There's Got To Be A Better Way

Rashmi Jain Hudson’s epiphany came in the midst of an SEC football weekend.

It was 2010 and Hudson, her husband and daughter traveled to Athens to visit her son, then a freshman at the University of Georgia, for Parents Weekend. The family also attended their first football game.

“Those people dress up for games,” Hudson said, laughing. “There’s no such thing as casual. And here I was … supposed to walk four blocks—in heels—just to make it to the room. It wasn’t a pretty sight.”

Hudson, who’d spent 22 years working for AFLAC, was a professional traveler. She knew all the tricks, and all the hassles.

To blend in with the throng of snazzily dressed parents and students, Hudson, had to lug not only a suitcase,—for lack of a proper garment bag—but carry several dresses on hangers in order to avoid nasty wrinkles.

“That was when I sort of looked around,” Hudson said, “and realized that there’s got to be a better way to travel.”

It was in the shadow of Sanford Stadium that the first seed of inspiration was planted.

Some 10 years later, in November of 2020, Hudson posted on Facebook that she was selling the Alltimate 3-in-1 “soft-side” luggage set which she had invented. She received more than 900 likes/comments. At 7:30 the next morning she made her first sale to a “sweet, dear friend.”

Alltimate luggage was up and running.

“God has really guided me,” Hudson said. “He’s opened doors and closed others, but I’ve been learning all the way.”

Read full post by Brett Buckner on page 33 of Columbus and the Valley Magazine.