New YouTube Series Travel People: Living Authentic Lives, Finding Kindred Spirits, Fulfilling Dreams Episode 1: Spain

Watch Episode One here or skip to sections which interest you marked below. A lot of us are getting through sheltering at home by meeting online with old friends.  I thank God for technology that bashes through borders during a pandemic. Looking back at how we’ve navigated change in the past can transform how we handle new norms in the present and future. Being…

2020 Vision from Lessons Learned

Reflect, then project. For those of us who thought we’d be farther along in 2020 in some area(s) –education, career, relationships, health, finances, savings, freedom, peace–think again. Rather than be discouraged, let’s look back with gratitude at how far we’ve come! Make a list of what you did accomplish in the last decade. Identify steps you took in the direction of where you want…

Additional Gallery of Northern Portugal and Spain: Camino/Travel Inspiration

If you missed my article above which explains the gallery below, please read it HERE. In seven days this Southern Girl Gone Global Goes Home.  After living in Morocco and The Dominican Republic for the last three years, I’m excited to return to Nashville–a city I love–where StyleBlueprint is bringing women together locally and globally.  Recently I described in the article above my adventure in Gorgeous…

Spanish Steps Offers Camino Tours and Beyond

When in doubt, just take the next small step. –Paulo Coelho, The Pilgrimage Whether wanting to explore Spain (and other countries’ roads that lead there), pursue a personal dream, ponder in peace, practice wellness through hiking or yoga, learn language, hear stories from travelers around the world, Spanish Steps leads the way in offering options.  I fell in love with Spain last year, and experiencing…

Cologne, Germany Christmas Markets

I am still with my friend’s family at their home in Idstein. Earlier this week I spent 48 hours in Cologne. In this city in 1709 Giovanni Maria Farina, an Italian perfume maker, created a fragrance he named after his new home. He described to his brother the concoction called Eau de Cologne: “I have found a fragrance that reminds me of an Italian…

In Cologne but Never Alone: Reminded by Christmas to Fear Not

  Christmas is charged with nostalgia. I’m in bed looking out my window at the Market of the Elves in Cologne, Germany. Under tents and trees all lit up, replicas of funny bearded men beckon below. Elf statues are more numerous here than in pictures of Santa’s workshop in the book Mama Lou read to my sister and me when we were kids. I…

Girona Gem for Solo Travel, Romantic Getaway, or Group Retreat

When anxious, uneasy and bad thoughts come, I go to the sea, and the sea drowns them out with its great wide sounds, cleanses me with its noise, and imposes a rhythm upon everything in me that is bewildered and confused. —Rainer Maria Rilke When drowned by stress, I go to one of my Happy Places which is often the ocean.  In my 2015 travels…

Spring Fling with Andalusia

There are so many precious moments we take for granted or don’t appreciate until later. Then there are those that while IN the moment, we realize we are happy and THIS time we will never forget. I knew on April 3, 2015 I was in one of those moments. Since reading Paulo Coehlo’s The Alchemist–an inspiration for my move abroad– I’ve wanted to see Andalusia–the…

Easter in Europe

It’s good to be back on the blog and away in Spain.  I’m writing again, finally, from my balcony in Tarifa in another Cádiz– not the one beside Kentucky lake where I grew up, but in a province of Andalusia.  From here Santiago, seeker in The Alchemist, set out on his adventure. Here I’m taking a much needed break from mine. As the fog…

Travel Tips for London

When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life.—Samuel Johnson This blog is about more than my move to Morocco. It’s about all of us moving, changing, learning. It’s about discovering new people and places that make us come alive. A new year is the perfect time to move from pondering to planning new experiences in 2015. Like travel. Since some readers…