It's Your Life...Live IT!

"This gutsy entrepreneur has much to share, not only about the exhilaration of travel, but on jetting out of our comfort zones and into new friendships and enhanced self-discovery." Iris Krasnow, New York Times Best-selling Author of Secret Lives of Wives.

A story of resiliency, saying yes, following your passions, and never giving up.

In this inspirational business memoir, It's Your Life...Live IT!, April Merenda, cofounder of Gutsy Women Travel and assistant professor at St. John's University shares her journey on how her passion for travel led her to becoming a pioneer in women's travel, a successful entrepreneur, a highly regarded expert in the hospitality industry, and an innovator in academia.

Her story starts in 1975, shortly after graduating from St. John's University in Queens, New York with plans to attend law school. But life had other ideas for her. She found herself saying yes to selling tours and show tickets on charter flights to passengers who were booked at various Las Vegas, Nevada hotels. It was an exciting beginning to her career in travel, and she never looked back.

Resiliency and saying yes to opportunities are recurring themes as she eventually cocreated a travel company with Gail Golden-Icahn called Gutsy Women Travel, which focused on guided vacations designed specifically for women travelers and their interests. Gutsy Women launched shortly after 9/11 despite the naysayers who questioned the timing. Twenty years later, Gutsy Women Travel is still going strong despite the ups and downs thrown its way, not the least of which is surviving the global pandemic.

April takes the reader along on this incredible journey that follows her life, career, and travels, introduces you to incredible gutsy women she has met on her tours, unforgettable students in her hospitality classes as an assistant professor at St. John's University, and the angels who have guided her along the way.

She has lived through many unusual experiences and witnessed historical events, including being caught up in the middle of the Arab Spring revolution that eventually overthrew the regime of President Mubarak, and being part of the largest evacuation (at that time) of U.S. citizens.

Throughout her story, she shares invaluable business and life lessons she has learned along the way, the most important of which are to live your life with joy, be kind to yourself, follow your passions, and never give up.

It's Your Life...Live IT!