Caribana is Jamaican reggae, Brazilian samba and a parade of culture, food, dance and crafts.
Held annually, Toronto’s Caribana Festival is a celebration of the Caribbean culture, its heritage and its people. The festival is also a favorite destination of Lemonia DeCloutte.
It represents everything she loves about travel and travel planning: its people, their places and their things.
The festival is other lands and the culture and heritage of those lands interpreted through song, dance, food and crafts. It is something new, something different and engaging.
It is everything DeCloutte strives to give her Lemon-T Travelers.
“They get the benefit of seeing someplace else,” DeCloutte said. “They get the benefit of relaxing. They get the benefit of just breaking away, just leaving the humdrum behind.”
DeCloutte, of Detroit, got into travel planning as a side gig.
She wanted extra money for her investment club and raised it by pulling together trips for friends, family and church members. Today, 25 years later and long after the investment club has disintegrated, Lemon-T Travelers is still a sure bet.
“I just love to travel,” DeCloutte said. “You can call me in the morning and say ‘Be at the airport by noon,’ and I’ll be there if I can.”
Lemon-T Travelers offers all types of getaways, including cruises, shopping excursions, plays, and extended travel near and far. Most trips, however, are overnight trips that range in price from $199 to $499.
Most recently, DeCloutte and her group did the Bahamas, Las Vegas and New York City. She is now planning her second trip to see The Color Purple on Broadway.
For her travelers, that means a minitour of New York and a trek through Harlem, Central Park and Time Square; the food; shopping; and, of course, the hit show.
There is also DeCloutte’s service.
The retired city-of-Detroit worker said she is known for her classy itineraries and attention to details. On a personal level, Decloutte describes herself as outgoing yet quiet. She is strictly business when she is putting together a trip, but she truly believes in having a good time.
“I’m a sharing, caring person,” she said. The Santa Goodwill Trip in which she participates regularly is evidence of that.
During the holidays, the Lemon-T Travelers often volunteer their travel time with the less fortunate overseas. Armed with small gifts like toothpaste, combs and brushes, the group travels to orphanages and senior citizens homes.
In recent years, DeCloutte and her group have spent seven to nine days celebrating the holidays with the needy in places like Brazil, Japan and Thailand.
DeCloutte said the trip is a hit with her travelers, and it blesses her as well.
“It makes me grateful that I’m here in America,” DeCloutte said. “We may have our problems here, but it’s nothing like the rest of the world.
