An empty room with a wide parallelogram of afternoon sun lying across the boards.

what this company is, at length

An Independent Travel Agent in Des Moines, Iowa

An independent travel agent in Des Moines, Iowa, working from one office, and organized around a question the rest of the trade forgets to ask.

Ask what a trip costs +1 (515) 698-3142

What this actually is

A small agency that finds trips, reads the operator's small print properly, and hands the booking to whoever runs it. Not an airline, not a hotel, not a ship, not a tour company. Nothing on this site is operated by the company selling it, and the operating company's name is on your proposal rather than on this website, because that is the document where knowing it does you any good.

The income arrives from the operator, as a share of a margin they were making anyway, once the trip is behind you. You are not charged for the work at any point, and that is not a promotion or an introductory arrangement; it is how the trade has been paid for a century, and the only thing unusual here is saying so out loud.

One consequence of it is worth stating because most agencies leave it unstated. A dearer room pays this company exactly what a plainer one pays. There is nothing sitting behind a recommendation except the recommendation.

Why everything is sorted by how planned the day is

Because that is the question that decides whether a holiday worked, and it is the question nobody is asked.

Where and when get asked first, and they are easy. Who is going gets asked second. How many of the daylight hours somebody else will already have spoken for, on an average day, in the week you are paying for, does not get asked at all. People find out on day two.

So every trip page here prints that number, in hours, along with the earliest start, the longest unbroken free stretch, who chooses where you eat, and what actually happens if you skip a day. And it prints who the trip does not suit, which loses bookings and stays on the page anyway.

Where it sits

Registered as: Rowan Logbook LLC
Registered with: the Iowa Secretary of State
Office: 801 Grand Avenue, Des Moines, IA 50309, in Polk County
Telephone: +1 (515) 698-3142
Requests: Through the form, at any hour
Figures and questions: hours@rowanlogbook.com
Something already agreed, and complaints: onfile@rowanlogbook.com

Rowan Logbook LLC is registered in Iowa as a limited liability company, and it is the only publisher of this site.

The work it turns down

Rather than a list of specialities, here is what gets refused, which tells you more.

No judgement is offered on whether a place is safe, because nobody here is qualified to sell you one. Border paperwork stays with you and your nationality, and no advice on it is given. Cover for the trip is neither sold nor arranged nor recommended, and no provider will be pointed at. No reviews appear here, for the plain reason that no genuine ones exist, and manufacturing a set is the single thing this office declines to do in exchange for a booking. And there is no way to pay here: no page carries a field that would take money, and none is being built.

Everything sold here is run by somebody else. Rowan Logbook finds a trip, reads the operator's terms properly, and hands the booking to the airline, hotel, guiding company or ship whose job it is to carry it out. No vehicle, no room, no berth and no guide belongs to this company. Your written proposal names whichever firm is doing the carrying; it applies terms it drafted itself, and it bills you without a dollar crossing this desk.

Four consequences, all of them better stated than left to be inferred. First, no vehicle leaves and no room is let by anybody employed here. Second, no department of any government has vetted, approved or blessed this firm, and no page pretends otherwise. Third, whether to insure a trip is a decision for you and a market that is not this one, as is every question about the documents a border wants. Fourth, these pages cannot take money: there is no mechanism, and no card is retained.