Purpose
GOMO Travel:
ESSENTIAL Naples
The Future of Assisted Travel
SUMMER 2021
36 By Kerri Johnson, RN, EMBA
“We are helping normalize assisted travel so that seniors or anyone who needs assistance can travel, whether it’s to visit family, for necessary medical appointments and treatments, for relocation purposes, or simply because they want to.” —Kerri Johnson, Founder and CEO
I
did not grow up thinking I would start an assisted travel business. My childhood dream was to become a nurse, which stemmed from the fact that my dad had a serious heart condition. At that time, I unconsciously committed to devote my life to helping others. After years in clinical nursing, I pursued a medical sales career which led to working for global medical products companies and requiring extensive corporate travel. It was during these busy travel years that I encountered seniors traveling alone, and I remember always feeling worried for them that they may not make their connecting flights due to their mobility or general health issues and, more significantly, because they were traveling alone. I know now what I could not have realized then: the pieces of the puzzle for my life’s purpose were coming together. Fast forward to 2017, when I found my biological father and realized that this life-altering discovery would provide the final piece of my puzzle. While so happy to be given the chance to meet him, finding out he had dementia was heartbreaking. I would never know the full story of how I came to be, rather only see my reflection when I looked in his face. I was unaware of how I was about to shift the way I would help others—until I learned from his immediate family of the dreadful ordeal they experienced trying to get my father from Arizona
to Minnesota for treatment after he had suffered a falling accident. While the complications surrounding his interstate travel—dementia, age, mobility, physical state, luggage, who would/could accompany him, and so on—were insurmountable to his family, it gave me an epiphany that would soon come to fruition as GOMO Travel. Founded in 2019 on the belief that no obstacle should prevent a person from traveling, GOMO Travel provides compassionate, concierge-style, assisted travel services, both domestically and internationally, to people of all ages. Our experience has shown there are three main pillars in the delivery of assisted travel services—safety, comfort, and dignity.
Safety
Our #1 priority is our travelers’ safety and well-being. We utilize wheelchairs and walkers to help with mobility, stability, and prevent falls. Since COVID, precautions are taken to clean, disinfect, and sanitize common areas of contact to prevent germ spread and contamination. GOMO Companion Nurses are medically trained (not certified nursing assistants, CNAs) to provide the first line of assistance if an emergency occurs with our travelers. For travelers with dementia, GOMO has significant experience with care facility relocations, employing Companions who are certified dementia practitioners (CDPs).
