Martha Nell Beatty

After graduation from Stanford, I was offered a job at Thomas Cook, which started me on my over 40-year career in the travel industry. I took off time to have children but was drawn back to the business after a few years. In 1969, I started Unravel Travel with a partner but for a number of those years was sole owner of the company.

Before opening Unravel Travel, I spent seven years as chairman of the San Francisco Junior League’s Historic Sites committee, which culminated in the publication of Here Today, a book on San Francisco’s architecturally and historically significant architecture. It is still consulted although it has been out of print for many years. Also in the late ‘60s, I edited San Francisco at a Glance, a book about restaurants in the city. So bringing together this knowledge of San Francisco with travel, my partner and I started an incoming tour division, Best of San Francisco Tours. The division specialized in planning events and tours for convention and meeting groups.

Just shy of 25 years I sold Unravel Travel to Sundance Travel of Southern California. For the last five years, I have been in sales and marketing for Travel Advisors of Marin working from a San Francisco office. In July 2005, Travel Advisors merged with Frosch International Travel of Houston.

As well as being in the travel agency business, I have written travel articles for newspapers and magazines and have also taught tourism at Cañada College.

You Did it Again

“You did it again. Many many thanks for allowing three famous men to rest upon a yacht in the Virgin Islands (The Moorings) and return rested and unweary and unbored into the world of business. The catamaran was lovely and beyond imagination in its completeness.One could not have asked for a nicer captain and cook (his wife).”

A.H., Alamo, CA