The Power Broker Behind Britain’s Hardest-to-Access Experiences

From early curiosity to opening Britain’s closed doors

Butler’s relationship with Britain’s landmarks began long before she sold them. As a Brownie, she scrambled up and down the ladders of HMS Belfast, not yet aware that the ship had sailed to Normandy on D-Day. Twenty years later, she was back on board, this time managing events—everything from weddings to a one-off performance for Eminem.

Now, HMS Belfast sits in NoteWorthy’s portfolio as a fully private experience, where guests can raise personalised signal flags and see the ship from angles the public never does. “This is what I love about my job because I can really show off my country at its absolute very best and its history,” she said.

Her own path was hardly conventional. “I left school with five GCSEs and I did a GNVQ in travel and tourism,” Butler said. “I just wasn’t an academic, but I’m a hustler and a doer.” That hands-on course led to Thomas Cook, then to venue sales and events. The formalities of the luxury world came later; the instinct to hustle and improvise was there from the start.

Making “exclusive” actually exclusive

One of Butler’s first moves at NoteWorthy was to separate independence from access. Not every family wants (or needs) eight hours a day with a guide—but they do want the doors that only a handful of people can open.

“That’s what I designed,” she explained. “At NoteWorthy, I’ve got these exclusive experiences which actually are exclusive. You cannot find them anywhere. You can’t book them anywhere.”

Her model is built around high-impact half days: slipping behind the scenes at Changing of the Guard while supporting the Guards Museum; a street-art immersion in East London where families design a six-foot canvas with a working artist; private access to lived-in country houses, gardens, and archives that usually stay firmly closed.

Those pieces can fit into a fully curated itinerary or slot into an otherwise independent trip. It’s an approach that resonates particularly with multi-gen families who are confident travellers but still want a handful of “only in London” or “only in Dublin” moments that feel genuinely unrepeatable.

Understanding luxury through the people living it

To keep pace with shifting expectations, Butler listens closely to the people who see guests every day. She recently interviewed 30 of her top guides—out of a network of roughly 350—who each hosted dozens of families over the summer. The patterns were clear.

Royal gossip still dominates the questions (“They’re still asking if we like Harry and Megan.”), but shopping habits have shifted. Department stores are tick-the-box stops, while serious spending often waits for Paris. Touring days have shrunk from eight hours to “two to four hours tops,” often every other day. And planning priorities have changed.

“People are researching restaurants and hotels prior to their trip and actually researching what they’re going to see,” she said. Guests arrive with hotel and restaurant lists saved on their phones and lean on NoteWorthy to shape the cultural spine around them—plus a handful of Instagram-ready moments, from the staircase at Raffles London at The OWO to a pint at The Devonshire.

Although around 95% of NoteWorthy’s clients come from the U.S., Butler thinks in terms of comfort levels rather than nationalities. A New Yorker who treats London as a second home moves very differently from a first-time visitor from Texas or Arkansas trying to “check all the boxes Royals.” Her team calibrates the level of support accordingly, without ever diluting the access.

Protecting relationships and paying it forward

Access at this level, though, doesn’t come from glossy brochures; it comes from people. Museum directors who agree to unlock a gallery out of hours. Street artists who will happily spend an afternoon with a family of nervous first-timers. Members of the aristocracy willing to open their homes to strangers from another continent.

Butler is fiercely protective of those relationships. Early on, she pulled the plug on a 130,000-pound multi-city trip when a client was rude to a guide. “I canceled the booking, she recalled. “I did not want to put that person in front of my contacts.” Losing the revenue hurt; risking the trust she’d built with curators, guards, and private hosts would have been worse.

That network now underpins a philanthropic engine Butler never quite expected. “I didn’t realize actually how much impact we can have, and it came off the back of a charity event,” Butler explained. “And we raised 150,000 pounds in one night.” Today, NoteWorthy trips channel hundreds of thousands of pounds a year to organisations like The Guards Museum, housing charities, and Dogs Trust, where Butler now serves as an ambassador.

Confidence, community, and the next chapter

Alongside NoteWorthy, Butler has begun investing her time and money in other ventures, including Michelin-starred Starling Bistro in Surrey. She’s also working in a mentorship capacity with Lesbian Supper Club, the sold-out events and podcast platform that she’s helping two young founders scale in London and New York.

Her advice to younger women in travel and hospitality tends to come back to self-belief. “It’s all about the confidence,” she told LTR, recalling the industry mentor who once told her bluntly to get out there and talk to people or risk wasting her shot.

Back in London, a refreshed NoteWorthy brand and website now mirrors what the company has been doing quietly for years: centering family travel, illustrating three generations on the road together, and using editorial-style storytelling to explain why a particular door matters.

For the high-end partners who rely on her team to bring Britain, Ireland, and France to life, Butler offers something increasingly rare: a view from the coalface, rooted not in slogans, but in the real people and places that make those doors open in the first place.