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Islanders Laney and Maddie Henson share their eco-conscious adventures from around the globe.
Maddie and Laney Henson are two sisters on a mission to demystify the world of eco-tourism and encourage young people to follow their passions. They’re based on MV; their @baggagegirls accounts have amassed nearly 11,000 followers on Instagram and 23,000 followers on TikTok, so it’s clear that they’re not alone in their love of all things sustainable travel. (You can also find them at baggagegirls.com)
When I first came across the Baggage Girls social media pages, I must admit, I was skeptical. Having grown up on the Vineyard, I have a lot of opinions about the Island’s complex relationship with tourism, especially when it comes to protecting the Island’s natural spaces. I thought, “Who are these well-traveled outsiders purporting to have the inside scoop when it comes to planning an eco-conscious trip to Martha’s Vineyard? Surely they’re exploiting the cultural cachet of my beloved hometown for clicks and views.” I was a shark hunting for “Oaks Bluff” blood in the water.
Within moments of meeting Laney and Maddie, my anxieties faded away. They are smart, thoughtful, and intentional in every aspect of the work they do. In addition to producing content for and building the Baggage Girls brand on social media, they also take local businesses on as marketing clients. Their goal is to help connect travelers to ethical, sustainable experiences on Martha’s Vineyard and beyond. Maddie also co-owns Top Shell oyster farm in Edgartown’s Katama Bay.
The Beginnings of Baggage Girls
“My sustainability journey started early on, when I was 16 or 17,” Maddie, the older of the two sisters at 26 and the first to move out to the Vineyard, told me. “The more I learned about climate change, it quickly felt very doom and gloom. I was very discouraged and stressed out for years. I didn’t have a lot of hope and was really hesitant to talk about it.”
After graduating high school, Maddie moved to the Bahamas for four months to work in marine conservation. She spent her time scuba diving, learning about marine species, and working with marine biologists surveying reefs and reporting on endangered species. “We grew up in Chicago, so this was my first time living on the ocean and doing the things that I’m passionate about,” she said. “It absolutely changed my life.”
In the summer of 2017, Maddie came to the Vineyard and started working for Island Spirit Kayak while volunteering with Friends of Sengekontacket and the Lagoon Pond Association. “I learned that even working on a small scale, these Island organizations are having a tangible impact,” Maddie said. “That led me into oyster farming, which was my first attempt to make a real impact on a community I love and do something to promote sustainability on the Island.” Maddie moved to the Vineyard full-time in 2021 after completing a degree in marketing online while traveling, traversing the U.S. and visiting at least 15 different countries.
Laney, who’s 25, joined Maddie on the Island in the summer of 2020 when her corporate publishing internship went remote. “I fell in love with the natural beauty of the Island,” Laney said. “I started arranging my life around how I could keep coming back to the Vineyard.” In her senior year of college, Laney wrote her honors thesis about eco-tourism and sustainable development on Martha’s Vineyard. After graduating college in 2022, Laney moved to the Island and started working on the blog that would become Baggage Girls.
Building the Baggage Girls Brand
“As we began building our business, our dad was dealing with [glioblastoma, a terminal brain cancer], and passed away. That was a huge catalyst for both of us, our desires to travel, try new things, and be less afraid of taking risks,” Laney said. “Our dad was our biggest supporter and he absolutely loved Martha’s Vineyard. He really inspired so much of what we do and was a big piece in building this brand.”
It was difficult for Laney and Maddie to travel and build their business while wanting to spend time with family at home. “Working on [Baggage Girls] has given us so much hope and excitement. It’s a reminder that life is so beautiful, even when it’s hard,” Laney said. “We are always prioritizing talking about sustainable travel, but I also want to encourage people to go after what they love and are interested in.”
With Maddie’s photography, Laney’s writing, and their combined marketing experience and passion for sustainable travel, they turned Baggage Girls into the thriving brand it is today. “It’s not necessarily about pushing people to buy more, or to do this and that. But, as people go through the world, wherever they might find themselves, we can encourage them to be a bit more conscious about who they support and how they do it,” Laney says. “Sharing our stories just makes it easier for people who otherwise feel like they don’t even know where to start.”
As travelers, the best thing we can do is support the small, local businesses in the places we travel to.
– Laney Henson
While Laney and Maddie both emphasize the importance of “leave no trace” travel and other small habits like always carrying a reusable water bottle, with Baggage Girls they encourage their followers to be especially conscious of the economic side of sustainable travel. “As travelers, the best thing we can do is support the small, local businesses in the places we travel to,” Laney said. “That’s how we keep money in the local economy and ultimately benefit the actual destinations themselves.”
Recently, Baggage Girls launched their first digital product, the Martha’s Vineyard Travel Guide. This e-book encourages visitors to the Island to experience Martha’s Vineyard through the lens of local businesses, nature, and community. In addition to restaurant recommendations, tips for getting around, and favorite outdoor activities, the Martha’s Vineyard Travel Guide includes small discounts for local businesses. “Our goal with [this travel guide] comes from recognizing that Martha’s Vineyard is a very large-scale tourist destination, and it has been for many, many years,” Laney explains. “We wanted to do something that shared local businesses and local artists so that [visitors] can more easily find and support them.”
In addition to highlighting small businesses on the Vineyard, the Baggage Girls brand brings their followers with them on eco-adventures around the world. For example, they recently returned from a trip to the Galapagos and were amazed by how the country of Ecuador has implemented a unique tourism infrastructure that protects their endangered habitats while also educating visitors on the environment they’re seeing and the local cultural customs. “I feel like a lot of what we do is take something that people might think is very ‘nature-y’ and make it more mainstream,” Maddie said. “It’s all about making sustainability more approachable — it can be so overwhelming. To us it’s all about recognizing that people are going to travel anyway, so how can we make small, approachable changes that add up to making a real impact.”
