penny pitou travel agency

Penny Pitou Travel

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58 Canal St

Laconia, NH 03246

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I recently booked a "complicated" flight to Tanzania. Hansi Glahn was the agent who assisted me. She was courteous, professional and quick to respond to my emails and calls. There was one moment where we had a miscommunication in planning the trip, and Hansi took a "customer is always right" approach to correct the situation, in a way that I rarely see companies behaving nowadays. I was extremely impressed with Penny Pitou travel and would absolutely recommend their services.

My family recently booked a cruise through this Travel Agency. We had special issue with one of the members of out party which was well documented by the agent. We were 4 days out from leaving and we did not even have seats assignments on the air plane to get to the cruise site. BUT we did on the return flight home 7 days later????? I called and spoke with the person in charge there and all I get was EXCUSES. We had to book our own seats and pay an additional charge to the airlines. My advice...DO NOT RELY ON THE AGENCY IF YOU WANT TO TRAVEL.

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New chapter for Penny Pitou Travel

LACONIA — A change in location for Penny Pitou Travel to an office across the street is coinciding with the retirement of its namesake.

Longtime Executive Vice President Kim Terrio, who bought the agency from Penny Pitou two years ago, spoke to The Daily Sun about how the move is helping her team rebuild momentum after the coronavirus pandemic, and Pitou described why 2023, on the eve of her 85th birthday, was the right year to hang it up.

After retiring from her ski racing career, Pitou purchased the travel agency — then called Lakes Travel — in 1974, and Terrio came aboard about a year later.

“I always knew I wanted to travel a lot,” Terrio said. “But I was too short to be a flight attendant.” Pursuing travel agent work from the get-go, “I loved it immediately — I still do,” she said.

By the mid-1980s, Pitou and Terrio had developed their partnership. Pitou never had a taste for office work, and developed a rigorous schedule guiding hiking and skiing in Europe. Terrio, who earned her degree from a travel school in Pennsylvania, was a motivated and passionate leader of a team she described as “absolutely incredible women.”

“We had a chat one time and she said, ‘Why don’t we each do what we’re really good at? You’re really good at running group trips ... and I run the office very well and like to do it,’” Pitou recalled. “And I said, ‘That sounds perfect.’”

Pitou sold the agency to Terrio in 2021, and other than no longer offering her guided trips, very little about how the business functions has changed, Terrio said.

“I thought it was only fair for her to own the agency since she’s been there for so many years — and she was actually running it anyway,” Pitou said.

Article continues after...

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As Pitou had begun to downshift toward retirement, leading her last Austrian ski trip last winter, Terrio got a chance to actualize her long-held hope to move the agency into a smaller space.

The corner building, owned by Pitou, housed the agency since she bought it in 1974.

“This had long been too large a space for us,” Terrio said in an interview, gesturing around the two-floor, 4,000-square-foot, triangular space. During the interview, she removed a few final belongings — framed diplomas that left their shadows on the wall’s beige paint.

Though keen for a more suitable space, Terrio was not anxious to move far: she and her team are very fond of the business community on Canal Street and proud of the growing revitalization energy in the neighborhood, she said.

“How do you graciously bow out of that?” she said, especially given that the agency has been a fixture of the neighborhood for nearly a half-century.

Serendipitously, as Terrio put it, a smaller space opened up across the street this spring. It would allow the agency to enter a period of “rebirth” in more suitable quarters while remaining part of the downtown business community. She jumped at the opportunity.

By the end of May, Pitou had sold the corner building. The agency was settled into its new offices across Canal Street by the beginning of July.

New owner Patrick Clausen, whose family long owned and operated Proctor’s Lakehouse Cottages on Weirs Boulevard, said the old building is a “home run” with its location, unique and many-windowed layout and parking options. While any potential tenants are welcome, he said he’s hopeful the space could bring additional dining downtown and attract a “high-quality, high-class tenant who will be there for the long term.”

The new space, according to Terrio, opens a new chapter for her team in what is proving to be a testy period for the industry.

In the few years before the onset of the pandemic, “we were flying high,” Terrio said. Her client base was stable and vibrant, her staff was both growing and solid, and her suppliers were well-resourced and well-organized.

To develop robust yet smooth-running itineraries, travel agents rely on networks of connections. These connections, as Terrio described, get a client into the Vatican early in the morning.

Those networks were shattered by the pandemic and still have not fully recovered, she said.

While airlines and hotels were able to rebound quickly and nimbly, not all facets of the tourism industry worldwide could.

“We think all the way down,” Terrio said. When most people think about recovery in the industry after pandemic shutdowns, they’re “not thinking about the guide in Napoli who hasn’t worked in three years.”

From the moment coronavirus restrictions set in, her team was absorbed by postponing and rescheduling — and rescheduling and rescheduling — for their clients. The last of those COVID trips, she said, have just wrapped up and Terrio said that “things are starting to get fun again.”

The pandemic was not the first time the travel industry has been fundamentally upended, and it was not the first time the agency’s boat had been rocked.

It comes with the territory, Terrio said, and she’s excited about starting a new chapter.

At its high-water mark of having five offices across the state, the agency is now consolidated in the Laconia office. That had always been its flagship, Terrio said, and with a commitment to remaining agile while maintaining their core team and standards, they are doing “more business than ever using a fraction of the resources.”

After resuming her guided trips after pandemic lockdowns, Pitou decided last year, after more than 40 years, that it was time to retire.

“I wanted to stop when I was on top,” she said. “I had thought to do one more trip, but with me, you know, one more means next year and then one more, one more, one more until I’m 95.”

Remaining an active skier and hiker, both in New Hampshire and across the globe, she’s already booked more than half a dozen trips, including one to watch her granddaughter, Zoe Zimmermann, compete on the World Cup skiing circuit in Europe this winter.

There’s a saying, Pitou recalled, about people who are busier in retirement than when they were working.

“That’s what’s happening to me.”

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Based out of North Conway, New Hampshire, Penny Pitou Travel is a travel agency specializing in destination weddings and honeymoon. The owner, Penny, and her passionate team have all traveled the world and together boast over three decades of experience in the industry. Penny specializes in mountain and ski getaways. A former Olympic silver medalist in downhill skiing, she has a great understanding of some of the world’s most luxurious resorts for unforgettable events. Whether you envision exchanging vows on a tropical beach or in the English countryside, these agents can help organize your dream destination wedding.

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Through consultations, Penny Pitou Travel can start the process of organizing your big day. They will information regarding your desired destination, guest list numbers, logistic details, and more. With their extensive connections with an array of hotels and resorts around the globe, they can formulate a trip that applies to your specific requirements. Other types of trips available include cruises, vacations, tours, and more. The destinations provided by this team include, but are not limited to:

• The Caribbean
• North and South America
• Middle East

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Penny Pitou Travel

Penny Pitou Travel

55 Canal Street, Laconia, NH

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Penny Pitou

• Class of 1976
• Hometown: Bayside, New York
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Hall of Fame Class of 1976

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Like many New England youngsters, Penny first put on skis at age four. She took to skiing “like a duck to water” and in no time was skiing circles around the other girls. By the time she was eight, she was racing the boys and defeating them.

Penny Pitou was born in Bayside, New York in 1938 and moved to Center Harbor and then to Gilford, New Hampshire with her parents when she was seven. In 1955, at age sixteen, Penny astonished the ski world by winning the slalom, downhill and alpine combined championships at the Junior Alpine Championships at Whitefish, Montana. The next year Penny was named to the U.S. Ski Team for the Winter Olympics at Cortina d’ Ampezzo, Italy. Although she raced in all three events (downhill, slalom and giant slalom), she was inexperienced in world class skiing and did not place well. Few knew that she made the ski team using skis that were factory seconds.

Penny went to Europe as a U.S. Ski Team member for the F.I.S. World Championships at Badgastein, Austria in 1958. After the F.I.S. Championships, Penny made the big decision not to return to Middlebury College and stayed in Europe to gain experience by skiing with Europe’s best and prepared herself for the big events that lay ahead. Penny’s parents were of modest means and were unable to underwrite all of her expenses in Europe so Penny had to find a job. She polished her skills in French and German and soon was fluent enough to work as a translator at the Kaestle Ski Factory.

Penny remained in Europe until all but two of the final qualifying races were held for a place on the U.S. Ski Team for the Squaw Valley Olympics. This was cutting it fairly close. A poor showing in either race could have eliminated her chances of making the U.S. team but she easily qualified. The two qualifying races were eastern events. Not having pressure to raise finances for travel and skiing “on her own turf” made a difference. The experience of skiing with some of the “greats” of Europe was a reason she remained in Europe bur her financial situation also played a part. Most skiers had to pay their own travel and expenses to and from the events at this time and Penny did not have the finances to travel across the country for the big qualifying races. Once qualified, the U.S. Ski Team paid the expenses but you were on your own until you made the team.

There was a great deal of pressure put on Penny by the ski scribes and the ski world in general for her to win a medal at the Squaw Valley games. She took the pressure like she had “ice water in her veins” but admitted privately that her “knees shook” and she had “butterflies in her stomach” before every race. No one, especially her competitors, would ever know it by looking at her. Here was a youngster that exuded confidence in her ability and never even considered not winning a medal at Squaw Valley. Although the gold medal eluded her, she won a pair of silver medals – one in the downhill and one in the giant slalom. With these wins in “her pocket”, Penny closed out her international skiing career.

Following the Squaw Valley triumphs, Penny married Egon Zimmerman, an Austrian alpine racer, settled in Gilford, New Hampshire and founded two ski schools – one at nearby Gunstock Ski Area and another in Massachusetts. Penny became a certified professional ski instructor in 1965. She and Egon co-managed the ski schools until 1968 when they divorced. The Zimmermans have two sons, Christian and Kim. After the divorce, Penny traveled the country for two seasons with the International Ski and Sport Show as one of its stars. She accepted a position as fashion designer and consultant for White Stag ski wear, was a sports commentator, a New England tennis champion, a radio and television personality in the New England area, an actress and even coached the Laconia High School Girl’s Ski Team to several successful seasons.

In 1974, Penny purchased a travel agency in Laconia, New Hampshire naming it Penny Pitou Travel, Inc. Her agency is unique in that Penny personally conducts ski and hiking tours to Europe on a regular basis as well as booking cruises and handling routine travel agency duties. Penny’s guided tours are booked over a year in advance. Penny Pitou Travel, Inc. has developed into one of the most popular and top travel agencies in New England and now has branch agencies in Concord and North Conway, New Hampshire.

Penny Pitou was elected to the U.S. National Ski Hall of Fame in Ishpeming, Michigan as a member of the “Class of 1976”. Penny Pitou ranks as one of the greatest female skiers this country has ever produced.

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Penny Pitou continues to lead ski trips and adventures all over the globe. But her heart has never truly left the Lakes Region. She’s never forgotten where she got her start. Photo by Cheryl Senter.

A Lesson in Generosity

Penny Pitou gives back to the communities that supported her Olympic dream

By Network for Good Contributor   |   November 1, 2012

Written by Jim Collins

Before Penny Pitou became one of the most generous benefactors of the Lakes Region; before she was the owner of a nationally known adventure-travel agency; before she won a New Hampshire hardcourt tennis championship; before she appeared on the cover of LIFE magazine and was named “Woman of the Year” by Mademoiselle; before she took two silver medals in alpine skiing at the 1960 Olympics in Squaw Valley and became an international celebrity; Penny Pitou was a high school kid from Gilford whose family couldn’t afford to pay for her skiing.

“Local people kicked in the money so I could pursue my training,” she says. “I discovered early on how big a difference generosity can make.”

With the financial resources of her then-husband, Milo Pike, whose family-owned Pike Industries had been responsible for most of the state’s major paving projects dating back to 1872, Pitou helped create a charitable fund to give something back to the people in the Lakes Region. They specifically set it up as a donor-advised fund, giving Pitou the latitude and discretion to guide the money where she felt it could do the most good. The fund has generously supported the Spaulding Youth Center in Northfield, a residential treatment and educational center for young people with autism and other neurological disorders. Money from the fund helped convert the old Prescott Farm in Laconia into an environmental education center. The fund helped the Lakes Region Day Care Center find and move into a new location. It has helped students, businesses, nonprofits.

“My real passion — more than skiing — is helping disadvantaged women, children, and families,” Pitou says. “And I love helping get projects off the ground, to be part of the beginnings of things. Then, when I can, through scholarships, for example, I love helping to make those things accessible to everyone.” Over 20 years, she has given away some $1.2 million dollars.

Now in her 70s, Penny Pitou continues to lead ski trips in Europe and adventures all over the globe, as she has for decades. But her heart has never truly left the Lakes Region of central New Hampshire. She’s never forgotten where she got her start.

This article originally appeared in the 2012 Fall/Winter Purpose Newsletter. 

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Penny Pitou

Biographical information

After several successful seasons with the U.S. ski team, Penny Pitou competed at the 1956 Winter Olympics, but with little success. She continued to ski the European circuit, however, and by 1958 had gained a reputation as one of the world’s top skiiers. Her European experience also included becoming fluent in several languages and climbing the Matterhorn – without a guide.

In 1959 Penny Pitou began to win downhills and giant slaloms with frequency and was a gold medal favorite at Squaw Valley in 1960. She just missed the gold in two races at Squaw Valley but her name made the headlines there in another way. She was linked romantically with Austrian star, Egon Zimmermann , and they would later marry and then divorce.

After retiring from competition, Penny Pitou began to run ski schools in New England. She also served as a fashion consultant to the ski industry and a participant in ski shows and ski promotions. She started Penny Pitou Travel, one of the largest travel agencies in New England, which specialized in arranging ski trips and tours to Europe.

Olympic family relations

• Wife (divorced) of Egon N. Zimmermann

Special Notes

• Listed in Olympians Who Won a Medal at the World Alpine Ski Championships (0–2–0 1960 Squaw Valley (Olympics) silver: downhill and giant slalom)

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New chapter for Penny Pitou Travel

LACONIA — A change in location for Penny Pitou Travel to an office across the street is coinciding with the retirement of its namesake.

Longtime Executive Vice President Kim Terrio, who bought the agency from Penny Pitou two years ago, spoke to The Daily Sun about how the move is helping her team rebuild momentum after the coronavirus pandemic, and Pitou described why 2023, on the eve of her 85th birthday, was the right year to hang it up.

After retiring from her ski racing career, Pitou purchased the travel agency — then called Lakes Travel — in 1974, and Terrio came aboard about a year later.

“I always knew I wanted to travel a lot,” Terrio said. “But I was too short to be a flight attendant.” Pursuing travel agent work from the get-go, “I loved it immediately — I still do,” she said.

By the mid-1980s, Pitou and Terrio had developed their partnership. Pitou never had a taste for office work, and developed a rigorous schedule guiding hiking and skiing in Europe. Terrio, who earned her degree from a travel school in Pennsylvania, was a motivated and passionate leader of a team she described as “absolutely incredible women.”

“We had a chat one time and she said, ‘Why don’t we each do what we’re really good at? You’re really good at running group trips ... and I run the office very well and like to do it,’” Pitou recalled. “And I said, ‘That sounds perfect.’”

Pitou sold the agency to Terrio in 2021, and other than no longer offering her guided trips, very little about how the business functions has changed, Terrio said.

“I thought it was only fair for her to own the agency since she’s been there for so many years — and she was actually running it anyway,” Pitou said.

Article continues after...

Yesterday's Most Read Articles

Really Bad Chess

As Pitou had begun to downshift toward retirement, leading her last Austrian ski trip last winter, Terrio got a chance to actualize her long-held hope to move the agency into a smaller space.

The corner building, owned by Pitou, housed the agency since she bought it in 1974.

“This had long been too large a space for us,” Terrio said in an interview, gesturing around the two-floor, 4,000-square-foot, triangular space. During the interview, she removed a few final belongings — framed diplomas that left their shadows on the wall’s beige paint.

Though keen for a more suitable space, Terrio was not anxious to move far: she and her team are very fond of the business community on Canal Street and proud of the growing revitalization energy in the neighborhood, she said.

“How do you graciously bow out of that?” she said, especially given that the agency has been a fixture of the neighborhood for nearly a half-century.

Serendipitously, as Terrio put it, a smaller space opened up across the street this spring. It would allow the agency to enter a period of “rebirth” in more suitable quarters while remaining part of the downtown business community. She jumped at the opportunity.

By the end of May, Pitou had sold the corner building. The agency was settled into its new offices across Canal Street by the beginning of July.

New owner Patrick Clausen, whose family long owned and operated Proctor’s Lakehouse Cottages on Weirs Boulevard, said the old building is a “home run” with its location, unique and many-windowed layout and parking options. While any potential tenants are welcome, he said he’s hopeful the space could bring additional dining downtown and attract a “high-quality, high-class tenant who will be there for the long term.”

The new space, according to Terrio, opens a new chapter for her team in what is proving to be a testy period for the industry.

In the few years before the onset of the pandemic, “we were flying high,” Terrio said. Her client base was stable and vibrant, her staff was both growing and solid, and her suppliers were well-resourced and well-organized.

To develop robust yet smooth-running itineraries, travel agents rely on networks of connections. These connections, as Terrio described, get a client into the Vatican early in the morning.

Those networks were shattered by the pandemic and still have not fully recovered, she said.

While airlines and hotels were able to rebound quickly and nimbly, not all facets of the tourism industry worldwide could.

“We think all the way down,” Terrio said. When most people think about recovery in the industry after pandemic shutdowns, they’re “not thinking about the guide in Napoli who hasn’t worked in three years.”

From the moment coronavirus restrictions set in, her team was absorbed by postponing and rescheduling — and rescheduling and rescheduling — for their clients. The last of those COVID trips, she said, have just wrapped up and Terrio said that “things are starting to get fun again.”

The pandemic was not the first time the travel industry has been fundamentally upended, and it was not the first time the agency’s boat had been rocked.

It comes with the territory, Terrio said, and she’s excited about starting a new chapter.

At its high-water mark of having five offices across the state, the agency is now consolidated in the Laconia office. That had always been its flagship, Terrio said, and with a commitment to remaining agile while maintaining their core team and standards, they are doing “more business than ever using a fraction of the resources.”

After resuming her guided trips after pandemic lockdowns, Pitou decided last year, after more than 40 years, that it was time to retire.

“I wanted to stop when I was on top,” she said. “I had thought to do one more trip, but with me, you know, one more means next year and then one more, one more, one more until I’m 95.”

Remaining an active skier and hiker, both in New Hampshire and across the globe, she’s already booked more than half a dozen trips, including one to watch her granddaughter, Zoe Zimmermann, compete on the World Cup skiing circuit in Europe this winter.

There’s a saying, Pitou recalled, about people who are busier in retirement than when they were working.

“That’s what’s happening to me.”

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SKIING & HIKING ADVENTURES

                       ski the alps with penny pitou, we sadly announce that the skiing and hiking adventures with penny have ended. she has decided it is time to step back from these group trips. almost 50 years of skiing and hiking we hope she has left you with amazing memories.....penny pitou travel is here for you and we will gladly book any ski vacation or other trips you have on your bucket list....,    .

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