are eager to buy as they stare down summer 2021. While the company has been most closely associated with the kind of city-centric international travel that COVID brought to a halt, Rubio is eager to sell travel products more specialized for road trips and outdoor travel to destinations like national parks. Still, the company is tracking its sales against metrics like TSA checkpoint numbers to prepare for full-scale airplane travel to come back too.

But will travel—and with it, the ubiquity of the Away hard shell carry-on—ever return to what it was pre-pandemic? “I think people are going to be more intentional,” Rubio says of travel. “They’re going to focus on the quality of their trips and experiences over collecting miles or hotel points.”

From “customer-obsessed” to “be the customer”

In much the same way that Rubio is eager to reposition Away’s offerings to customers, she says she’s endeavoring to rebrand Away among its employees. The company revamped its corporate core values in February. One significant change was to adjust the edict to be “customer-obsessed”—the issue at the core of 2019 reports that Away, and especially Korey, mistreated members of its customer-service team—to “be the customer.” That means Away is now asking its employees to “be incessantly curious about what travelers want from us, need from us, expect from us—then make it happen,” rather than to please the customer at all costs.

Other new values for Away include “make great new things,” “own it,” and “do good as you do well.” Those replaced values like “empowered” and “accessible,” which The Verge reported in 2019 were often used as reasoning for limiting employee time off and providing harsh employee critiques. Rubio says that the company believes the reporting didn’t accurately reflect the true culture inside Away, but she acknowledges that shift in language is intended to make sure that the company is not “saying one thing but acting in a different way.”

Rubio says the company is also changing its approach to the core business. Rather than “coasting along in growth mode,” as it was pre-pandemic, she says Away is aiming to be more intentional about what products the brand is debuting and how it’s getting them to customers.

Some of these goals Rubio set may have to wait to be fully executed; the new CEO is eight months pregnant with her first child and planning to take Away’s 16 weeks of parental leave.

While at home with her new baby and partner, Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield , Rubio may also be thinking about Away’s ultimate post-travel rebound goal: an IPO. “It’s really about, over the next couple of years, being able to prove we’ve built a brand and a company that has staying power,” she says. “That will only be viewed favorably when the time is right to IPO.”

Latest in MPW

From running out of gas money to a self-made billionaire at 32: Inside Selena Gomez’s success

Clichés, exaggerations, overstatements: Our analysis of 23,000 annual reviews shows top performers get the worst feedback

Kamala Harris is being ‘competency-checked,’ a gauntlet every Black woman in the workplace has to run

Fortune Most Powerful Women 2024 livestream

Susan Wojcicki on how she built YouTube as the new TV

Former YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki has died at 56

Most popular.

Protecting a billionaire CEO costs millions. Here’s how the world’s biggest companies measure up

Elon Musk faces moment of truth in Europe as buyers turn their backs on Tesla

Michael O’Leary calls Wetherspoons chief’s bluff by pledging a 2-drink limit on Ryanair flights ‘tomorrow’ if pubs follow

China’s startup scene is dead as investors pull out—’Today, we are like lepers’

The top 4 states where the most young and rich Americans are moving to

An airline passenger’s unruly behavior led to a canceled flight. Now he’s on the hook for almost $6,000 in fuel costs

We've detected unusual activity from your computer network

To continue, please click the box below to let us know you're not a robot.

Why did this happen?

Please make sure your browser supports JavaScript and cookies and that you are not blocking them from loading. For more information you can review our Terms of Service and Cookie Policy .

For inquiries related to this message please contact our support team and provide the reference ID below.

The Boss: The Founders of Away Have 3 Tips for Female Entrepreneurs

In The Boss , women share how they became successful and the lessons they learned along the way.

When we launched Away , it was because of a personal pain point: Jen’s luggage broke. When she looked for a replacement, she realized there wasn’t a luggage brand that was iconic but accessible, and that made a high-quality product that didn’t cost more than the trip you were planning to take it on.

That’s why in 2015 we set out to create a company that would offer the luggage that Jen was looking for and to create a brand that people could get excited about. We appropriately named it Away, and we create products and experiences that make travel more seamless.

We started on the same day at Warby Parker. We were working on such different parts of the business, so we were able to learn a lot from each other and form a great friendship along the way. Steph was the Head of Supply Chain, building the team handling product development, manufacturing and fulfillment, and I was leading the brand’s early content and partnership efforts. As business partners, we bring very different strengths to the table, and it’s a big part of the reason we knew we’d work well together.

We had a deep understanding of two things that we knew would set Away apart: the first being how a direct-to-consumer model could disrupt an entire industry (and benefit the customer), and the second being how a good brand could make people care about a product that they might not have otherwise thought much about.

A little more than two years after deciding to launch our company, it’s clear we’ve done a few things right as we have hundreds of thousands of happy customers, a team of more than 100 and tens of millions in revenue. But it hasn’t always been easy, and we’ve made a few mistakes along the way that were inevitable when you’re moving quickly. Still, we thrive on a culture of embracing risk and learning from our mistakes.

Here are a few other things we’ve learned so far:

1.) When you’re fundraising, take the emotion out of it.

In the beginning, we raised funds from friends and family— but because the company’s success depended on our ability to design and manufacture a physical product, we knew we’d need additional capital to meet demand, and to scale in a meaningful way. Fundraising can be a draining process for anyone, and as women, the numbers weren’t on our side. In 2017, women received just 2.2% of venture capital funding .

While fundraising is admittedly emotional — you’re pitching your blood, sweat and tears and looking for validation of your idea — we quickly learned to take the emotion out of the process. From day one, Steph helped me see that we weren’t asking for a favor, we were giving people an incredible opportunity to invest in something that we would work tirelessly to make successful. That distinction was crucial to taking the emotion out of the ask. It made us grateful for quick nos, which allowed us to move on with other options.

This doesn’t mean you take the humanity out of these interactions, it just means that you don’t take rejection personally.

2.) Surround yourself with people who understand your vision.

Whether it’s finding a business partner who can complement your skills or hiring people who are the best in their respective fields, the team you build — and how much they believe in the long-term objective — is crucial to whether or not you’ll be successful. Steph and I bring different strengths to the table, but we also share common goals and a vision — like our obsession with making decisions based on our customers, which is our guiding light. We��ve worked to build a team of people with diverse background and perspectives, which allows everyone in the company to catch each other’s blind spots when it matters, and offer a fresh perspective on projects and obstacles.

3.) But understand that not everyone will understand your vision — and that’s OK!

However, when you’re building something, you’ll inevitably encounter people who doubt your vision or even you personally. In some early conversations, people told us that no one would ever get excited about luggage. We took that sentiment as the reasoning for our company: There was an obvious gap in the travel space and we were going to take advantage of it.

You can’t fault others for thinking differently, but you can try to understand where they’re coming from and use that feedback to improve your business idea. Today, we’re grateful that we didn’t spend too much time dwelling on those who said no.

The people who have truly added value to our vision didn’t need much convincing.

More Must-Reads from TIME

• How Kamala Harris Knocked Donald Trump Off Course
• Introducing TIME's 2024 Latino Leaders
• George Lopez Is Transforming Narratives With Comedy
• How to Make an Argument That’s Actually Persuasive
• What Makes a Friendship Last Forever?
• 33 True Crime Documentaries That Shaped the Genre
• Why Gut Health Issues Are More Common in Women
• The 100 Most Influential People in AI 2024

Contact us at [email protected]

• Revisions & Errata
• Get Featured

Subscriber for weekly insights

The leading business publication for the bold and ambitious.

You’re officially subscribed to our newsletter.

For Customers

• Product Manual
• Product Updates
• API Documentation
• Explore Datasets
• Thinknum Alternative Data

Industry Products

• Investor Intelligence
• Business Intelligence
• External Data Conference

Media Services

• Content Studio
• Advertising

A brief history of Away: From suitcases to scandals

Can Away bounce back from COVID shutdowns and the company's co-founder drama?

Surely you’ve seen the ads. Just open Instagram or Facebook and you’ll scroll past the luggage that’s taking the world, particularly millennial travelers, by storm. Away debuted as a female-founded, highly funded, direct-to-consumer luggage retailer in 2015. The launch of their signature product, the Carry-On, was enormously successful. Vogue called it “The Perfect Carry-On.” People dubbed it “the little black dress of luggage.” By the conclusion of its first year in business, Away had launched three more suitcases: The Bigger Carry-On, The Medium, and The Large. This is a brief history of the company’s founding, growth, success, and some recent turmoil. 

The broken suitcase that started it all

Away launched in 2015 after founder Jen Rubio’s luggage broke in an airport in Switzerland. Her clothes and toiletries poured out of her suitcase and onto the airport floor. She ended up finding some straps and tape to get the suitcase functional enough to get to her next destination. After that, Rubio was on the hunt for a better suitcase. She reached out to her former colleague at Warby Parker, Stephanie Korey and the two came up with the idea for a durable hard-shell suitcase with wheels and a built-in battery pack capable of charging phones and tablets. Rubio and Korey met in 2011, while they were working at Warby Parker as social media manager and head of supply chain, respectively. With Away, the women knew their market and their strategy: relentless online marketing. 

Rubio and Korey netted $150,000 via family and friends to start the company. That was enough to hire an industrial designer and take a blueprint of their luggage to a factory in southeastern China, willing to take a chance on two young women with big dreams but not a lot of experience (see also: Sara Blakely and SPANX). The two founders visited that factory eight times in 2015.

The carry-on that took over Instagram

Despite their close watch on the production of their signature Carry-On, Christmas 2015 was fast approaching and their luggage wasn’t going to be ready in time. So they relied on the tried and true marketing tactic: the pre-order. Then they blanketed social media with their ads, and it worked. The first Carry-Ons were delivered to customers in early 2016. Away’s luggage is hard sided polycarbonate with for 360-degree spinner wheels and strong YKK zippers that can take the abuse that luggage typically takes. The luggage also has a removable 10,000-milliamp-hour lithium ion battery for charging personal devices.  The Away Carry-On will run you $225 including shipping in the US. A similar bag from Tumi sells for $525. 

Within months, Rubio and Korey had filed more than a dozen patent applications worldwide. The company made $12 million its first year. Away was profitable by the end of 2017. By late 2019, the company was on track to do $150 million in revenue. Away sells the vast majority of its suitcases online. It also has a handful of stores in high-traffic cities like New York, London, and Los Angeles. Today, Rubio and Korey have sold more than 100,000 suitcases. 

The scandal that made headlines

In late 2019, trouble within Away’s company culture and reports of a toxic workplace surfaced. According to the Verge , executives mocked employees on a private Slack channel. Korey was accused of making staff members cry. Employees were asked to work long hours and limit their paid time off. They were reprimanded for not responding to messages immediately, even late at night and on weekends. While Away has a cult following among celebrities, influences, and millennials, former employees are quick to point out its image is at direct odds with its company culture. 

People are still following Away's Facebook page, but year-over-year  growth rate for likes has significantly dropped.

As a result of these and many other stories, Away announced in early December 2019 that Korey would be replaced as CEO by former Lululemon executive Stuart Haselden. About a month later, Korey rescinded her resignation and planned to be co-CEO with Haselden.  In late June 2020, Korey took to Instagram to attack digital media companies and journalists in the heat of the Black Lives Matter protests.  By July, Rubio had announced that Korey would be leaving Away by the end of the year and Haselden would take over as sole CEO. 

Job listings are down 72.7% year-to-date.

Now, nearly six months into the global pandemic with most travel halted, how will the company bounce back from both the shutdowns and the company's co-founder drama?

Sign up for our Newsletter

Start your day off with our weekly digest.

Latest Articles

Who really works for opensea, twitter’s endgame in its case against elon musk, bolt and client abg bury the hatchet and become “proud partners” again, a brief history of why martin shkreli got banned from twitter, recession and bankruptcy fears are rising, corporate filings show, analysis: the sharks are circling crypto, and it’s going to take a lot to fight them off, falling down the rabbit hole — how a reporter became part of the martin shkreli story, "repulsive," "reptilian," "diseased": what john d. rockefeller had in common with martin shkreli.

Emotional baggage

Away’s founders sold a vision of travel and inclusion, but former employees say it masked a toxic work environment.

By Zoë Schiffer

Illustrations by Grayson Blackmon and Will Joel

Share this story

Avery felt out of place at Away. Like many of the executives at the popular direct-to-consumer luggage brand, she’d gone to an Ivy League college, worked at a popular startup, and honed an intense work ethic that set her apart from the pack. But the higher-ups, who were almost all white and straight, still never gave her the time of day. “It was very clear who was in the clique,” she says. 

Originally, Avery had joined because of the brand’s popularity — the hard-shell suitcases were everywhere: in overheads, luggage carousels, subway ads — but she also wanted to believe in the mission. Away promised a lifestyle of inclusion and nice vacations. It was also founded by two women (one a person of color) who sought to run a globally minded business. “In my mind, it’s a trivial product but the brand is more than just luggage,” Avery says. “It’s about travel.” As the months went by and she got a closer glimpse at the growth and image-obsessed culture, however, she started to feel like the mission was just a smokescreen to get employees to work harder and longer.

Like many fast-growing startups, Away’s workplace is organized around digital communication. It’s how employees talk, plan projects, and get feedback from co-workers and higher-ups. Away used the popular chat app Slack, which has the motto “where work happens.” But of course, being a startup, a lot of other chatter happened there, too.

“You could hear her typing and you knew something bad was going to happen”

When a co-worker invited Avery to join a private Slack channel called #Hot-Topics filled with LGBTQ folks and people of color, she was relieved to find that she wasn’t the only one who felt uncomfortable with Away’s purported mission and company culture. “It was a lot of like, ‘This person did this not-woke thing,’ or ‘Those people did something insensitive,’” she recalls. In other words, it was a safe space where marginalized employees could vent.

It was also against company policy. Away embraced Slack in more ways than one — its co-founder, Jen Rubio, is engaged to its CEO Stewart Butterfield — but it took things further than most startups. Employees were not allowed to email each other, and direct messages were supposed to be used rarely (never about work, and only for small requests, like asking if someone wanted to eat lunch). Private channels were also to be created sparingly and mainly for work-specific reasons, so making channels to, say, commiserate about a tough workday was not encouraged.

The rules had been implemented in the name of transparency, but employees say they created a culture of intimidation and constant surveillance. Once, when a suitcase was sent out with a customer’s incomplete initials stenciled onto the luggage tag, CEO Steph Korey said the person in charge must have been “brain dead” and threatened to take over the project. “Slack bullying is a thing,” explains a former member of the creative team we’ll call Erica*. “In my experience there, it’s extensive and relentless. It wasn’t just co-workers pinning things on other people — it came from the execs.” 

Korey was infamous for tearing into people on Slack. “You could hear her typing and you knew something bad was going to happen,” says a former customer experience associate we’ll call Caroline*. Yet while her feedback was almost always sent online, its effects were felt in the real world, often when employees burst into tears.

So when the executive’s name unexpectedly popped into #Hot-Topics the morning of May 16th, 2018, employees knew something was wrong. She’d found out about the channel from Erin Grau, the head of people, who said language in the room had made at least one person uncomfortable. “I thought, Damn, she’s gonna see us talking about some stupid stuff, but whatever ,” recalls a former marketing manager named Emily*. She hoped Korey would at least find the conversations funny.

That hope evaporated the next day when Korey began calling people into a room one by one. There, flanked by the company’s head of people and general counsel, she told six people they were being let go. “You’ve been discriminatory,” employees remember her saying. “The stuff you said was hateful, even racist. You no longer have a job at this company.” Emily, who is a person of color, was shocked. “That was jarring — three white people telling me I was racist,” she says.

Korey disputes ever using the terms “racist” and “hate speech,” although multiple sources confirmed these were the words she used.

“They prey on people who were never cool like me”

The situation bruised employee morale, according to leaked Slack logs and interviews The Verge conducted with 14 former workers. But it was consistent with a pattern of behavior from the company’s top leaders. 

Employees were asked to work exceedingly long hours and limit their paid time off. Their projects were brutally criticized by executives on public Slack channels. They were reprimanded for not answering messages immediately — even late at night and on weekends. 

The cutthroat culture allowed the company to grow at hyperspeed, developing a cult following with celebrities and millennials alike. But it also opened a yawning gap between how Away appears to its customers and what it’s like to actually work there. The result is a brand consumers love, a company culture people fear, and a cadre of former employees who feel burned out and coerced into silence. 

“They prey on people who were never cool like me,” Caroline says. “It’s a cult brand, and you get sucked into the cool factor. Because of that, they can manipulate you.”

“Luggage is only the beginning”

Korey and Rubio met in 2011 while working at the trendy direct-to-consumer eyewear company Warby Parker. There, Korey implemented the lessons she’d learned at Bloomingdale’s years before. “The things I learned there about retail markups, markdowns, wholesaling, licensing, and the department store supply chain all later became the very things we would avoid at Warby Parker,” she said in an interview in Fortune . 

Their aim was to sell “first-class luggage at a coach price” by cutting out the middleman and marketing directly to consumers. It was a model perfected by brands like Dollar Shave Club, Glossier, and Everlane: direct-to-consumer powerhouses that, through some alchemy of Facebook ads, freckled models, and bold sans serif fonts, had elevated themselves out of their business category to achieve tech company success.

Following this blueprint, Korey and Rubio positioned Away as a travel company, not a luggage brand. “We’re working to create the perfect version of everything people need to travel more seamlessly,” Rubio said in a 2018 interview . “Luggage is only the beginning.”

To make their brand even more aspirational, Away partnered with models and it-girls like Karlie Kloss, Julia Restoin Roitfeld, and Rashida Jones to promote the bags on social media. This was Rubio’s wheelhouse: she’d managed social strategy at Warby Parker and knew how to make Away hyper-relevant. 

Korey, for her part, didn’t have to work hard to project an aspirational lifestyle. The CEO grew up in Ohio in a 55,000-square-foot historic mansion with an indoor swimming pool and three dining rooms . She’d gone to boarding school, then landed in Bloomingdale’s executive development program while at Brown University.

“It just created a culture of bullying”

But for all of her privilege, no one denied the executive’s fanatical work ethic. Where Rubio’s job seemed to involve glamorous travel and speaking events, and many employees say they never interacted with her, Korey was always in the office. She managed all of the company’s operations and was regularly online past 1AM.

The CEO often vacillated between being funny and relatable to hyper-critical and even cruel. Employees say she swore during interviews, cackled at people’s jokes, and took new hires to lunch, telling stories about her own mistakes. Once, during an interview, a woman remarked that she was drawn to Away because she was a millennial and it was a millennial-friendly product. “I’m a millennial, too,” Korey said. Later, that same employee was told by her manager that Korey had referred to the team as a bunch of “millennial twats.”

Korey was adamant that clear feedback was critical to employees’ growth. She was blunt when she didn’t agree with someone and encouraged managers not to shy away from harsh criticism. Erica, who managed a small team, questioned whether this strategy actually worked. “It didn’t feel like I was helping my direct reports grow,” she says.

When the photo team took suitcases to a shoot in the Hamptons and brought them back banged up and covered in sand, an employee who’d started that week was blamed for the “unacceptable” error and called out publicly on Slack. (The bags had eventually made their way to customers, and executives were furious.) “It could’ve just been a co-worker pulling them aside and saying this isn’t cool,” Erica says. “It felt like they were publicly outing the situation so that everybody could follow along.”

Korey often framed her critiques in terms of Away’s core company values: thoughtful, customer-obsessed, iterative, empowered, accessible, in it together. Empowered employees didn’t schedule time off when things were busy, regardless of how much they’d been working. Customer-obsessed employees did whatever it took to make consumers happy, even if it came at the cost of their own well-being. The framework echoed the tough company culture at Amazon where employees are taught to forget old habits and embrace a new set of ideals. 

Transparency seemed like it was just a pretense for Korey to micromanage and exert control

The intensity prompted employees to form small groups, chatting in texts about the toxic company culture. “Everyone kind of found their tribe and stuck to them because you needed to have allies there if you were gonna stay there,” says Serena*, a marketing manager.

But even this seemed like it could get them in trouble. From the beginning, Korey and Rubio had banned direct messages on Slack for anything related to work. Ostensibly, this was supposed to make the culture more transparent. “Over the course of our careers, Jen and I observed situations where women and underrepresented groups were often excluded from key emails or meetings,” Korey said in a statement to The Verge . “Slack affords levels of inclusion and transparency email simply doesn’t. With email the original author gets to pick who is included in the conversation and whose voices won’t be heard. That’s not the company we want.”

In practice, however, it did the opposite. Transparency seemed like it was just a pretense for Korey to micromanage and exert control. Marginalized employees felt silenced by the cutthroat environment and executives like Korey who used mistakes as an excuse to nitpick. “Steph has the drive and the personality of someone who could be very successful,” Erica says. “She embodies what we all aspire to be. But she does it in a way that’s absolutely not what I want to be.” 

Ironically, Korey described Rubio as her “work wife” when the pair had worked at Warby Parker. “What was so nice about the relationship is we could lean on each other to complain every once in a while, like if a project wasn’t going well,” she explained in a podcast interview . 

To Avery, this was just more hypocrisy at Away: the founders were allowed to complain to one another in private, but employees were expected to have almost every conversation in public.

“You are joining a movement”

In the summer of 2017, Lauren joined Away as a customer experience associate. She was one year out of college, thrilled at the prospect of working for a brand she’d seen all over Instagram. 

At the time, the company had around 50 employees. “The energy was light and supportive,” she recalls. Her salary, which was around $40,000, wasn’t a lot to live on, but it also wasn’t out of the ordinary for someone just starting out in New York City.

Lauren’s job was to answer customer calls and emails, getting the “queue” of customer inquiries down to zero. On a busy day, Lauren and her co-workers answered about 40 phone calls and responded to 100 emails each. 

From the beginning, Korey and Rubio were masterful at getting these young employees hyped up about their jobs. “You are joining a movement,” they would say. “Everyone wants to be a part of this.” Lauren and the 12 other associates on customer experience felt lucky, even chosen. They worked long hours and bonded over crazy customer stories, intoxicated by the energy of the company.

She was sitting in bed wearing a face mask, still working

Lauren’s manager, Xandie Pasanen, a woman who’d risen through the ranks to lead the customer experience organization, was relentlessly positive and upbeat. When Korey needed the team to stay late, Pasanen would send long Slack messages on her behalf, infusing her sentences with Away’s values. “She would say ‘I’ll be working late tonight — dinner is here if any of you can work beside me. I mean, leave if you have to, but I have to stay,’” Lauren’s teammate Caroline says. “Her messages were long and loving, but they were manipulative. If she didn’t hear from you she’d just contact you directly asking for verbal confirmation you could work.” 

As the holidays approached, the team had to work around the clock to keep up with customer demand. In December, Caroline was wrapping up work at 1AM when she saw a Slack message from Pasanen. “Okay everyone! Take a photo with your computer in bed when you get home. Here’s mine!” She was sitting in bed wearing a face mask, still working.

The queue of unanswered customer emails kept growing, and the team was too small to keep up. Lauren and Caroline were working on weekends, often eating dinner around midnight. They told themselves to just keep pushing through to New Year’s Day when they would finally have a day off. 

Then, on December 31st, Pasanen sent them a message. “Happy New Years Eve!” she began. She then laid out two scenarios: either they could take the day off as planned, and the team would fall even more behind, or they could each work for six hours and get a month off as a reward.

The full message was 1,217 words.

“I burst into tears,” Caroline says. “I was trying to finish so I could have my first day off in weeks. I was telling my mom, ‘I just need a break and I can’t get one,’ and she was like ‘just say no.’ I was like, ‘I can’t do that.’”

Korey is careful to point out that working on New Year’s had been a choice. “The team decided they’d prefer to work the holiday and get a month off because the team knew this day was really important for keeping the customer experience on track,” she said in an email to The Verge .

Even so, Caroline and her co-workers were suspicious about the executive’s motives. No one had received overtime pay — which, given the hours they were working, seemed questionable — and many suspected the CEO was concerned. “The rumor was she was nervous it wasn’t legal to have us working so much without overtime, so she went overboard giving us time off,” Caroline says. (The company has since changed its policy to pay customer experience associates overtime.)

The team pulled through — many worked from airports or snuck away from planned family outings — and got customer emails under control. But Caroline knew it wasn’t over. She was overworked and underpaid, but something in her wanted to keep going. “I wanted to move closer to work so I could work more, but I couldn’t afford it,” she says.

“It was like having your pants pulled down in front of the company”

The following Thanksgiving, Lila*, a customer experience manager, planned a trip to go see her family in the hopes that, this year, they’d keep up with consumer demand. It was a risky move: Away was rolling out a limited edition line called the Solstice Collection, which Town & Country dubbed “just what you need for holiday travel.” 

But the launch was already plagued with problems. The suitcases were arriving at Away’s warehouses with stickers that were difficult to peel off, and workers were almost two weeks late shipping them out. To make matters worse, the operations team wasn’t communicating with customer experience associates about when people could expect their bags to ship. That made it difficult to tell customers when their bags were coming.

On November 20th, 2018, Korey looked at the number of customers waiting for shipments and realized they had a big problem. “I need to know tonight if we’ve reached out to these customers yet,” she wrote at 10PM. “I have seen multiple [customer experience] Managers active on Slack since I asked this question so please just give me an answer.”

The managers explained that they were waiting to reach out to customers until the operations team told them when the bags would actually ship. But Korey was far from satisfied. She asked them to come up with a new plan on how to communicate with customers and present it to her the next day.

Lila asked a direct report to explain the strategy to Korey since she was going to be on the way to the airport. The idea was to expedite shipping on late orders and communicate to customers when they could expect to receive their bags. Lila’s report noted this was going “above and beyond.”

When Korey saw the plan, she was furious. “If we were just going above and beyond we could send them all 10 free suitcases,” she vented in Slack, in front of the entire company. “Or we could send them all 100 free suitcases, that would REALLY be above and beyond.”

The team, near tears, stayed silent. “We just kind of let her rant,” one employee said. Caroline, who was watching the tirade, was shocked. “It was like having your pants pulled down in front of the company and then they just walk away,” she says.

Seeing what was happening on Slack, Lila turned her car around and headed back to the office. There would be no family vacation after all.

“We share the emotional burden”

A few weeks later, Korey asked the customer experience managers to have their associates cancel future travel plans, at least until the holidays were over. Those who’d already booked tickets would be asked if they could work from home. “We were like ‘No, no we’re not gonna do that. That’s not moral,” Caroline says. But she knew she didn’t have a choice.

Caroline was protective of how close her team had become. If one person was forced to stay, the rest were likely to follow suit. “They exploited the fact that we were close,” she says. “They knew we would take a bullet for each other and they just used it. Everyone was crushed. But they weren’t going to leave if their friends stayed.”

The associates tried to keep their spirits high as they worked through the holiday season. At one point, a member of the retail team approached them tentatively and asked why they all seemed so cheerful. “How do you keep up a happy attitude? I see you over here talking and laughing… do Steph and Jen not talk to you like they do everyone else?” a former customer experience manager we’ll call Lindsey* remembers him asking. “We share the emotional burden,” she replied. “We go on walks. We have each other’s back. Do we work really efficiently? Like, 100 percent. But you gotta learn the tricks of the trade.”

By January, the team was completely burnt out and the positivity was starting to wane. “I would leave at nine. I wouldn’t eat until midnight, then I’d get in bed and work until I fell asleep,” Caroline remembers. And yet, customer emails kept piling up.

To Korey, this was unacceptable. She began randomly calling the customer experience line to see whether someone picked up, often berating the managers and screaming, “What is this shit!” at her desk if her call went unanswered.

Korey says these “spot checks” are a typical part of any retail company. “This isn’t the only area we do this,” she adds. “In fact, we use secret shoppers at our retail stores, and we regularly place multiple combinations of e-commerce orders to ensure our fulfillment facilities are packing orders correctly.”

Once, when the managers were training new associates in the conference room, Korey burst through the doors. “Why aren’t you on the phones right now?” Caroline remembers her yelling. Caroline stepped between Korey and the team, who were looking at the spectacle in horror. “We had always guarded our team like mother bears,” she says.

The day before Valentine’s Day, Korey decided she was going to stop the team from taking any more time off. In a series of Slack messages that began at 3AM, she said, “I know this group is hungry for career development opportunities, and in an effort to support you in developing your skills, I am going to help you learn the career skill of accountability . To hold you accountable...no more [paid time off] or [work from home] requests will be considered from the 6 of you...I hope everyone in this group appreciates the thoughtfulness I’ve put into creating this career development opportunity and that you’re all excited to operate consistently with our core values.” (The emphasis is Korey’s.)

Four days later, when she noticed two managers still had time off on the calendar, she was livid. “If you all choose to utilize your empowerment to leave our customers hanging...you will have convinced me that this group does not embody Away’s core values,” she said. (Again, emphasis Korey’s.)

Korey said her messages were necessary to get the team back on track. “Managing people brings with it the responsibility to invest time and energy into providing thoughtful context around performance expectations and feedback,” she wrote in a statement to The Verge .

“It was like watching him get stoned to death”

Days after Korey’s 3AM tirade, she announced that she was hiring a buffer to put between herself and the team: a vice president of customer experience, Monte Williams. The associates were thrilled.

Williams looked people in the eye, spoke to them with respect, and had over a decade of experience leading teams at brands like Rent the Runway. Those who’d been planning to quit decided to stay to learn what they could from this new manager. 

Then, in mid-April, the team started to notice something strange. Customer emails were piling up during what was supposed to be a slow period. “We had 100 extra people in our inbox. We were like, what’s going on? ” Caroline remembers. 

It was a Groundhog Day scenario. The company was rolling out new customization options on the luggage, and the operations team was woefully understaffed. Bags weren’t going out on time and, once again, the customer experience associates couldn’t get a clear estimate on when they were expected to ship. This time, however, Korey couldn’t push the team to tackle their ever-growing inbox: Williams was standing in her way.

Some team members were missing calls when they stepped away to use the bathroom

The customer experience executive wanted to prioritize his team’s mental well-being, but the inbox of customer emails was the highest it had ever been. The associates oscillated between feeling grateful that someone finally cared about them — Williams was the first person who’d ever really voiced appreciation for their work — and feeling worried he didn’t understand how behind they were getting. At its peak, the inbox of customer inquiries was 4,000 emails deep.

In May, Korey created a Slack channel titled #may-cx-issue to try to address this issue. If Williams wasn’t going to push his team, then she would have to step back in. She began grilling him on why managers — many of whom were working 16-hour days — weren’t answering more customer emails.

Once, a team member tried to explain that managers didn’t handle as many customer emails because they were charged with leading the team. But Korey didn’t buy it. “I’m just going to be honest here, your response to me reads like [the managers] don’t really do anything positive for the business anyway so it doesn’t matter if they’re here or not,” she said.

Williams tried to smooth things over, explaining that some team members were missing calls simply when they stepped away to use the bathroom. “We all always assumed people went to the bathroom,” she responded. “Let’s please stop talking about that as if it’s a surprising Friday update.” Of the interaction, Caroline says, “It was like watching him get stoned to death.” 

On May 25th, the team saw a 5:30PM meeting on their calendars and knew the time had come: Williams was being fired. He’d lasted less than six months. 

For Caroline, that was the final straw. “I just lost my shit,” she says. “Everybody loved Monte. Everybody. I was just like, ‘This is the first time anybody has cared about the team, and you’re taking it away from us. You really don’t care at all.’”

Within a few months, she would give notice as well.

When asked about why Williams was let go, Grau, the company’s head of people, noted the team’s poor performance. “During the Winter/Spring of 2019, it became apparent that we were not providing a world-class customer service experience. As a result, we made significant changes to the team,” she added in a statement emailed to The Verge .

Korey also added that the move was a last-ditch effort to save a struggling team. “I care tremendously about the Away team and we make every effort to help struggling employees succeed in their role. Only when we’ve exhausted all coaching options do we feel the next step is to help an employee transition to a new career outside of Away and we provide full support during this process,” she wrote.

“Never work for your dream brand”

The explanation was not dissimilar to the one executives gave when they fired people involved in #Hot-Topics. In both situations, employees acted so egregiously they’d given management no choice but to let them go.

But #Hot-Topics was even more perplexing. Whereas the customer experience team had been falling behind under Williams’ leadership (albeit, for reasons some say were beyond his control), employees in #Hot-Topics came from all different parts of the organization. There was no throughline of poor performance or track record of misbehavior to justify their automatic dismissal.

In an intense office environment, having a safe space to talk about work is necessary, even critical, to employees’ sanity and well-being. It’s how they blow off steam at the end of a tough workday, the place they go to find refuge when their projects aren’t going well.

Korey and Rubio knew this; they’d been each other’s sounding boards at Warby Parker. Yet, they treated #Hot-Topics like an anomaly, an unnecessary waste of time compounded by inappropriate language.

Korey wouldn’t comment on what people had said in the channel that she determined was racist. But employees say she pointed to two comments that called out “cis white men.” “It just became really obvious that this happened because someone white and powerful got offended,” says the customer experience manager, Lindsey.

Every person interviewed for this story has since left the company. Some, like Serena, feel conflicted about the founders, two women she both admires and fears. “It’s so fucked up,” she says. “I still want their validation.” When asked what she learned from her time there, she pauses, reflecting on the tumultuous year. 

“Never work for your dream brand,” she answers finally. “It’ll kill you.”

* Names have been changed to protect the identities of those involved

Update December 5th, 4:20PM ET: This story has been updated to clarify detail about Away’s email policy. We have also included additional comment from Away to reflect that CEO Steph Korey disputes comments attributed to her during terminations.

Correction December 5th, 5:00PM ET: This story was corrected to show Lila was traveling to visit her family.

Update December 6th, 10:50AM ET: The piece has been updated to include Korey’s complete quote from Fortune .

Update December 6th, 8:20PM ET: This story was updated to reflect that Erin Grau does not identify as a person of color.

The great Evernote reboot

The best android phone to buy in 2023, apple will charge more to swap your iphone 16 pro battery, the fanciest game console you can buy, shogun showdown makes you feel like a genius by showing you the future.

More from Features

The text file that runs the internet

How Lego builds a new Lego set

Goodbye to all that harassment

Extremely softcore

Today's Digital Daily

site categories

Parent item expand the sub menu, jw anderson’s new material for spring 2025 is punchy, and fun, exclusive: new mugler documentary deftly sews past and present together, best street style photos from london fashion week spring 2025, live updates, away names first president as luggage company accelerates growth with return of travel.

Away has promoted its CFO to the new role of president as the company prepares for aggressive growth.

Accessories Editor

• Share this article on Facebook
• Share this article on X
• Share this article on Flipboard
• Share this article on Pin It
• Share this article on Tumblr
• Share this article on Reddit
• Share this article on LinkedIn
• Share this article on WhatsApp
• Share this article on Email
• Print this article
• Share this article on Talk

Away is eyeing further growth and has appointed its first president. The direct-to-consumer luggage and lifestyle brand has promoted chief financial officer Catherine Dunleavy to the newly created position.

As Away’s president, Dunleavy will oversee strategy, operations and supply chain, digital product, legal and finance. Away will look to hire a new CFO.

Related Articles

Nicky hilton teams with aussie rtw brand rebecca vallance for holiday dress collection, l.a.-based leset opens first brick-and-mortar store, you may also like.

Dunleavy said of her new job: “I’m incredibly proud of the work that the entire Away team has accomplished since I joined the company two years ago. I’m honored that [cofounder] Jen Rubio and the board have given me their confidence to drive greater impact in this new role. Away’s continued growth amid tumultuous macro-environments coupled with our impressive brand affinity highlight just how beloved Away remains, despite external factors impacting retail and travel industries. I’m excited to work alongside Away’s best-in-class executive team as we continue to catapult the company’s future growth together.”

In an exclusive statement to WWD, Rubio said that adding the role of president to Away’s executive lineup has been a long time coming. “I, along with Away’s board, have been eager to establish this role for some time. Over the last few years, one of my biggest priorities has been to build a top-tier leadership team to help me steer the business into the future. Throughout that process — and as the business continues to strengthen and mature — we identified this new structure as an opportunity to create deeper focus, drive greater impact across the business and enable a more seamless execution of our long-term plans,” Rubio said.

Rubio, who remains the brand’s chief executive officer, added: “It’s important to note that the position of president is not simply an extension of scope for our financial function, but rather a distinct role that will leverage Catherine’s experience and expertise in a new capacity. As president, Catherine will directly oversee finance, legal, operations and supply chain, and technology functions. As a result, I’ll be able to dedicate increased focus on our brand, our products and our people operations.”

Sign up for WWD news straight to your inbox every day

WWD Recommends

‘abbott elementary’ cast coordinated with shoulder-baring styles on the emmy awards 2024 red carpet.

• Celebrity News
• By Maggie Clancy

What’s Behind the Leadership Shakeups at Bangladeshi Trade Organizations?

• Government and Trade
• By Jasmin Malik Chua

Beyoncé’s Model Nephew Julez Smith Favors Streetwear Inspiration in Wales Bonner Varsity Jacket at MTV VMAs 2024

• By Ty Gaskins

Tory Burch Talks Details on Her Spring 2025 Collection

WWD and Women's Wear Daily are part of Penske Media Corporation. © 2024 Fairchild Publishing, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Fashion Expand fashion menu

• Fashion Trends
• Fashion Features
• Fashion Scoops
• Designer & Luxury
• Ready-To-Wear
• Accessories

Business Expand business menu

• Government & Trade
• Mergers & Acquisitions
• Marketing & Promotion
• Human Resources
• Business Features
• Real Estate

Beauty Expand beauty menu

• Beauty Features

Men's Expand mens menu

• Mens Accessories
• Mens Clothing Furnishings
• Mens Designer Luxury
• Mens Lifestyle
• Mens Retail Business
• Mens Sportswear
• Mens Fashion

Runway Expand runway menu

• Men’s Fall 2024
• Pre-Fall 2024
• Spring Ready-to-Wear 2024
• Fall Couture 2023
• Resort 2024

Denim Expand denim menu

Sustainability expand sustainability menu.

• Environment
• Social Impact

Home/Design Expand home-design menu

• Interior Design
• Architecture

WWD Weekend Expand wwd-weekend menu

Special series expand special-series menu.

• Leading Voices in Fashion and Beauty
• Fairchild Live
• RetailRx Community

Events Expand events menu

Eye expand eye menu.

• Celebrity Real Estate

Shop Expand shop menu

Things you buy through our links may earn Vox Media a commission.

The Lessons of Away’s Weird Company Culture

Away founder and CEO Steph Korey is stepping down after our sister site the Verge’s report about her being a nightmare manager who built a culture of fear and intimidation. This seems like a good step for the company. I thought my own former manager, Business Insider global editor-in-chief Nicholas Carlson, summed the situation up best:

Of course, not every company needs to be totally kumbaya and nice-nice, and Korey thought of her style as part of a business strategy. Verge reporter Zoe Schiffer wrote about what the founder thought she was learning from Amazon’s success:

Korey often framed her critiques in terms of Away’s core company values: thoughtful, customer-obsessed, iterative, empowered, accessible, in it together.  Empowered  employees didn’t schedule time off when things were busy, regardless of how much they’d been working.  Customer-obsessed  employees did whatever it took to make consumers happy, even if it came at the cost of their own well-being. The framework  echoed the tough company culture at Amazon  where employees are taught to forget old habits and embrace a new set of ideals.

Amazon does have a reputation for being a tough workplace, designed for people with high expectations and sharp elbows. But one of Amazon’s 14 leadership principles , alongside “customer obsession” and “insist on the highest standards,” is “earn trust.” The Amazon principle about earning trust says “leaders listen attentively, speak candidly, and treat others respectfully,” and it’s hard to see how Korey’s behavior — “She began randomly calling the customer experience line to see whether someone picked up, often berating the managers and screaming, ‘What is this shit!’ at her desk if her call went unanswered” — could have been construed as in line with that principle.

When I read about Away’s odd culture, and in particular about Korey’s edict banning email and forcing communications into the open on Slack, where anyone can read them, the company that jumped to mind for me was not Amazon but Bridgewater Associates, which is the world’s largest hedge fund and also one of the weirdest prestigious places to work. Bridgewater is built on a philosophy of “radical transparency.” Conflict is encouraged. You’re not supposed to say anything behind someone’s back that you wouldn’t say to their face, and company meetings are routinely recorded , so that recordings from those meetings can be circulated widely within the company and used as lessons.

The thought of working at Bridgewater gives me agita. But a nice thing about Bridgewater is you don’t have to work there. If you’re in hedge funds, you can probably find a job at a company that has a similar business model to Bridgewater and a more normal corporate culture. And some people, for some reason, seem to like working at Bridgewater. Within some bounds, a diversity of corporate cultures is good: People who like the idea of recording all the meetings and challenging each other to integrity contests can go work at Bridgewater, and the rest of us don’t have to.

Similarly, in the “hot start-up” sector (I was tempted to say the tech sector, but like so many hot tech-ish start-ups, Away is in fact a consumer product company) you have a diversity of business models to choose from. Some companies want to be like Amazon while others want to be like Google, pampering employees and urging them to “bring their whole selves to work.” These soft culture models have their downsides , not just for managers but for some employees, who might want to be able to bring out their sharp elbows and depend on their colleagues to follow something like Amazon’s 14 principles.

Of course, while there is no single correct corporate culture, there are wrong corporate cultures, and it sounds like there’s a reason Away needed to recalibrate. (Google, for its part, seems to have realized it went too far in encouraging a freewheeling atmosphere and is reining things in .) The new CEO will need to take things down a couple notches. But maybe not too many notches.

• the top line

Most Viewed Stories

• Suspect in Trump Assassination Attempt Identified: Live Updates
• I Examined Donald Trump’s Ear — and His Soul — at Mar-a-Lago  
• Elon Musk’s Taylor Swift Response Is Worse Than You Think
• How Vance and Trump’s Lies About Springfield, Ohio, Continue to Unravel
• Making Sense of Pennsylvania’s Stubbornly Deadlocked Polls
• Melania Trump’s Mysterious and Kooky Book-Promo Videos

Editor’s Picks

Most Popular

• Suspect in Trump Assassination Attempt Identified: Live Updates By Intelligencer Staff
• I Examined Donald Trump’s Ear — and His Soul — at Mar-a-Lago   By Olivia Nuzzi
• Elon Musk’s Taylor Swift Response Is Worse Than You Think By Margaret Hartmann
• Making Sense of Pennsylvania’s Stubbornly Deadlocked Polls By Benjamin Hart
• How Vance and Trump’s Lies About Springfield, Ohio, Continue to Unravel By Chas Danner
• Melania Trump’s Mysterious and Kooky Book-Promo Videos By Margaret Hartmann

What is your email?

This email will be used to sign into all New York sites. By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy and to receive email correspondence from us.

Sign In To Continue Reading

Create your free account.

Password must be at least 8 characters and contain:

• Lower case letters (a-z)
• Upper case letters (A-Z)
• Numbers (0-9)
• Special Characters (!@#$%^&*)

As part of your account, you’ll receive occasional updates and offers from New York , which you can opt out of anytime.

• Order tracking
• Make an exchange
• Make a return
• View our manuals
• Warranty & repairs
• Boston: Newbury
• Boston: Seaport
• LA: Venice Beach
• LA: West Hollywood
• NYC: Williamsburg
• San Francisco
• Washington DC
• New arrivals
• Best sellers
• Compare Carry-Ons
• Compare checked
• Compare materials
• Build your travel uniform
• Save on sets
• Softside suitcases
• Flex: Expandable suitcases
• Shop all bags
• Crossbodies
• Extended stays
• Featherlight Collection
• The Outdoor Collection
• Shop all accessories
• Packing organizers
• Toiletry bags
• Tech organizers
• Luggage tags & charms
• Compare duffles
• The Collegiate Collection
• Shop all suitcases

Shop by size

Shop by material, shop by category, product guides, featured collections, coming soon.

New products are on the way. Sign up below to get first dibs on our travel essentials.

Coming Soon

An heirloom in the making—featuring limited edition luggage and accessories inspired by timeless European cafés.

By clicking submit, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms . We’ll send you updates on all things Away. Need to take off? Unsubscribe anytime.

Our most versatile (and pocket-forward) Backpack yet, designed to solve your top feature requests and available in 6 of our best selling colors.

You asked, we listened. Our new limited-edition color is on its way.

An old favorite is getting an upgrade—hint: business in the front, party in the back.

Ready to shop now?

• Last Minute Deals
• Private Pool
• Owner Login
• List Your Property
• St. Petersburg Vacation Rentals
• Florida Rentals
• Central West

2 BR | 1 BA | Sleeps 5 | Quick View

Key Amenities

• Air conditioning
• Rentals by owner

About this property

Welcome to Lakewood – a peaceful oasis in St. Pete!Start the day with a cup of coffee on our palm-shaded terrace, then take a relaxing swim at the quiet pool or enjoy a game of tennis on one of the free courts in the park across the street!Our family has owned this unit for more than 20 ...

View all property information

Property Type

St. Petersburg Townhome

3 BR | 2 BA | Sleeps 5 | Quick View

Distance to beach: 6 miles to St. Pete Beach

• Kid friendly

Welcome to your coastal retreat at the Boca Cabana! Come experience the best of beachside living in this 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom condo at Bermuda Bay Beach & Racquet Club. With its private beach, heated pools, hot tub overlooking Boca Ciega Bay, and delightful beach themed rooms, this condo offers ...

St. Petersburg Condo

This was our third time staying at Bermuda Bay, our first time at Boca Cabana. Our expectations were met at every level. The condo was very well decorated and clean. We enjoyed the beautiful screened ...

See all reviews

2 BR | 2 BA | Sleeps 4 | Quick View

Distance to beach: 1 miles to St Pete's Beach

• Private pool

VACATION RENTAL BY OWNER: PLEASE CHECK RATE SECTION BELOW.... New Summer Specials. Welcome To Our Condo Enjoy The Views..... Please Stay Safe to All, .... This can Now be yours to book for your vacation in Florida, please ask any questions you might have. We do offer monthly Deals, Call and Inquire. ...

The Neff's are so attentive! The view of the Bay from balcony was memorizing! We absolutely loved our stay there and didn't want to leave.

1 BR | 1 BA | Sleeps 5 | Quick View

• Pet friendly

Enjoy our beautiful duplex. Both units upstairs and downstairs are owned by me therefore if you are two families that prefer some privacy while still being together, this is the place for you! Weather you want to hang out together in your own private yard or hit the city as a group minutes away, you wont ...

St. Petersburg Apartment

We were very pleased with this unit. Everything was in excellent condition. The location is close to everything, including a great lake at the end of the street where we walked our dog. Great restaurant/bar ...

Studio | 1 BA | Sleeps 2 | Quick View

Enjoy a beach vibe studio home in a quiet neighborhood. The studio is right in between downtown St. Petersburg (10min) and the beach (15min). The home features a newly updated full service kitchen, Roku TV, coffee bar, queen size bed, dresser filled with extra linens & beach towels. Outside is where ...

"ALWAYS SUMMER" Monthly Rentals from the 1st. Book direct, no booking fees. Rates: Jan - April 2025 $4300/month. (Feb/March taken) June - Oct 2025 $2500/month. Nov - Dec 2025 $3000/month. Jan - April 2026 $4500/month. ...

We are leaving tomorrow and we will miss this place. We could bike along the path so many different places. If you like to bike, this is the place for you. We biked from our front door all the way downtown ...

4 BR | 3 BA | Sleeps 10 | Quick View

Distance to beach: 2 miles to North Shore Beach

Very large 4 bedroom waterfront single family home overlooking Tampa Bay and the lights of downtown St. Petersburg. Perfect value play for family in town for wedding, corporate event, sporting events or just weekend away. Perfect opportunity for the family to stay together under one roof at less expense ...

St. Petersburg House

I recently had the pleasure of staying at the Bay Beauty, and it truly lives up to its enchanting name. The house is an absolute gem, boasting spaciousness, beauty and a remarkable attention to detail. ...

3 BR | 2.5 BA | Sleeps 8 | Quick View

Distance to beach: 4 miles to Gandy Beach

Wonderful 3 bedroom house will full amenities, large yard and pool. Strategically located and within 15-20 minutes to the airport, St. Petersburg, beaches and Tampa.

Brand new to Florida Rentals. Welcome to this NEWLY RENOVATED spacious two bedroom condo (1375 square feet) on the second floor in the gated community Bermuda Bay Beach Club. Each bedroom has a queen bed with a large walk-in closet, plus a daybed with trundle in the living room. Fully stocked kitchen ...

We had a wonderful months stay in Jerry & Jane's condo. They were very kind and helpful to us. The place is very spacious and has nice comfortable furniture. They accommodated us by letting us move in ...

3 BR | 2 BA | Sleeps 6 | Quick View

Inquire for rates

AVAILABLE = Nov. 16, 2024 - Jan.1... & after March 1 ( prices adjust). 30 day minimum rental.Amazing tropical oasis in the city. Relaxing space next to downtown and near beaches with private pool and hot tub! Come enjoy boho cozy comforts inside this 3/2 home as well as outside on the lanai ...

Relax with the whole family at this peaceful place to stay. Three bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and lovely outdoor pool / patio area with propane bbq. Lovely views of the pool from the family room. Centrally located so close to beaches and downtown. Owner is in town and just a phone call away if you need ...

We stayed here 2 separate months and both times we were very pleased. Rich is a great host and his home was very clean and spacious. Wonderful location that is close the mall, the beaches and everything ...

3 BR | 2.5 BA | Sleeps 6 | Quick View

Distance to beach: 2 miles to St Pete

This beautiful and luxurious home is located in an upscale neighborhood close to everything. Recently remodeled and updated the home is nestled among giant Oak trees along a wooded stream, yet shopping, entertainment and the beaches are only a few minutes away.Situated on a large private property ...

We have stayed here the last 2 years & have had a relaxing wonderful time. The house is close to everything. It is the best place we have stayed in Florida so far.

Distance to beach: 5 miles to St Pete Beach Fort de Soto and Treasure Island

Welcome to Bermuda Bay Beach and Racquet Club. Beach Front Vacation Condominium Rental on a Private Beach with spectacular locationRECENTLY RENOVATEDYou will love the value and prices of this super large 1150 SQ Ft 2 Bedroom condominium in the garden right close the beach!Gated Community.TWO ...

Highly recommend all to the Skyline condominium units in Madeira Beach. Great unit, location and service.

1 BR | 2 BA | Sleeps 2 | Quick View

A Beautiful condo located in the Bahia Del Mar section of Isla Del Sol. View a glimpse of the Boca Ciega Bay from the balcony, where palm trees sway. The location is a perfect, calm, serene area with a lovely pool and hot tub. Watch dolphins frolic in the Boca Ciega Bay while you sip your morning coffee ...

I recently worked on a Hallmark movie in st pertersburg Florida. I was the production supervisor and responsible for housing 20 cast and crew. Angie at Sandy Beach Vacation Rentals was my agent. We rented ...

5 BR | 5.5 BA | Sleeps 9 | Quick View

Distance to beach: 0.8 miles to North Shore

OUTDOOR HEAVEN, Wonderful Shallow Resort pool and spa with many water features surrounded by a very large Travertine Patio with several lounges for catching some sun while you return e-mails (home has many wireless access points for full connectivity). Incredible Lanai that is very well shaded with custom ...

Tent times better than any hotel room downtown, will come back every year, owners were great, pool the best

2 BR | 1 BA | Sleeps 4 | Quick View

Panoramic stunning waterfront views of canal and Tampa Bay from your own balcony overlooking the water. Beutiful 2/1 condo fully furnish second-floor condo 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom, we are in process of updating Kitchen with everyting new, the cabinets was installed and we wait on cauntertops as soon ...

2 BR | 2 BA | Sleeps 6 | Quick View

Welcome to your slice of paradise in the sought-after community of Isla Del Sol in St. Petersburg, Florida. This stunning 2-bedroom, 2-bathroom condo offers the perfect blend of comfort, convenience, and coastal living.Upon entering, you'll be greeted by an inviting living space adorned with ...

4 BR | 3 BA | Sleeps 8 | Quick View

Distance to beach: 7 miles to St Pete Beach

This beautiful home is located in the desirable "Pink Street" Neighborhood at the southernmost tip of St Petersburg, where some of the roads dead-end with a view overlooking the bay and the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, yet only a 10 minute drive from the beaches and downtown. "Pink Street ...

We stayed in this beautiful house in the pink Street District St Petersburg Florida the house is everything you could want very nice pool solar heated very well-stocked with supplies the best I've ever ...

**Sept/Oct Special $2500**Fully renovated, ground-floor 2 bed 2 bath condo located in the beautiful Isla del Sol Yacht, Golf and Country club. Sip your coffee on the covered screen porch located on hole 5 or take a short stroll to the temperature-controlled pool and hot tub overlooking breath-taking ...

Beautiful two-bedroom condo recently renovated with fresh paint and newer furniture. This spacious and bright corner end unit 2 bedroom/2 bath Lakeside condo in Bahia del Mar is the perfect place to get away from it all and soak up some sizzling, hot Florida sunshine. You'll find the condo is equipped ...

Loved this quiet . we loved our morning coffee overlooking the little lake watching all the florida birds and their amusing habits. The condo was exactly as pictured,,,very clean and spacious,,everything ...

SEE SPECIAL OFF-SEASON RATES AVAILABLEThis beautifully decorated and updated villa is available for monthly rentals. In the Lakeside Villas on Bahia Del Mar Blvd in St. Petersburg, Fl. This condo is right on the water lover looking the large lake in Isla Del Sol. it’s first floor location with ...

St. Petersburg Villa

• Monthly Rentals in St. Petersburg 20 rentals starting at $75 avg/night
• Cheap Vacation Rentals St. Petersburg 18 rentals starting at $75 avg/night
• St. Petersburg Rentals by Owner 17 rentals starting at $75 avg/night
• St. Petersburg Condo Rentals 10 rentals starting at $97 avg/night
• St. Petersburg Vacation Rentals with Private Pool 8 rentals starting at $111 avg/night
• Pet Friendly Vacation Rentals in St. Petersburg 6 rentals starting at $84 avg/night
• Bermuda Bay Rentals 4 rentals starting at $135 avg/night
• Isla Del Sol Rentals 5 rentals starting at $97 avg/night
• Gulfport Vacation Rentals 11 rentals starting at $76 avg/night
• Treasure Island Vacation Rentals 28 rentals starting at $70 avg/night
• St. Pete Beach Vacation Rentals 18 rentals starting at $107 avg/night
• Madeira Beach Vacation Rentals 46 rentals starting at $80 avg/night
• Seminole Vacation Rentals 15 rentals starting at $164 avg/night
• Redington Beach Vacation Rentals 6 rentals starting at $108 avg/night
• Redington Shores Vacation Rentals 15 rentals starting at $65 avg/night
• Largo Vacation Rentals 26 rentals starting at $53 avg/night
• Indian Shores Vacation Rentals 145 rentals starting at $97 avg/night
• Indian Rocks Beach Vacation Rentals 65 rentals starting at $106 avg/night
• Tampa Vacation Rentals 9 rentals starting at $93 avg/night
• Bradenton Vacation Rentals 149 rentals starting at $73 avg/night
• Anna Maria Island Vacation Rentals 245 rentals starting at $123 avg/night
• Clearwater Vacation Rentals 15 rentals starting at $80 avg/night
• Clearwater Beach Vacation Rentals 18 rentals starting at $93 avg/night

St. Petersburg Weather

F°  |  C°

Saint Petersburg, Florida has it all St. Petersburg, which glimmers between the Gulf of Mexico and Tampa Bay, is known for its warm weather and for holding the title of “most consecutive days with sunshine” at 768 days. Along with beautiful, award-winning beaches, St. Petersburg is a waterfront escape and perfect family getaway with so much to explore! Downtown St. Petersburg is the city’s heart, home to great shopping, restaurants, bars and attractions. There are hundreds of Saint Petersburg vacation rentals available. Look through our inventory of St. Pete vacation rentals and choose one that meets all your unique requirements. Whether it’s an oceanfront beach home or a mansion that fits multiple families, we’ll have it on our site. Climate You’re coming to Saint Petersburg to enjoy sun, surf, and sand -- and you’ll get that no matter when you’re here. It’s a comfortable 80 degrees on average, with the summer a little hotter and stickier than the other seasons. Watch out for a passing heavy thunderstorm in the summer too, but don’t worry too much, it will pass rather quickly. Getting around Saint Petersburg Be sure to rent a car when staying in St. Pete as that’s your best bet for reliable transportation. Fly into Tampa International Airport and drive to your St. Pete Beach condo. Most rentals are beach accessible (meaning you’ll only need to walk) but for others a car may be necessary. Plus to enjoy some of Florida Gulf Coast’s other locales you’ll want to drive. Public transportation in St. Petersburg is provided by the Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority (PSTA) , which offers bus service throughout Pinellas County. The Looper, a sightseeing trolley, also travels downtown each day.  Major roadways include Interstate 275, US 19 and US 92, which travel north and south through St. Petersburg, and Central Avenue, which takes you through the city’s downtown at Tampa Bay to Treasure Island on the Gulf of Mexico. Top activities and attractions The star of the show here is St. Pete Beach. Like many Florida beaches it comes complete with sugar white sand, abundant sunshine, crashing waves, and turquoise blue Gulf waters. Spend the day laying out under the hot sun and walking for miles down this flawless beach. Keep your eyes peeled for a leaping dolphin! 35 miles of flawless beachfront await you here. And if that isn’t enough, next-door Clearwater Beach is a showcase of two and a half miles of more gorgeous white sand and clear waters, with a new, gently curving BeachWalk, making strolling (and rolling) a pleasure for all. There are many activities on or near the ocean as well. Taking a deep sea fishing charter, go on a dolphin watching cruise, or the entire family can rent bikes and ride (safely) around all of friendly St. Pete. When you’re ready to try something away from the water, there’s so much more to do in St. Pete. The old beach community of Pass-a-Grille is at the southern end of the beach. Stroll along the longest stretch of undeveloped coast in the area and enjoy the local cuisine at the legendary Hurricane Seafood Restaurant. At Boyd Hill Nature Preserve visitors can experience local flora and fauna and hear from a professional tour guide. On these grounds your family can spend the day exploring a pioneer settlement, gazing at the marshes and pine flatlands, and spotting animals from alligators to the beautiful spoonbill duck. St. Pete visitors love spending time in Fort de Soto Park , which offers more than 1000 acres of parkland for picnics, walking, and exploring the fort. It’s spread across five small islands in Tampa Bay and there’s something to explore on each one. You can tour the 1898 fortifications on Mullet Key, picnic or camp overnight, or explore via the park’s nature trails, 6.8-mile paved recreation trail, and a two-mile canoe trail. One of the top rated attractions in St. Pete is The Dali Museum . It’s an architectural marvel that has a permanent collection of many of Dali’s most famous works, plus rotating exhibits that are sure to amaze. Long a local favorite, the museum has emerged into a world-class destination and waterfront superstar. Nearby, in the center of downtown and steps from the waterfront, St. Petersburg's revitalized Sundial complex anchors some of the city's coolest food and drink hangouts, as well as shops. Food & Drink There good eats all over Saint Petersburg. If you’re looking for small batch, super fresh foods, discover Locale Gourmet Market, a one-of-a-kind 20,000-square-foot marketplace offering the region’s freshest and finest artisan eats. The award-winning Sea Salt restaurant is a must for seafood lovers. Also try The Mill, a new space that crafts handmade cocktails you’ll rave about and Southern-flavored mixed-grill meats. When you’re ready to turn an evening out into a late night, head straight to The Mandarin Hide, St. Pete’s legendary cocktail bar. And for that other kind of drinking expedition, Kahwa Coffee is a homegrown mini empire of 11 bright cafés with excellent coffee, plus a Kahwagon Mobile Coffee Shop truck that brings brew to special events. Finish off your evening with a trip to local favorite Larry’s Olde Fashioned Ice Cream and Gelato , where you’ll find a range of ice cream flavors scooped into homemade waffle cones. Saint Petersburg beach condo rentals on FloridaRentals.com Book Saint Petersburg vacations rentals on FloridaRentals.com can save you up to 15% over our competitors. Plus, we have a wide array of inventory appealing to any group size or traveler tastes. Happy planning!

How many vacation rentals are there in/around St. Petersburg?

How much does it cost to rent a vacation rental in st. petersburg, can i rent a house in st. petersburg, do any vacation rentals in st. petersburg have a pool, are any st. petersburg vacation rentals on the ocean.

Your selections

Features & amenities

• Private pool (8)
• Pets allowed (6)
• Beachfront (2)
• Oceanfront (3)
• Air conditioning (21)
• Internet or WiFi (20)
• Hot tub (13)
• Washer & Dryer (21)
• Managed by owner (17)
• Waterfront (5)
• Kitchen (20)
• Bed linens provided (21)
• King-sized bed (14)
• Pool table (5)
• Outdoor shower (3)
• Elevator (2)
• Dock or boat slip (2)
• Parking available (19)
• Balcony (6)
• Outdoor grill (11)
• Dishwasher (20)
• Non-smoking (19)
• Microwave (21)
• Patio or deck (16)
• Kid friendly (10)
• No pets allowed (13)
• Hair dryer (20)
• Wheelchair accessible (3)
• Iron and board (21)
• Smoke detector (17)

Price (nightly)

Neighborhoods

• Isla Del Sol (5)
• Bermuda Bay (4)
• Waterside at Coquina Key (1)

Property type

• Apartment (2)
• Townhome (1)

• Share full article

Looking for a New Way to See Iceland? Bring Your Knitting Needles.

In a country with more sheep than people, a D.I.Y. wool journey — from sheep farms to yarn shops — makes perfect sense. Our writer brushes up on her knitting on a driving trip from Reykjavik.

Sheep graze near the Ring Road in west Iceland. With about 10 times more sheep than people, Iceland is drawing tourists interested in one of the country’s most popular crafts: knitting. Credit... Sigga Ella for The New York Times

Supported by

By Lisa Abend

• Sept. 16, 2024

I spent my second day in Iceland in a hotel on the outskirts of Reykjavik, trying resolutely to knit. Gathered around a coffee table with me were Ragga Sjofu Jóhannsdóttir, my instructor, and my friend Lindis Sloan, both experienced knitters who fluidly worked the yarn with barely a glance at their hands.

And then there was me, gripping the needles as I struggled to maintain the proper tension that would allow me to transform two skeins of local wool into something resembling a headband. My progress was excruciatingly slow, but a couple of hours in, a red ring of textile with pink diamonds was beginning to emerge.

Then Ragga noticed a mistake I had made in a previous row. Taking the needles, she began ripping out my hard-earned stitches. “If you can’t unravel,” she said with a jolly laugh, “you can’t knit.”

It was a counterintuitive way of spending a vacation in Iceland. Most people travel to the island nation for steamy soaks in the milky waters of the Blue Lagoon or nighttime treks to see the northern lights. But in a country with a deeply ingrained craft tradition, a climate conducive to sweaters, and about 10 times more sheep than people, knitting tourism is on the rise.

Hélène Magnusson is largely responsible for the development. Half-French, half-Icelandic, Ms. Magnussen is a pattern designer known for work that blends traditional Icelandic and modern styles. She also organizes tours that take a deep dive into Icelandic wool culture, including visits to sheep farms, spinning factories and dyeing studios. And because she is both a former hiking guide and a designer inspired by nature, her tours include an outdoor element like hiking or horse riding.

“Why would you come to Iceland and not move?” she said.

But at the core of the tours is the time set aside to sit somewhere cozy and knit. “Three or four hours a day together, knitting, you make some good friends,” Ms. Magnusson said.

A knitting paradise

Ms. Magnusson wasn’t offering tours when I was in Iceland, but she talked me through her itineraries so I could put together a D.I.Y. version. I invited Lindis, who is from Norway, another country that takes wool seriously.

Just how seriously Icelanders take it quickly became clear in Reykjavik, where at least one 24-hour grocery store stocks shelves of yarn for 2 a.m. knitting emergencies. A knit-goods paradise, the capital has plentiful yarn stores and outlets selling finished garments — from contemporary designers to secondhand stores where legions of ungrateful Icelanders consign the Christmas gifts their grandmothers have painstakingly crafted for them.

But the mecca for classic Icelandic sweaters is the Handknitting Association’s shop . With its floor-to-ceiling shelves crammed with fuzzy cardigans and pullovers, it is the embodiment of options paralysis, so I was grateful when Marta Makuchowska, who works there, helped me navigate it.

Ms. Makuchowska, who is from Poland, moved to Iceland to go to university, and ended up not only writing her thesis on the knitters’ cooperatives, but learning to knit “lopepeysa” — the typical Icelandic sweater made from thick, unspun yarn called lopi and knit with an intricate circular pattern at the yoke. “It was a good way to fit into Icelandic culture,” she explained.

A true Icelandic sweater must be handmade, and cooperatives like the Handknitting Association act as a guarantor of quality. Founded in the 1970s to increase the bargaining power of women supplementing the family income, the association requires potential members to audition (with a sweater) and ensures that their work meets strict criteria: It must be made with wool from Icelandic sheep, conform to approved patterns, and be knit in Iceland.

Learning the craft

Based on Ms. Magnusson’s advice, Lindis and I devised a plan: Drive north along the coast to Blönduós, home to the country’s main wool-washing facility and its only textile museum, then cut inland and return south, where there are a handful of wool-related cottage industries.

First, however, I had to learn to knit.

Which is where Ms. Sjofu Jóhannsdóttir came in. A retired schoolteacher, she holds four-day workshops for experienced knitters and shorter sessions for beginners. I was not a novice, but my technique is terrible, and I’m intimidated by anything more complicated than a purl stitch. I was counting on my Icelandic wool journey to help me overcome those obstacles.

Ms. Sjofu Jóhannsdóttir had firm ideas about technique but a warm pedagogic style gleaned from decades of teaching math and crafts (Icelandic children learn to knit in school). Starting me on that headband, she showed me how to cast on stitches, and how to unite them on round needles so that, in the typical Icelandic style, the finished garment would have no seams.

I found the work painstaking, and it was difficult to imagine that I would ever achieve the grace with which both she and Lindis were rapidly assembling sweaters. But I managed to reknit a row or two before the end of the workshop, and after a restorative lunch of Icelandic smoothie bowls, I promised my teacher I would keep trying.

Going north

The following day, Lindis and I headed north. In Bogarnes, we stopped at Ljómalind , a cooperative where brightly colored sweaters shared shelf space with jars of rhubarb jam, earrings carved from ram horns and a freezer full of lamb parts.

Later, near the white clapboard church of Hvanneyri, we found the Ullarselid cooperative . Inside, Hugrún Jóhannsdóttir, an avid knitter and Viking re-enactor (with the Runic tattoos to prove it), explained that the cooperative had been founded in 1992 to teach wool-working at the agricultural school, and “to prize women’s work.”

Inside, sweaters are shelved depending on whether the yarn is dyed or “sheep-colored.” Lindis gravitated to the yarn section, where I found her petting a skein of handspun longingly. “I get it,” Ms. Jóhannsdóttir said. “There’s a kind of witchcraft to textiles.”

When we reached Blönduós a couple of hours later, I found myself wondering if the hands that would have fit into the antique mittens on display at the Textile Museum didn’t suffer from another kind of bewitchment: They each had two thumbs. But no, explained the docent, these were Nordic fishermen’s mittens. If the palm got wet, the wearer could simply turn the mitten around and wear it from the other side.

Because shearing season was over, the Istex wool-washing facility, which cleans much of the country’s raw fleece, was closed. With nothing to do until dinner, we retired to the hotel bar, where we ordered wine and watched the steel-colored sea outside the windows for passing whales. When Lindis pulled out her needles, I surprised myself by doing the same. Suddenly, the notion of traveling halfway around the world to sit in a room and knit made a lot more sense.

Coaxing dyes from plants

We returned to the south the next day, and headed toward Selfoss. Our first stop was Hespa , a one-woman dyeing studio in Gudrún Bjarnadóttir’s home. We walked into her kitchen, where a not entirely pleasant aroma wafted from pots overflowing with yarn being steeped in various hues.

Ms. Bjarnadóttir, who also offers workshops, obtains her dyes from nature. As a graduate student researching the historic applications of wild plants in Iceland, she learned they were used to produce colors. “At that point,” she said, “I completely lost control.”

Today, that loss of control manifests itself in the astonishing array of shades she coaxes from plants, many indigenous. The lupine that carpets the countryside in summer yields a strong yellow. Lichen, which Ms. Bjarnadóttir has a permit to forage from a location she keeps secret, produces a range of browns. Green requires extra intervention: The dyer must add copper — a penny or a bit of wire — to get moss’s colors to stay. The excess onion skins the local supermarket saves for her produces yellows and rust. “I dye with the same process as people did in the old days, but with better equipment,” Ms. Bjarnedottir said.

Better, and less stinky. To get the ammonia needed to fix colors, Icelanders traditionally used aged cow urine. “You would need 40 gallons at a time, so they used to tickle the cows to get them to pee,” she said. “Then you had to let it age for three weeks.”

A slow process

The theme of time kept popping up. Wool-working might be a cornerstone of Icelandic culture, and handcrafted textiles might remain an important export, but the vast amount of time required to produce a handmade knit means that the people — mostly women — who produce the work cannot earn enough to ever have it be more than a hobby.

At the Thingborg cooperative, an adult lopi sweater, handmade by one of its 65 knitters, sells for around $250, of which the knitter gets 60 percent. It will have taken her anywhere from 14 to 25 hours to create, and she must buy her own yarn.

“You could knit all day long and would earn wages that are not even close to being legal,” Magret Jonsdottir, who runs Thingborg, said. Some cooperatives have petitioned the Icelandic government to exempt handcrafted textiles from the value-added tax.

You start with the sheep

We had one more stop. At Uppspuni , Hulda Brynjólfsdóttir and her husband, Tyrfingur Sveinsson, process wool from their own sheep into yarn. It is the sheep, Ms. Brynjólfsdóttir explained, that make Icelandic wool so special. The short-legged breed has a double coat, with coarse outer strands that repel water, and a fluffy inner fleece that makes it especially warm. “We always say that the production of our yarn starts when we decide which ewe to breed with which ram,” she said.

From the knitters to the dyers to the millers to the sheep: At each stop it felt as if we were pulling out one layer of Icelandic tradition to reveal the next. By this point in our journey, Lindis had finished her own lopapeysa, knocked out a pair of baby booties and was a third of the way through a navy pullover. I still hadn’t quite finished my slightly lumpy headband.

But when Ms. Brynjólfsdóttir led us upstairs to the small shop where Uppspuni sells its yarns, I decided it was time to commit. I bought a pattern, needles and several skeins of sheep-colored yarn. I might not be a skilled knitter yet, I told myself, but I knew how to unravel.

Follow New York Times Travel on Instagram and sign up for our weekly Travel Dispatch newsletter to get expert tips on traveling smarter and inspiration for your next vacation. Dreaming up a future getaway or just armchair traveling? Check out our 52 Places to Go in 2024 .

Open Up Your World

Considering a trip, or just some armchair traveling here are some ideas..

52 Places:  Why do we travel? For food, culture, adventure, natural beauty? Our 2024 list has all those elements, and more .

Lima, Peru : The city, with its decade-long dining boom , now holds three places on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list, as many chefs embrace Indigenous Andean and Amazonian ingredients in the seafood.

Kyoto, Japan :  The Japanese city is famous for its temples and gardens, but it is laced with waterways  that can offer a different, and no less enchanting, view.

Marseille, France :  Get the full flavor of France’s second-largest city through its favorite street food — pizza  — whether it’s topped with raw garlic, sweet Corsican sausage, Emmental cheese or anchovies.

Rafting in Montana :  On a family trip in Montana, a father shares a tradition with his two sons  even as climate change threatens the certainty of the rivers he grew up running.

Advertisement