Today we’d like to introduce you to Carlita Pitts.
Hi Carlita, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I’m originally from Columbus, Ohio, and my fascination with travel and discovering new places started long before I ever thought about turning it into a business. As a kid, I loved maps and globes, watched travel shows on TV, and would request brochures from state tourism offices just to learn about different destinations. Whenever my family traveled, I couldn’t wait to stop at the welcome centers and collect information about where we were visiting. I would even purposely watch television shows and cartoons in other languages just for the fun of it. I couldn’t understand what they were saying; I was simply fascinated by other places and cultures. Looking back, I guess you could say a love of tourism has always been in me.
That curiosity stayed with me. Professionally, much of my career has centered on events, engagement, relationship-building, and creating memorable experiences. Personally, travel became one of my favorite ways to explore, and over time, wine became a big part of that. I became interested not just in what was in the glass, but in the people, places, food, hospitality, and stories surrounding it.
I naturally became the person friends looked to for recommendations and itineraries, and as I began sharing more of my experiences, that passion eventually grew into DiVine Lita, a wine tourism business I founded to connect people with wine, places, and experiences.
Today, I promote wine tourism through curated travel experiences, partnerships with wine and hospitality companies, and destination storytelling that showcases what makes a place worth visiting. At its heart, the work still comes back to something that little girl surrounded by maps, travel brochures, and cartoons in languages she couldn’t understand would recognize: discovering what makes a place special and inspiring other people to experience it for themselves.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Building a business around something I genuinely love has definitely come with a learning curve. There’s a big difference between sharing beautiful wine and travel experiences and figuring out how to make that passion sustainable. Because much of my work initially began with content creation, one of my earliest lessons was understanding my market value and becoming comfortable pricing my work accordingly.
I also had to learn that value isn’t always measured by what someone is willing to offer you. Sometimes there’s an expectation that creative work will be exchanged for a product or experience rather than compensation. There are absolutely times when a barter partnership makes sense to me, but I’ve learned to consider the full value of what I’m bringing to the table: my time, ideas, expertise, planning, travel, production, storytelling, and audience. As DiVine Lita has expanded beyond content creation, that lesson has carried into other areas of the business. I’m much more confident now in evaluating opportunities, recognizing when there is genuine mutual value, advocating for compensation, and sometimes simply saying no.
Another challenge has been showing the full range of what I bring to the work. I genuinely love digital storytelling, but my interests and experience go well beyond creating content. I love developing itineraries, bringing people together, creating personalized experiences, researching destinations, and thinking about all the pieces that make someone want to visit a place and remember it afterward. My professional background in events, engagement, relationship building, and experience design has shaped that side of DiVine Lita too.
I’ve also been intentional about continuing to learn. I was one of ten participants from across the country selected for Oeno Camp, a three-day Virginia wine immersion program created in partnership with Oenoverse and The Veraison Project. Experiences like that have helped me deepen my industry knowledge, build relationships, and continue growing beyond what people may initially see on social media.
More recently, an unexpected career transition has challenged me to think even more intentionally about what I’m building. I certainly don’t have everything figured out, but I’m much clearer about my value, what I bring to the table, and the kind of opportunities I want to pursue. And I think learning that has been one of the most valuable parts of the journey.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about DiVine Lita?
DiVine Lita is a wine tourism business built around something I genuinely love: helping people discover great wine through great experiences. The name has a little story behind it. People would jokingly refer to me as a “vine leader” because of how passionate I was about wine tourism and how often I was the person recommending where to go and what to experience. That eventually inspired DiVine Lita, a play on “vine” and “divine,” combined with Lita, a shortened version of my name, Carlita.
Today, my work sits at the intersection of wine, travel, hospitality, storytelling, and experiences. I create wine-country itineraries, coordinate intimate wine experiences, dinners, and gatherings, tell destination stories, and partner with wineries, wine brands, and hospitality companies to introduce their products and experiences to new audiences.
What I really love is showing people that wine tourism is about so much more than walking into a tasting room and ordering a flight. I’m thinking about the whole experience: Where are we staying? Where are we eating? Which wineries should we visit? What makes this destination special? Who am I creating this for, and what would make it feel personal to them? Those details can turn a winery visit into an experience you’re still talking about months later.
My professional background in events, engagement, relationship building, and experience design naturally shapes how I approach DiVine Lita. I love digital storytelling, but I’m equally excited about creating the experience behind the story.
Long-term, I’d love to grow DiVine Lita into a company that touches many sides of wine tourism. I see it encompassing destination storytelling and media, curated travel and retreats, experiential marketing and creative brand activations, and partnerships across the wine, tourism, and hospitality industries. I’d also love to launch a wine tourism newsletter where I can share destinations, events, stories, and places worth discovering from my point of view.
And somewhere along the way, I’d love to earn my WSET certification. I joke that I can probably plan your wine-country weekend before I can identify everything in your glass! My expertise has really grown around wine tourism, and I’m excited to continue deepening my knowledge of wine itself.
What I’m most proud of is that DiVine Lita brings together so many things I genuinely love: wine, travel, hospitality, storytelling, creating experiences, and bringing people together. I’m still discovering everything the business can become, and I think that’s part of what makes building it so exciting.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamthelita/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@iamthelita
