“We’ve been called the best place to escape climate change in the U.S. But more than that, we’re a place where people truly care — about the land and each other.” — Ellie Westman Chin

During this era of political turmoil in the U.S., one Midwest destination is leaning into its open, inclusive values and is setting an example for the travel industry. In this episode of Travel Beyond, Ellie Westman Chin, President and CEO at Destination Madison, describes a city that is proudly progressive, unapologetically welcoming, and consistently leading a transformation in sustainable tourism.

Visitors might first be drawn to Madison by its lakes or the festivals, but they’ll quickly discover something deeper. Earth Day began in Madison in 1970 as an event that helped to kickstart the modern environmental movement, for example.. Back in 1963, a Madison resident started the country’s very first curbside recycling program. Today, the city promotes green transportation. It is a rare Platinum-level Bike Friendly designation, with more than 260 parks and over 200 miles of scenic, accessible trails. Add to that a 100 percent renewable-energy county alongside a fleet of electric buses, and you start to see that environmental care isn’t an add-on here, it’s a way of life.

Madison’s commitment to welcome all people is also part of the city’s ethos. The city is governed by women at both the mayoral and county levels, and the current Common Council is its most diverse ever. This kind of representation shapes policy and practice, says Ellie. You’ll feel it walking up State Street, where a massive Pride flag is painted directly on the pavement. You’ll see it in the community’s recognition of Transgender Day of Visibility. And you’ll hear it in the way Ellie speaks: “We’re not just checking boxes. We want people to feel it in the bones of this place.”

That commitment runs through Destination Madison as well. Internally, the organization has restructured how it hires, collaborates, and leads, ensuring its approach to diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion (DEAI) reflects more than surface-level intent. It has become a model within the tourism industry for how to embed belonging into the core of a destination brand.

And then there’s the invitation. Visitors aren’t treated as passive spectators. Through a growing volunteerism initiative, travellers can join in on community cleanups, support local projects, or simply take the time to meet the people who make this city what it is. It’s travel as relationship-building, not just escape.Where some cities talk about values, Madison lives them. It is a place where inclusion is visible, where sustainability is practical, and where the future of tourism might already be quietly underway.

In this episode you’ll learn:

• Why Madison is becoming a standout destination for inclusive and climate-conscious travel in the U.S.
• How leadership by women and diverse voices is shaping bold civic action.
• What makes Madison a model for embedding DEAI into the core of a destination organization and its brand.
• How sustainability is reflected in everyday life — from electric buses to bike trails.
• Ways travellers can actively engage with local communities beyond sightseeing.

Subscribe to Travel Beyond through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favourite podcast player.

Show Notes

• Plan your trip with everything from festivals to paddling routes to local eats. → Visit Madison
• A woman- and queer-owned organic brewery that champions justice and sustainability with every bottle. → Giant Jones
• A welcoming café focused on ethical sourcing, compostable packaging, and cultural exchange through Colombian partnerships. → Alice Good Coffee
• Learn how the DMO transformed its own culture to walk the talk on inclusion.
  → Destination Madison DEAI Programs (via Destinations International)
• Madison is one of only five cities in the U.S. with this designation, and it shows.
  → Platinum Bike Cities – League of American Bicyclists

Transcript

This transcript was generated using AI and has been lightly reviewed for accuracy.

Ellie Westman Chin: [00:00:00] The city is women-led. Our county executive is a woman. Our mayor is a woman. We have a very big pride in, you know, anybody can grow and get to whatever level they wanna get to here. And then our common council is the most diverse common council in the history of our city. We’re hearing from a lot of different voices.

I think that’s really exciting. We did fly the. Transgender flag this year during transgender week, you know, day of visibility. It’s just a message that we’re sending. You know, I like to say we’re sending it to our visitors, but the reality is we’re also sending that message to our residents because we want them to know that they’re safe and they’re welcomed here as well.

David Archer: Hello and welcome back to Travel Beyond. I’m David Archer from Destination Think [00:01:00] recording from Haida Gwaii, the territory of the Haida Nation off the north coast of British Columbia in Canada. On this show, we look at travel’s role and making a better world, and we highlight leading destinations and change makers.

Our guests are taking local action that the world can learn from. They’re helping to regenerate ecosystems, communities, and economies, and they’re often making positive change happen from the bottom up. Many of the voices that we’ve highlighted on the show are part of the destination Think collective. A peer group of more than 20 ambitious forward-thinking destinations, working toward a better future for travel and the planet.

One way travel destinations are trying to make a better future happen is by becoming welcoming and safe places for everyone. And when you put it like that, it sounds very basic, but unfortunately we’re in a political moment where minorities, like queer and trans folks, for example, have become a target for some who are looking to stoke fears.

That’s why it’s so important that there are others who are pushing for inclusion and cross-cultural understanding, and tourism provides [00:02:00] a great space for this to happen. There are many, many people who are trying to make the world a more welcoming and open place where you’re free to be exactly who you are.

And one of those people is today’s guest, Ellie Westman Chin, who leads Destination Madison in Wisconsin. Madison is a mid-sized city in the Midwest, and Ellie says she’s noticed something special here, and it’s related to the fact that Madison is a women-led city, and she says that that allows conversations about diversity, equity, and inclusion and related topics to happen more freely in the halls of power here than in any other place where she’s lived.

Madison also has an interesting environmental legacy. It’s the birthplace of Earth Day for one thing, but there are lots of other little examples that we’ll get into as well. Ellie and I had a delightful conversation about how the city is walking their talk from both leadership and grassroots levels.

Here we go. 

Ellie Westman Chin: Good morning. It’s good to see you. Uh, I’m Ellie Westman Chin. I am the president and [00:03:00] CEO at Destination Madison. 

David Archer: Terrific. And can you tell me a little about your experience in the travel industry? 

Ellie Westman Chin: I have a long career in the travel industry. This is actually my fourth city that I’ve been in in the United States.

Um, and I’ve had the great pleasure of working in cities as diverse as Atlanta and Denver and Nashville, and now I’m here in Madison. 

David Archer: What’s one of the things that drew you to Madison? 

Ellie Westman Chin: Well, it’s as simple as this. It was during Covid. Uh, my husband’s from the northeast. I grew up outside Chicago and we were in the Nashville area and we said maybe we should get near family.

Um, I got a call about this job at in Madison, and so we took a hard look at it. I will tell you, we had been in the south for a long time and we thought, can we go back to those winters? Uh, but I will tell you. That Madison is the best place to be. We’ve actually been called the place to ex escape climate change in the United States.

Oh, interesting. So, [00:04:00] um, yeah, we have some long winters, but they’re not horrible. And we play in the winter. Our lakes freeze in the winter. We go out and play on our lakes. The summers can’t be beat, so it’s a great place to be year round. 

David Archer: Wow. Yeah. And I know that, you know, I, I haven’t been to Madison or Wisconsin yet, so you’re gonna have to educate me a little bit.

But, uh, tell me a little bit more about the geography. You’re, you’re right in between two. Large lakes, is that right? We are. We are on 

Ellie Westman Chin: isus. So if you go back to your geography classes in grade school, uh, but basically it’s a strip of land between two lakes. We’re also actually surrounded by five lakes. We are the original land of the HoChunk nation, and we take that very seriously here in Madison because we wanna honor.

That history and that tribe, and really we look at it that that foundation that they built is a reason why we continue to work on being a safe and welcoming place where we want to preserve and really protect our heritage and our environment. [00:05:00] So when you come to Madison, um, we’re a very walkable bikeable.

You can be on a canoe or a kayak to get around, and we take pride in the fact that you don’t need your car when you get here. We actually ask you not to use your car when you get here. 

David Archer: Okay. Yeah. So there’s a real thread of sustainable care sort of baked into the way you operate. What are some of the things that makes it a, a climate resilient place?

Ellie Westman Chin: Uh, I think one is we, first of all, we’re not gonna have a hurricane because we are in the middle of the United States, you know? Yeah. We’re not prone to earthquakes. Um, and so really the weather we could have would be a storm or a tornado like weather, but even. With where we are located, we don’t see those storms come through as awful as they do in other places like our friends in Kansas.

Um, so it’s a place where the weather is actually pretty, pretty good year round and you can be outside year round. And I, I think that’s a selling point because I like being outside. I like to hike, [00:06:00] I like to bike and I wanna be on the lakes. And so I basically can do that anytime of year. 

David Archer: Amazing. So Madison has something of a, an environmental legacy in that Earth Day was created there.

Is that right? It was, 

Ellie Westman Chin: and we’re very proud of that history and that legacy. So, Gaylor Nelson, uh, was from Wisconsin. Um, he was actually on University of Wisconsin campus when he created Earth Day all those years ago. And so. You know, we like to say that Earth Day is every day here in Madison, and not just on April 22nd.

And as much as we celebrate it then as well. Uh, but that really is such a top priority for all the people that live in Madison. It’s not just a top priority for the city leaders or the county leaders or the state leaders, but people who live here in Madison. Have that as a pride point. And so we are very protective of our environment.

Um, and we ask folks that come visit us to also respect that environment when they come here. We have the most, uh, protected mounds, HoChunk, [00:07:00] burial, mounds are just, um, historic mounds, if any place in the country. And so all of these things add up together of making sure that we are paying homage and respecting the land of which we now sit on.

David Archer: Yeah. That’s great. And can you tell me a little bit more about some of the things that make Madison A. Green city? I think you mentioned cycling. Um, yeah. What else would you add to that list? 

Ellie Westman Chin: I would say that one of the reasons Madison is such a green city is because it is a top priority for our mayor.

It’s a top priority for our county executive. Our county is a hundred percent renewable energy. It’s a focus for both of those individuals and for their administrations. And so when you look at it from the leadership and then how that also. Works in our community. I think it’s really important because it puts a priority on it.

You know, the mayor started the bus Rapid Transit last year, which are electric buses and we’re getting the gas buses off the streets, and it’s all these little [00:08:00] things that we’re doing together to make sure that we are being, um, environmentally conscious. We are the first place in the United States that started curbside recycling.

It was a woman back in 1963, I think, started curbside recycling. So this is just. In the DNA of Madison of to make sure that we have over 240 parks. We have over 200 of biking, hiking, and walking trails. So when I say, when you come here, if you’re in a car, get outta your car. ’cause it is the best way to see all the great neighborhoods and everything we’re doing in Madison.

And one thing that I continue to be surprised about, I’ve been here four years, is that I can drive. 15 minutes outside of the city core and be at phenomenal hiking and beautiful landscape. So you can really get this urban outdoor feel here in Madison. ’cause you can come downtown, you can eat at one of our James Beard Award-winning restaurants.

The next day you could be in your shorts and you could be in a [00:09:00] kayak on the lake, or you could be in your shorts and you could be hiking up a really cool, you know, we don’t really have mountains here, but you know, a pretty good size hill. Sure, yeah. A Midwest mountain. Yeah. Yeah, that’s right. 

David Archer: Yeah. So, so you’ve got a lot of participation from, you know, not just your own organization, but it’s a, it’s a community-wide sort of effort, and it sounds like there’s a lot of support.

Can you tell me who tends to visit Madison? Like where, where are people coming from? 

Ellie Westman Chin: We have a big regional draw, so we welcome and we see a lot of Chicagoans, uh, we see a lot of folks out of Minneapolis, Minnesota area. Uh, but we have gotten a pretty good following out of the northeast New York and Boston.

Um, DC is really big for us, so. You know, when you look at Madison and I can’t wait for you to come visit us because I think one of the surprising things for me whenever I was considering if I wanted to apply for this position or not, um, you know, for me it’s like, well, what’s do you have The things I like to [00:10:00] do?

My life, right? When I’m outside of work. Do you have all of those things? And I like to tell my friends in bigger cities that we have all of those things, but I’m gonna be home in 15 minutes. Right? So yeah, it depends on what a visitor likes to do, but they’re gonna find it here we have. Incredible independent bookstores.

We have an opera, we have a ballet, we have a symphony. We have great performing arts. We have 13 different performing arts companies, so you know, and then of course we have University of Wisconsin and everything. They offer to not only our residents, but our visitors as well. So a lot of people are like, I don’t really know why I would come to Madison.

I said, well, what do you like to do? Because we have it here. Our art scene is incredible. We pay a lot of attention and give a lot of support to our local artists. ’cause we want them to thrive here. We want them to, you know, be engaged and stay in Madison. So I would say that our visitor on the leisure side of our business is really.

Anybody who has that, um, free [00:11:00] spirit, but they wanna come here because maybe it’s just a step easier than visiting a bigger city because you can get around. I had some friends in last year. This was our day. We got up, we went kayaking. I. Then we grabbed some e-bikes. We took a long e-bike ride, we rode our E-bikes, we did a hike.

We came back, we went to the comedy, um, comedy club because we have a great history of comedy here in Madison. And then that night we ended up at dinner and a performance at our performing arts center. We did all of that in one day. I. It was awesome. Wow. So we were tired, but it’s great. That sounds like a full 

David Archer: day.

Ellie Westman Chin: And then the next day we did something similar, but in other aspects of Madison. So it’s a place where you can do a lot. A lot of our attractions are no cost, so if you go to our botanical garden, our arboretum, our zoo, there’s no cost to it. So you can come here and really have a nice vacation, but without spending, you know, your life savings.

David Archer: Wow. Yeah, that does sound like fun. Um, and as someone, my partner and I own a [00:12:00] bookshop here in Haida Gwaii. Oh. So that’s, that’s what I seek out whenever I go to a city is like, what are, what are all the other bookstore owners up to? Uh, yeah. That’s my, and I’m jealous 

Ellie Westman Chin: that you own a bookstore. There’s my dream.

David Archer: Yeah. There you go. One day. One day. That’s right. Uh, so we’ve talked a little bit about the environment and, and creativity. Um, what are some of the other values you think Madison stands for? 

Ellie Westman Chin: You know, I was given that question a lot of thought because I’m a, I’m kind of new here, right? Four years. Um, and there’s, when I gave my notice at my last job and said, I’m moving to Madison, and I was talking to the city manager and he said, oh, I.

You know what’s the greatest thing about Madison is? And I said, what do you think the greatest thing is? And he said, it’s the people. I’ve never seen people with so much pride in their city. And I think that’s a two-way street for Madison. I think there’s people that live here that have a lot of pride in their city, but I also think that our city and our county leadership take a lot of pride and make [00:13:00] sure they’re supporting the people that live here.

And so when you come here, you will meet the locals. We, I had friends in town last year for a Badgers football game. We were walking down State Street, which is the street that leads from the capital to the university. We’re just walking, talking. People literally came outta bars like, Hey, whatcha guys doing?

I see you have Alabama gear on. Come on in, have a beer. And we were like, what? What is happening? It’s a very proud people because they wanna show off their city and they wanna share what that city is. I would say that Madison is proudly progressive in the way they think. Um, which probably doesn’t surprise you being a big university town, but we really look at, um, the issues that we have in our city and how we can solve those issues.

Whether it’s people who maybe don’t have enough food or the unhoused and there’s a lot of pride built into how can we support. Our community, and that’s very important environment. We’ve talked about that high on the list. You know, we are very focused on our environment and what we’re doing there. [00:14:00] And then I would say that Madison’s a very welcoming city and people can come here, they’re going to be welcomed, and they’re gonna feel like this is a place for them.

David Archer: What’s one thing you hope that visitors can learn from Madison when they visit? 

Ellie Westman Chin: Well, I hope what they experience when they visit is to take a step slower. ’cause the world is a little bit crazy right now, as we all know. And it’s also very heavy and we have a lot going on, like, just coming at us every day.

Yeah. So I hope when they get here, they experience really the, the really welcoming environment. I hope they experience the diversity of our city. Um, whether that’s through food or through art or culture or just hiking. I really hope that they come in and maybe learn a few things about how we are very open and welcoming and we’re kind of selfish here ’cause we think this is how the world should go around.

Yeah. Right. And we hope that maybe they meet somebody that they’ve never known before. Maybe they meet somebody that has a different lifestyle of theirs and [00:15:00] they learn from that and they go home and go and had this great conversation with, you know, this individual. 

David Archer: Well, that’s one of the great things about travel, right?

I mean, absolutely. If you’re open to that sort of thing, uh, you can meet people and, and learn new things. Learn about different ways of being. Yeah. I know that Madison and the county have made commitments toward diversity and inclusion and, and welcoming. Can you just talk a little bit about that and what that means for the city?

Ellie Westman Chin: Absolutely. You know, I wanna just start with this because I’ve never seen this in any city I’ve been in, but the city is women led. Our county executive is a woman, our mayor is a woman. And so, um, we have a very big pride in, you know, anybody can grow and get to whatever level they wanna get to here. And then our common council is the most diverse common council in the history of our city.

And so when you go to common council, there is just. All sorts of different diversity thoughts and conversations, which is just so healthy, [00:16:00] right? Because we’re hearing from a lot of different voices. And so I, I think that’s really exciting. We did fly the, uh, transgender flag this year during transgender week, you know, day of visibility.

Mm-hmm. And I will tell you, if you came here on our state street, there is a huge pride flag painted on our State Street. So as you’re walking up from State Street and you’re headed to the capitol. There’s a huge pride flag. It’s just a message that we’re sending. You know, I like to say we’re sending it to our visitors, but the reality is we’re also sending that message to our residents because we want them to know that they’re safe and they’re welcomed here as well.

David Archer: Yeah, that’s great. Yeah. So, you know, the, there are different elements to diversity that you’re talking about. There’s, you know, the women led organizations and council. Um, do you think that that leadership sort of. Helps these ideas percolate a little bit differently than they would otherwise? 

Ellie Westman Chin: I do because I think that when, like when I go meet with the mayor or the county executive or any of our common council members, [00:17:00] the conversation is open and it is there.

I’ve been in cities where that conversation hasn’t been open. Mm-hmm. Um, I’ve been in cities where I was told to, you probably need to quiet down a little bit. So here I can go have very open conversations about what we wanna do here at Destination Madison to be a welcoming visitor location. And I get a lot of support for that, and I think that makes a big difference.

I think it’s more difficult to do, I have friends in other cities that are like, we could never do what you guys are doing. Because of our elected officials are the environment of which we live. 

David Archer: How do you think the, that welcoming or open sort of attitude affects the travel experience? You know, you mentioned the flags on the, on the street.

Beyond that, what, what can travelers look to in Madison when they’re visiting? 

Ellie Westman Chin: You know, thank you for asking that question. Last year we hosted, uh, the Public Relations Society of America annual Convention. And so we had all these great travel writers in and of [00:18:00] course our friends from other d os as well.

And I was out given a tour to one of the writers and he said, I was really hesitant to come to Madison because I didn’t know it. And, and he was a, a gay gentleman and he said. What I was surprised by is the number of places I saw myself. I checked in the hotel, the person checking me in, welcome me, you know, and he said, so I went to grab a beer.

The bartender was in the community. And so I think we’re, we’re not just talking the talk here in Madison, but we are trying to walk the walk as well, so it’s not, you know, we have, and I’ll, I know we’re gonna talk a little bit about what Destination Madison has done. But we have said over and over again in this office, and our city has said this, and our county has said this, we don’t wanna just be checking a box because it’s the popular thing to do.

We truly want it to be in our DNA. People know this is the place for them and they feel it. And [00:19:00] so I had some friends in, we were walking around the square and they’re like, I’m just shocked at what I see in the windows. It’s Black Lives Matter. Trans Lives Matter. It’s the pride flag, and it’s just in store windows and it’s just in our restaurants.

And so. It, it is those pieces as well that goes into the DNA of what Madison does, not from the leadership at Destination Madison or the city or the county, but from the individual business owners and the the importance they place on it as well. 

David Archer: Are there any particular businesses that you’d like to give a shout out to as sort of leading examples here?

Ellie Westman Chin: Yeah, so I have this written down in front of me ’cause I didn’t know everything they were doing. I only knew part of what they were doing. But we have a great brewery here called Giant Jones. They are fantastic. They, it opened in 2018, um, with Jessica and Erica Jones. Jessica’s a trans woman and Erica’s a queer woman and they have been doing such incredible things in their business.

They’re the only organic brewery in Wisconsin, so every bottle [00:20:00] they sell, it’s returnable and they give you credit for future bottles of beer, so to speak. I felt like that was a song all of a sudden. Um, they are aspiring to use only. Local ingredients in their beer. They’re not quite there yet, but that’s their aspiration.

And then they support Black is Beautiful. The Black Is Beautiful Initiative, which was started out of a brewery in San Antonio, and what they do is they donate all their proceeds locally to Freedom Inc. Which works on. Racial gender and queer justice for black and southeastern Asian people. That is the pride point of Madison.

That is the, uh, passion of individuals who wanna start businesses here and give back to their community. And I think I just wanna mention how many of our businesses do exactly that, whether they give back to food insecurity, where they, I know one, um, restaurant here they work with. Men and women that are coming out prison to give them that second chance in the, you know, in the chefs industry or the cooking, you [00:21:00] know, the food and beverage industry.

Yeah. And so, but I love the story of Giant Jones because they are amazing individuals and they just have their head down doing really gr great work. Plus it’s a fun place to go. 

David Archer: Sounds like it. Yeah. 

Ellie Westman Chin: Yeah. 

David Archer: Any other examples that you wanted to point out? 

Ellie Westman Chin: I have another example I’m looking for. We have a great coffee shop here.

By the name of Alice Good. That they use glassware handcrafted by a company from Columbia that rescues discarded bottles. And their coffee bags are Compuls Compuls. And they commissioned a Columbia’s artist Vo Gar Gudo to create two murals at their shop. They hope open mic and gallery nights because they wanna be a welcoming space for the community.

But I think what’s also really important is their commitment to ethical sourcing. Waste reduction cultural exchange proves that ethical business practices can be incorporated in your business no matter how big or how, how small. And so they take a [00:22:00] real look at Columbia, the growers in Columbia, making sure they’re getting their due prices for what the beans, you know, the beans that they’re selling and they take that very seriously.

So. It is a constant that we’re coming up with these, we’re hearing about these stories, and then our convention center, which is designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, the architect, Frank Lloyd Wright. Yep. It’s a lead certified building, so they are continuing to make sure that they are being sustainable, renewable, and doing those things as well.

David Archer: Great. It sounds like there might be a lot of businesses inspiring one another as well because there’s so many, you know, small actions or ways that people have decided to set themselves up. Yeah. It’s great to surface all these little examples. Do you think there’s a role for visitors or travelers in helping, I guess, helping cities like Madison become what they want to become?

How do you think that travelers contribute to this picture? 

Ellie Westman Chin: So we, I, I [00:23:00] absolutely think there’s a place for travelers in this. We actually launched a volunteerism page last year to do exactly that. So when people come in, whether it’s a leisure traveler or whether through it’s a, you know, a convention and somebody’s looking for something to do, or that meeting planner wants something to give back to our community, but that’s a way to get folks into our community and work alongside locals.

On a mural project on cleaning up some, you know, we have these amazing lakes. So a lot of times we’ll say, Hey, come out and help us clean up the lakes, you know, and do some work like that. But I think that’s a way to learn not only by doing yourself, but by learning from that local, where you could take that back to your community and be like, well, this is what they’re doing in Madison.

I mean, you know, tourism, we all steal ideas from each other, all. Time, you know? Absolutely. You know, it’s rare that I come back from a trip and be like, okay, here’s what I saw in the city. This was really cool. Let’s take a look at doing something like this. But I think it’s being very thoughtful when people come in of saying, have a different experience here than maybe you [00:24:00] would at in a different city.

And part of that is engage. 

David Archer: Yeah. What’s one thing that you hope travelers take away from this story? 

Ellie Westman Chin: I would love for travelers to know that. We want them to come here one. ’cause that’s what we do. We’re tourism of course, please come. Um, but I would like them to know that when they come here, to settle into the culture of Madison and experience it and engage with it and really take it all in.

David Archer: That’s great. Let’s talk about, uh, a long-term vision. Do you have a, you know, in five or 10 years down the road, um, do you have ideas for what that might look like in Madison? 

Ellie Westman Chin: That’s a very good question ’cause we literally just had this conversation in our office yesterday. Um, our vision statement is for Madison to be a place for all, uh, that was created in 2018, I think before I got here.

And we really kind of dug into that, said, what does that mean? What does that mean? Madison is a place for [00:25:00] all, and what do we need to do to accomplish that? You know? So I think we’re kind of working on those steps right now, and it’s a lot of work of what we’ve done internally and what we are starting to do with our partners as well.

But if I look five to 10 years down the road. I would love for Madison to continue on the path that they’re on with environmental protections, with being a welcoming city and, and being a city that if somebody wants to come here and start a cool business, they know this is the place for entrepreneurial startup because we do have this university, we do have these incredible businesses.

I would love for people in five to 10 years ago. You know, if I’m gonna do a startup, Madison has everything they need that need to get that done, and I know that I can go there no matter. You know what my lifestyle is and I’m gonna be welcome there. And I just, I would just hope that we’re building more and more and more of that welcoming message and that we really are a place for all.

David Archer: Thanks so much, Ellie, for, for being on the show today and, and for speaking with me. [00:26:00] This was great. 

Ellie Westman Chin: Thank you to Amy. I appreciate it.

David Archer: This has been Travel Beyond presented by Destination Think. And that was Ellie Westman Chin From Destination Madison. For more resources and show notes, visit our website@destinationthink.com. This episode was hosted, produced, and has theme music composed by me, David Archer, Sarah Raymond Du Bois, my co-producer Lindsey Payne.

And Cory Price provided production support. If you like what you hear, please take a minute to give us a five star rating to help more people find our show. Thanks so much for listening, and we’ll be back with more next week.