Travel Connections : Look What I Discovered in Maui!

travel connections

Why do we travel? One reason: For travel connections

I am often asked – Why do you travel? 

Whenever or wherever I travel, I look for special connections, unique moments, and delightful conversations. What do I mean by travel connections?

My goal is to gather stories, backstories, inspirational stories, and going deeper into the lives of the people who live in these glorious destinations. Now that is traveling! Of course, we visit the local attractions, but there is so much more.

Tell me about the food you grew up eating? Please share with me your favorite local place to relax and soak up the surroundings! What cafe do you go to with your girlfriends? Where can I see a gorgeous garden or unique architecture? I want to dive deep!

I ask questions like: Who did you meet on the train? Where were they going and should you go there too? These are the best parts of travel, the connections we search for and often just stumble upon.

Here is my most recent travel connection story!

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15 Books About Food & Travel That Saved Me During the Pandemic

books about food and travel
Here are a few of the paper books I read. The rest are ebooks.

Books about Food and Travel!

How did books about food and travel save me during the COVID pandemic? They provided me a way to escape during a challenging time and envelope myself in a world that means so much to me. Exploring interesting destinations, reading about exciting adventures, and real-life memoirs about chefs and food entrepreneurs is my passion. In addition to a personal escape, reading as much as I do helps to make me a better writer! As a brand ambassador and travel writer, the lockdown was particularly agonizing because I wasn’t planning and experiencing travel, nor was I working.

Some days were slow and relaxed, while others were depressing and sad. Most of us felt this way during the Quarantine, right? Confusion, sadness, and a longing for normality were the catalyst for my positive, uplifting reading choices.

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Let’s Escape to Lake Tahoe For Our Next Getaway

escape to Lake Tahoe
Photo: L. Simone

An Escape to Lake Tahoe

Let’s go to the mountains where there are fewer people, fresh air, blue skies, exceptional deep blue water, and views to make you weep. Let’s escape to Lake Tahoe! I am once again working with my friends at Hotels.com to bring you more travel inspiration.

We started visiting Lake Tahoe when our children were little, we traveled there in the winter to ski and in the summer to hike, but with Fall around the corner, it’s time to plan for the leaf-peeping season! It is best to reach out to local hotels to learn about their new COVID protocols and safety guidelines. However, it is getting easier to travel every week that passes by. Fall in Lake Tahoe could be a wonderful first step back toward our love of travel.

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Taste Your Virtual Vacation – A Delicious Maui Style Menu

Maui Style Menu

CHECK OUT OUR NEW EPISODE OF COCKTAIL ADVENTURES!

THE PIÑA COLADA – HERE!

A  Maui Style Menu

Are we dreaming of a tasty trip or virtual vacation Maui Style? We cannot travel across the vast Pacific Ocean to the island of Maui, but we can pretend like we are! Virtual Vacations can transport us to a place we can’t get to for one reason or another. This Maui Style Menu will help you bring all of the essential elements together!

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Get Everything You Need For Your Maui Staycation!

Maui staycation
We miss visiting Maui so much!

A  Maui Staycation – Yes, Please!

Last week, in my first post for How to Create a Virtual Vacation Maui Style, I introduced you to the general concept of creating a vacation at home. The Coronavirus has hijacked travel, and we need to have a way to at least pretend to be in a tropical destination. Don’t we?

Creating a path to explore a Maui Staycation was my way of getting past the indisputable travel obstacles we are facing.

 

Check out the new Guide!

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How to Create Your Own Virtual Vacation – Maui Style!

multi-colored sunset in Maui
A Maui sunset will dazzle you daily!

A Virtual Vacation? What is that?

Imagine the cold-sweet sip of a tropical Mai Tai, Seared Ahi Tuna with Vegetable Fried Rice, and a mound of ice cream covered in chocolate fudge in a decadent slice of Hula Pie. Yes, please! Tell me more. This delicious list is just the beginning of an authentic and tasty Maui Style vacation you can create at home.

The COVID 19 pandemic has all but ruined our travel calendar and certainly curtailed any type of air travel over the blue Pacific. Many people have underlying health conditions that prevent any possibility of travel no matter what is happening in the world. Maybe a Maui vacation is not in the budget at all?

Well, my non-traveling friends, I have a solution. Disappointed by my lack of travel options during the Stay at Home mandate, I needed to change my thinking. I had to look at my current situation and determine just how to move forward when I could not write about future travel or plan any of our own adventures. Just like you, I couldn’t enjoy a Maui vacation if I wanted to!

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Flying During The Coronavirus – What’s It Really Like?

 

Curious what it is like flying during the Coronavirus?

Have you given any thought to taking a trip? Are you itching to get away? Fearful? Undecided? I have some first-hand experience that I look forward to sharing with you. I hope it will help and give you a little perspective.

Let’s go back a few months to my first flight during the Coronavirus.

As a travel writer and empty nester with no immediate family commitments, my travel calendar is always full. In between my scheduled business travel, my husband and I travel together a great deal as well. We are always on the go, just ask our friends and family! Non-stop unpacking and packing, watering the yard in between, living a semi-chaotic existence. Maybe it was too much? We had the chance to discover just how insane our lifestyle really is/was—more on that in an upcoming post.

The virus has caused all of us to pause and appreciate our health and our blessings. My husband traveled for business every week, at times we were like ships passing in the night. However, the hotel points and accumulated air mileage allow us to book amazing empty nester adventures around the world. Life has its trade-offs.

Just about mid-March, we were all grounded, abruptly stopped in our tracks from leaving our homes, let alone travel anywhere. We were receiving conflicting news from all sides and just trying to feel our way through this world-wide catastrophe. 

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How Can We Emerge From Stay at Home, Better Than Ever?

 emerge from stay at home

How can we emerge from Stay At Home in the best possible way?

We don’t have the green light yet, but we should start thinking ahead. How can we emerge from the Stay at Home order? That is up to us. The financial hardships are devasting for everyone, but we need to persevere; there is no choice! Will we be stronger? More thoughtful? Introspective. Yes, I think all of these will be good descriptions.

I plan to focus intently on the process and route that I take from this recent lifestyle roadblock, ready for new adventures, and a lot more focused on the right things. 

This past six weeks (Which feels much longer, right?) has been full of highs and lows. Everyone is trying to see where they fit and what feels right. Some people have turned to art, others to writing, reading, and cooking. Meanwhile, we are walking our poor dogs to death!

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