A Year of Travel and Transformation Through Women's Stories

As we bid farewell to 2024, I’m excited to share an inspiring journey through the voices of 13 incredible women who graced the podcast this year. From the universal language of food with Annie Sim of The Table Less Traveled to the enlightening perspective on ethical animal interactions with Nora Livingston from Animal Experience International, each guest has left a profound impact. Annie's stories reminded me of my great grandmother’s Slovakian heritage and the unifying power of sharing a meal, while Nora sparked my interest in experiencing Mongolia's majestic horses in their natural habitat. This episode overflows with personal reflections and aspirations, and how these remarkable women have inspired my own travel and life goals.

A special shout-out to Kate Evans, whose expertise in house-sitting and authorship has nudged me towards new writing endeavors and expanded my global networking horizons. Monique Giroux's passion for forest bathing has been a gentle reminder to intentionally reconnect with nature, nurturing a mindset of gratitude and reducing stress. And let’s not forget Julie F Finn, whose tales of early retirement and nomadic adventures have reignited a longing for exploration. Join me as I recount how these powerful stories have transformed my thinking and how they might just inspire your next adventure too.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome back, Sister Travelers. Well, we're here at the end of 2024. And I love to reflect on my past year and, of course, set goals for 2025. But as I was doing that, not only in my personal life, but also in regards to this podcast and my business, I was reflecting on the incredible, courageous guests that I had on my show this past year. I had 13 women that came on my show and shared their travel stories. Their inspiration has inspired me and I wanted to share with you, as I reflected on each person and what they shared on their episode with me, how that has inspired me to take action. So I wanted to share what nuggets of truth I've also just pulled from them and have maybe applied in my life, or hope to apply in my life, in my personal life and maybe even in my travels as well.

Speaker 1: 1:03

My first guest happened in episode 71, Annie Sim of the Table Less Traveled. Now, as she started sharing her stories of what they do as a company and how, of course, food is involved, as the title of the company suggests, and organizing group trips based around the cultural food experience, I was so reminded, taken back to my great grandmother, who came across on the boat from she's Slovak and did not speak any English, and how her love language was also food, bringing everybody together around a table, and just how much love there was there and how you could. You know just how food can transcend cultural barriers, language barriers, and you can share in that similar experience and just be filled with such joy and remembrance. A lot of memories come back to me based around food, and so Annie Sim and her company bring that to other people and I just I love that and I am just reminded of how much food is often at the center center for me, for my culture and for other cultures as well. So food can bring people together despite language barriers.

Speaker 1: 2:31

My second guest was in episode 75, Nora Livingston from Animal Experience International. Well, I will have to say I learned a lot. I got educated on different ways to look at animal experiences and to be mindful of and how this it's called a consent based animal experience that they promote in her company, and how important it is to meet the animals in their own environment and not to exploit the animals. But what really inspired me about my conversation with Nora? To possibly I'm crossing my fingers, if I can get the money together they have an amazing new animal experience that they just started with the horses in Mongolia and that just really sparked an interest for me and I hope that maybe someday I could get to join one of her group tours there, Very interested in that, and it's also a reminder in general that there's an importance in some of our trips that they could be offered as service to others or to the animals in this case.

Speaker 1: 3:48

My next guest was Kate Evans in episode 83. She's an author and house sitting expert. Well, the remarkable thing is I recently got to actually meet Kate Evans in person while I was traveling in Portugal. But Kate Evans inspired me to consider writing a book because she's an amazing author and inspires other people to do the same. But her house sitting expertise also got me to thinking about how I could network a little bit more and tweak my profile so that I can get more house sitting gigs in my future. So definitely learned a lot from Kate and loved my time with her personally when we were in Portugal. Lovely, lovely conversations we had.

Speaker 1: 4:37

Next one was in episode 89. I had Monique Giraud from Flourish with Monique and she's also an author that wrote Lost Intentionally Well, so Monique's specialty is sort of that forest bathing idea and getting out in nature. And so what I was inspired by Monique is that I am needing to spend more time, make it more intentional, even though I'm not maybe not traveling, but in my weekly or monthly time here and where I'm living, to get outside and, of course, spend time in nature. I do love doing that anyways, but it was a reminder to me of how important that is in reducing stress and anxiety in our lives and, among other things, just bringing you closer to nature and having such a gratitude mindset as well when you do that. Next I had Julie F Finn. Well, actually Julie was on twice, so she was on in episode 78 and 94. And I loved my conversation with Julie.

Speaker 1: 5:45

She is so fun to watch and follow. She's been doing some travel. She's a nomad and she retired early and so is traveling the world. But I love, while she's traveling, how she is open to developing friendships and community along the way, and that really showed me how important it is because in her nomadic life and her travels she's actually run into people again or connected with people, you know, when she's come back to that country for a second or third time. So it just shows you how important developing those connections, those friendships, are while you travel, because you just never know when you might run into them or be able to connect again. And as a solo traveler, it is really nice to from time to time have that personal connection with other people while you're traveling.

Speaker 1: 6:42

In episode 96, I had Polina Rovinsky and she was stressing the importance. She's traveled quite a bit. She was born and raised in Russia and so this whole idea I think for her it's. I noticed how curiosity leads to amazing travel experiences is the one of the nuggets I pulled from our conversation with her and I would totally agree. Curiosity is just a great leader of of just any kind of travels that we do, right, and it makes it just more interesting. And then for her, she has this love of connecting people while traveling as well and she has even started a company where she does that. She gathers female entrepreneurs and connects them and just has such a heart for doing that and, again, just like Julie, feels there's importance in connecting and developing community along the way.

Speaker 1: 7:43

Next, in episode 98, I had Beth Binger from Bing Travel and you know Beth and I had some great conversations and have similar sort of feeling about things, but she stresses road travel. That's what her specialty is in the US and you know. It just reminded me that I need to return to the road. I need to get another long road trip in. I just I love it and just her excitement about it and her passion for road travel really got me thinking okay, I need to hit the road again, and so, with that in mind, I did book a trip to Florida the end of January and that will be once I fly there. It will be a road trip to certain areas in Florida, so I'm really excited to just get back in a car and just drive right and explore. So thank you, Beth, for that inspiration.

Speaker 1: 8:41

Episode 105, I had Joy Alway. Well, I don't know what to say, because Joy literally inspired me to do to walk the Camino, and she's done a few and really was inspirational, really helpful in some tactical information as well. She also has two books out now, One when we recorded, but she's just released a second book as well, so you can check out her books. You can get them on Amazon, but very inspirational and, look, I did it. I Walk the Camino. I was really inspired by her.

Speaker 1: 9:18

Episode 106, I had Kim from second chapter, Nomad, and now Kim's been living the nomad life really since since the pandemic hit and what I loved hearing from her and and it really helped me because you know I've considered the nomad life but I often kind of worry about this whole like feeling a sense of home. I think we all like to have that feeling a sense of home, but Kim shared with me how she does that with her travels and how she will bring items that remind her of home and she sets them up wherever she's staying and it gives her that comfort that we often all need, that we have a piece of home going with us, even though we might be in a strange place. The other thing is that in talking to Kim I realized that she herself, amidst her travels, has found another country besides. She is a US citizen, but besides the US she has found another country that, in my opinion, almost feels like a second home to her, and so she has a love for England and has been there and gone back many, many times. So I almost look at that as like her second home and I am currently in a search for my next place, my next country, that when I get there I know you're going to. You know a lot of us feel it. If we arrive at a country we almost feel like, oh my gosh, this feels like home and so I think I might have found it, but I'm still got so many more countries to check off and explore and see if there's another place that might feel like home to me.

Speaker 1: 11:03

And then, in episode 109, I had Sharon McQuaid and she shared her journey from being an educator in a classroom to this world explorer, and the nugget of truth I got from her is travel helps us find our voice and therefore I'm inspired to keep doing this travel lifestyle, despite what the norm is and despite what others say. So that's sort of what I gained from our conversation there, Loved it and loved how she was able to find her voice within her travels. At number 112 episode, I had Sarah Davis. Well, Sarah Davis really inspired me and you're going to want to follow up on this one.

Speaker 1: 11:56

To get back to doing regular adventures, try something new. So back when I were on my 55th birthday, I had developed a 55 by 55 sort of bucket list and of course didn't quite get to them all, but the whole idea and this is actually how that bucket list kind of started was I was trying to implement more adventure into my regular life, Whether it was something I did weekly or monthly. I just needed to get back out there and find the fun in life again, instead of always just striving and working, even though, you know, I do still have a job. But she inspired me to get back to that, and so I have been so inspired that in 2025, I have planned to do 25 adventures and you can follow me on those adventures on my Instagram page and that is going to be Solo travel adventures 50. And that is solo travel adventures five zero, and that's where I'm going to be posting all my adventures for 2025. And you can follow Sarah. I know I mentioned this in her uh, her pod, my podcast with her, but she's doing 52. She calls them gulps and that's the same idea. So she's got 52 to get done in the year, and so she's really inspired me truly, because I've gotten that idea from her. So thank you, Sarah.

Speaker 1: 13:24

I loved having you on, and then, in episode 113, I had Kimberly Long on and what I learned from her was just the importance of finding a safe place to heal and to recharge if you're doing a retreat. So we had talked about kind of her experience with a retreat and how important that is. And many women, you know we are so stressed out and retreats are a beautiful way to kind of get away to recharge. Whether that's physically, mentally, spiritually, health-wise, it depends on what kind of retreat you choose to go to. But the important thing is that you find a place where you feel safe and you feel welcomed and it's you know it, it's beneficial for you when it's in that sort of space where it's a warm place and a safe place for you to experience that time and your retreat.

Speaker 1: 14:27

And my final uh guest this past year was episode 116 with Stephanie Zaito and she developed a personal mission statement for her life and I loved it so much that it has inspired me to make up my own personal mission statement and I'm still working on that because I just had her on just a few weeks ago. So I'm still trying to decide and I want to have that set before 2025 comes around for me. So thank you very much, Stephanie, for that inspiration on that. And if you liked what you heard and you are interested in hearing more from these guests and maybe you missed it, maybe you've just joined my podcast, you can go back and refer to those episode numbers that I gave and I will tell you all these women have been an inspiration to me and there's been. They are courageous in many of their pursuits. They're honest and authentic in sharing their stories with me on the podcast. So I am so grateful, so grateful for them and I look forward to bringing you more guests.

Speaker 1: 15:40

And then, speaking of which, I am looking for guests for next year and maybe you feel like you would be a good guest or you know of someone that would be a good guest. So in the show notes, I'm going to have a link to a document that you could it's kind of like an application form that you could fill out and that'll just give me some basic information about you and allows me to evaluate and reach out if I feel like you would be a good fit as a guest for Solo Travel Adventures podcast. Well, sisters, I hope you enjoyed your 2024 and are looking forward to 2025. So I want you to stay tuned for next week's episode as well. We will be talking about a little more about travel in 2025. Two previous episodes, though, I have specifically talked about some general trends for travel in 2025. And then also my top nine picks. I like to do this every year and I hope you enjoy that, and maybe we'll consider one of those places for your travels in 2025. All right, get out there, sisters, and have an adventure.