Experiential travel curator. Vacation style expert. Tenacious business owner. Lia Batkin spends most of her time traveling and shopping the globe….all to ensure her clients take the most incredible vacations in the world and look impeccable while doing it.
Sounds like a dream job? Yes, it is. But Lia’s worked incredibly hard to carve her own path and drive her business success. Lia, along with her husband and business partner, Seth Kaplan, are the founders of In The Know Experiences, a booming travel and lifestyle agency that specializes in curating unforgettable, bespoke vacations and experiences around the world (i.e. - from multi-million dollar honeymoons and months-long bucket list journeys to private Coachella-inspired music festivals and literal driver-seat action at the Monaco Grand Prix).

A life-long New Yorker, Lia began her career in ad sales at Gotham magazine and The Atlantic, where she began amassing an incredible database of contacts in a variety of luxury industries. From there, she went on to work as Fashion Director of Robb Report, where her love of travel and fashion first converged. She then found herself spearheading the Global VIP Marketing program at Hilton Hotels Worldwide, helping to coordinate extraordinary travel experiences for VIPs around the world. Soon after, a disastrous personal vacation with Seth gave the couple the “ah-ha” moment that would soon launch In The Know Experiences.
Today, Lia heads up the leisure travel, marketing & partnerships, and independent contractor divisions of In The Know Experiences, spending a great deal of time not only learning about her clients and what they desire out of a holiday but traversing the globe to uncover hidden, off-the-guidebook-page recommendations that she then puts directly onto her clients’ travel itineraries. (Basically, if you want to know where to eat, drink, shop, hike, propose, just about anything on your next vacation, Lia knows….)

Recently, Lia combined her love of travel and fashion to launch VacationStyle, a new shoppable blog dedicated to where to go and what to wear once you’re there. Lia and her team regularly update the site with new destinations, adding corresponding fashion suggestions, itineraries, and beauty tips to each. Users can click and add recommended pieces to a virtual suitcase and shop directly from partners like Net-A-Porter, Saks Fifth Avenue, Barneys, and more. Lia also interviews some of her favorite tastemakers which have already included Nanette Lapore and Timo Weiland, to name a few.

Website: In The Know Experiences
Instagram: @intheknowexperiences

Website: VacationStyle
Instagram: @vacationstyle_