Liberal Arts alumna creates business to share her love of travel

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Penn State alumna Imani Murray is 14 countries into her travel journey, and as she continues to grow her brand, she’s not stopping there.

The 2022 Chinese and materials science and engineering graduate works as an online influencer and travel consultant, all under the brand of her business, ImaniK Travels, LLC. Her mission is to educate and inspire young travelers to see the world.

Since starting her business last year, Murray has received support and inspiration from her involvement in the College of the Liberal Arts and initiatives like Happy Valley LaunchBox’s Summer Founders Program.

Despite having an affinity for the Chinese language from an early age, Murray entered Penn State with the intent to only pursue an engineering degree.

After taking some engineering courses, Murray returned to her love of the Chinese language within the College of the Liberal Arts. It’s this reconnection with the Chinese language that Murray said ultimately prompted her to share her travel journey.

“It really inspired me as I continued learning about people's experiences and people's fears to start my consulting business so I could mitigate the fear that people experience when they're starting to travel,” she said.

Murray also had the opportunity to travel to Austria last year through a trip hosted by the College of the Liberal Arts. After getting an email advertising the trip, Murray said she met with Earl F. Merritt, director of the Office of Equity, Inclusion, and Diversity in the College of the Liberal Arts, to explain that she was interested in the trip but couldn’t afford it.

In response, the Office of Equity, Inclusion, and Diversity paid for Murray’s trip in full.

“The College of the Liberal Arts really gave me an opportunity, and that opportunity has now allowed me to share with others, especially Black students, how studying abroad can be accessible even when it doesn’t seem feasible,” she said. “Earl Merritt opened that door for me.”

Murray said she created her business to address "a lack of representation in the travel community for Black travelers, and especially young Black travelers."

After she graduated high school, Murray lived in China for a year as part of the EF Educational Tours program before attending Penn State. She said that trip, which was her first real travel experience, changed her perspective on travel, being the only Black woman from the program on the trip.

"I wasn't seeing a lot of me there, but I was seeing so many people from different countries,” she said. “As an American going to China, it really changed my perspective about what China was like, what meeting other people was like, just the overall perspective I had of travel — especially of travel as a Black woman."

Through her business, Murray offers four kinds of consultations varying in length where she offers services like answering clients’ travel questions or teaching her clients how to best plan a trip. Murray also hosts trips that allow her clients to follow a pre-planned schedule of events at a set price.

Currently, Murray is planning a northern lights trip for this winter. She and her group will visit Iceland, Norway and Amsterdam over a week and a half to see the northern lights and participate in activities like bobsledding.

“I like bringing people on experiences to try something that they've never tried before because that really increases a lot of people's confidence,” Murray said. “What I really want to do is aspire — create aspiration, not inspiration — because I want something actionable to come from it.”

Between curating custom itineraries for clients, planning trips, and staying engaged on her social media platforms, Murray said that content creation is not all the fun and games it might seem to be. Despite the hard work, Murray said she loves the research that is often involved, and she especially loves seeing clients happy on their trips.

This past summer, Murray participated in the Summer Founders Program, a signature program of Invent Penn State provided in partnership with Happy Valley LaunchBox powered by PNC Bank. The program provides chosen students with $15,000 to work full-time on their businesses over the summer.

“I think the biggest thing that I got out of Summer Founders was not how to be the most successful business or how to get funding,” she said. “It was how to be confident in myself as an entrepreneur.”

Murray recently moved to Thailand where she will continue to work on her business and her own “travel journey.”

“I'm 23, and I have this opportunity thanks to the Summer Founders Program and thanks to my knowledge of Chinese language, so I'm excited,” she said. “I'm excited to try something new and try something that a lot of people will be able to learn from.”