Meet The Founder

At 53, I traded my business suit for a wetsuit.

That decision started in 2017, in one of the last conversations I had with my mother before she passed. She was on hospice, and she looked at me and asked — direct as she always was — "When are you going to start living?"

I had raised my children. Built a career. I was a grandmother. And I was still grinding, still performing, still waiting for some invisible finish line before I gave myself permission to breathe. She wasn't having it. She reminded me of the little hard-headed girl she raised — the one who pushed past limits and did things that made people raise an eyebrow. She told me that life waits for no one, and you don't get a do-over. Do what you want while you still have good health.

She passed 2 weeks later. A month after that, I created Y.O.G.O.L. Travel & Events. 

I also named it after the way she lived. My mother never had a driver's license, not once, but she went wherever she wanted to go. I watched her map out bus routes to airports, plot paths for her wheelchair, calculate her way to Atlantic City just because she wanted to be there. She was always going. She taught me that the only thing worse than not being able to go is being able to go and choosing not to.

So now I travel to honor her. And I built YOGOL for every Black professional who is still waiting for their own permission slip, to put down the performance, step out of the role, and go live their real life.

You only get one. Act like it.
— Angelia, Founder · Y.O.G.O.L. Travel & Events