SEASONED INSIGHTS
OF A
lifelong adventurer
As a writer, former journalist and consultant, I’m always exploring and documenting great experiences when I travel for both business and leisure. So it was natural for me to develop an online journal, where I could share my thoughts, observations and “insider” tips – from small town America to urban adventures to living like locals overseas and adopting a travel mindset at home.
Since I started this blog in 2004, the concept has morphed through several voices and designs – first as a traditional travel blog for women business travelers and then from the point of view of a solo Womantraveler wherever she goes.
Now I write with an older woman’s perspective, focusing on “seasoned insights” for those of us who love travel and still have many adventures ahead – yet shaping this next phase with the wisdom of years. Today Womantraveler takes the broader lens of journeying through life – from typical travel to everyday trips around town and in the nearby region, to the food and art that nurtures us and to friends and people and places thousands of miles away. Yet this revision adds the constant element of the inner journey we experience every day, informed by my experiences, which I hope will connect with yours.
The pandemic taught me a huge lesson – that every day is a “journey,” including those when we are “stuck” at home. We can go through our days wide-eyed, creative and resourceful or more quietly, calling on inner strength, persistence, pacing and other personal coping tools.
I’ve always kept handwritten journals on paper, and I still write some of those – for myself and, lately, for my granddaughters, the way our grandmothers used to write us letters. During the first year of the pandemic, effectively “grounded” from traditional travel, I ventured into boxes, photos to dig through family archives. I “met” my grandmother for the first time by reading her letters to her parents and sisters during the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic. The next year, when faced with a different serious illness, I kept a more positive attitude as a survivor managing both the disease and the disease during the pandemic, by creating my own paper journal, with artistic elements I’d picked up in an online class with Paper Source.
During the pandemic my colleagues and I also reshaped our business to conform with the times, which also required that I revisit my concept of travel.
In all these and other experiences over the years, I think I get better and better at traveling through life on my own terms. I hope you’ll find thoughts and experiences that resonate with yours and that you’ll join me in this next phase of life’s journey. I envision my blog to be a source of empowerment for others, especially women, to see all life as an adventure, with unexpected insights and experiences that shape us. Staying agile for the unexpected and purposefully awakening your curiosity to the surprising, you absolutely can travel on your own terms! I hope you’ll continue to join me on my journeys – and share your own.