Emily Butterfield

Setting tables since I was twelve

I hosted my first dinner party at twelve, with my sister in Michigan: library cookbooks open on the counter, a special trip to the store for ingredients, and the candles lit before we called our parents in. By high school I was running a coffee bar before first period. I've been looking after guests ever since.

My first real lesson in wine came at a Wolfgang Puck restaurant on the Las Vegas Strip, where the sommelier taught us something new on every shift. Summers in the national parks followed, at the YMCA of the Rockies in Colorado and then at Mount Rainier and the Tetons.

Building hotels around the world

I learned hospitality by building it. I helped open a hostel from scratch on the shore of Lake Nahuel Huapi in Bariloche, Patagonia, then ran a guesthouse in Siem Reap, Cambodia, and opened a hostel and coffee shop in Chiang Mai. I worked at a B&B on Bantry Bay in Ireland and helped independent inns in Ireland and England. Back in the States, I was head innkeeper at a historic inn, then helped open a Marriott Tribute Portfolio hotel as assistant general manager and director of rooms. Most recently I've set pricing for a luxury resort portfolio in Hawaiʻi, California and Utah, where our team won Best Luxury Property Management & Concierge in Hawaiʻi at the Luxury Travel Awards.

That means I know how hotels assign rooms, which requests actually get noticed, and what makes a stay feel special instead of just expensive. I bring all of it to every trip I plan.

The long way around

I once traveled through eleven countries in eleven months, and I've taught English in Seoul. In Patagonia I trekked the Refugio Frey and the Cuatro Refugios traverse, bolted my own climbing route and hitchhiked to Chiloé, and I was in Bariloche in 2015 when Volcán Calbuco erupted and covered the lake in ash. In 2020 I walked the whole Appalachian Trail, 2,194 miles from Georgia to Katahdin in Maine.

Wine, rest and a good table

I'm a Court of Master Sommeliers–certified sommelier, a Wines of British Columbia certified ambassador and a 200-hour certified yoga teacher. Wine country, a great dinner and real rest are never an afterthought on my trips.

The Midwest turned out to be great wine country too. Augusta, Missouri, became America's first officially designated wine region eight months before Napa, and I'm writing a book about the Midwest's lost wine history. Ask me about a Missouri wine country weekend.

I speak conversational Spanish and get by in Khmer, Portuguese, Swahili and Korean.