Travel as Transmission
When shared intentionally, travel becomes a language of love, revelation and awakening
The Beef Carpaccio at Roka Oia Greek Restaurant in Oia, Santorini GREECE
Mark Twain famously said, “Find a job you enjoy doing, and you will never have to work a day in your life.”
Since embarking on this new chapter of my career I’ve felt the truth and power of Twain’s words. There are some mornings I awake and the tasks in front of me jolt me out of bed with an absurd, giddy anticipation. It might be finishing the last paragraph of a Tessera Blog, implementing a middle-of-the-night webpage design idea or cracking elusive logic in one of my Mosaic assessments.
I have no doubt found my thing.
Beyond living in flow with a readiness to take on whatever a given day brings, I know I am right where I’m supposed to be. I finally get what it means to live with purpose. I was 45 years old before I ever contemplated, I mean really ever contemplated the answer to that big little question - what am I here for?
And when I stared into the abyss of that question for the very first time, I was stunned I had never found it a useful starting point or practice before. Not when selecting a college major, navigating moments of self-doubt or despair, going back to grad school, switching jobs, surviving breast cancer. Never.
I never thought to examine my life through any other lens than what I wanted to collect and project. That is, until I found myself looking up from the guillotine as the pitiful, but cliché corporate axe came down on me. Then and only then did a twist of fate and a tenacity to prove myself collide with meaningful impact.
I suddenly had the means and permission to be curious and deliberate about what comes next. As I waded through just the right depths of constructive cynicism and rebellious determination, I sensed the only way to emerge stronger and smarter was clarity. And so, there it was.
What am I here for?
That’s when travel’s transformative power made itself known to me. That force coupled with a random but decidedly productive reading list, a series of fortuitous not for me conversations and a rejection of a mono way to move through life, compelled me to act.
I took a few uncomfortable, shaky steps forward and proved to myself I could survive treading into the unknown world of a founder. Action inspired more action until I broke the spell of complacency that had tethered me to the wrong place in life. I was liberated by my own creative will and energy.
But I didn’t tap true momentum until I realized I had something to share with the world. Reorienting my sense of self around what I have to offer others changed everything for me. That is what really gets me out of bed in the morning.
It’s beautifully uncomplicated. I create so I have something to give away.
From this space, a leap of faith quietly turns into the only and obvious course of action. The moment I went from wanting to do something in travel to inspiring millions of micro-movements of joy around the world through travel, my purpose metastasized from ambition to calling. It went from theoretically what am I meant to do, to irrefutably what must I do to make it happen.
Not surprisingly, there is nothing I love more than sharing my passion for travel with others. It is not just the underpinning of my purpose and the ethos of my brand; it is my love language. I have been lucky enough to express that love dozens of times throughout my life with friends, colleagues and family.
While I find great joy in self-led, solo travel, I find the most joy in bringing people I love to new places. Most recently I had the opportunity to take my mom to Paris and Tuscany and my younger brothers on two different trips, to Budapest and Greece and Australia. In all three cases, I spent an inordinate amount of time building out the soul of the itinerary.
In every case, I start by introducing taste – flavor, style and expression – as backdrop for discovery. Because that’s my fulcrum, there is no bigger compliment someone can pay me than remembering a meal I meticulously planned for them however many months or moons ago. I’d like to think in fact my punch card is full of converts to steak tartare, beef carpaccio, real authentic ramen, a “table” pancake, the negroni, and the Aperol spritz before it was the Aperol spritz.
Anchovies…? Well, I’ll admit that’s been a slower adoption rate and harder card to fill. More for me!
One of my favorite reactions to solicit is when my mom inevitably says something to the effect of I didn’t understand why it was so important to go just there and how it would be worth all that trouble. But now I get it. And now, too, she calls that béchamel lasagna at La Taverna di San Giuseppe in Siena the best lasagna she’s ever had in her whole life.
The lasagna at Taverna di San Giuseppe in Siena, Italy
The perfectionist in me goes for pure wow-factor and sets her aim on nothing less. I so badly want to inject an infectious, long lasting love of travel into family and friends so they can experience just some of the wonder I’ve had the good fortune to take in. I want to pique taste buds, blow minds and imprint visceral memories on their hearts. I want them to feel joy in movement and discover what they love – be that flavor – or a different kind of fuel, their frequency.
Showing my mom Paris for the first time? Dining with her at one of my favorite restaurants in the world, Le Bon Georges for steak au poivre, morels and profiteroles? Taking her picture at the foot of the Eiffel Tower? Nothing better.
Walking the shore in Mykonos with my brothers after we’ve filled up on Greek salad, fresh feta and grilled, succulent octopus? Sitting in a player’s box at the Australian Open, a ticket our father only dreamed of cashing in his entire life? Feasting on the tasting menu in between my two young, burgeoning foodies at the 66th best restaurant in the world, St. Peter in Sydney? Impossible to beat.
In revisiting these moments where my love language was on full display, I see for the very first time the role taste had really been playing in these exchanges. While it was backdrop for their discovery of new flavors and cuisines and expansion of their senses and palates, it was also a transmission of something much, much deeper.
In bringing my traveling companions to the doorstep of new and different, I wasn’t just giving them meals and experiences to replicate and remember. I was giving them a way to speak to me without ever having to say a word.
Discovery had become a new way for us to connect. Travel had given me a magnificent gift, a way of simply being with those I love. That transmission forged and fused an unbreakable bond between us. It opened up a shared gateway between our inner voices, our forming hopes and dreams, and dare I say our souls?
Unlocking travel’s potential to direct, inspire and awaken someone else has become the driving force and north star of my life’s calling and work. It is not surprising that the people I love played such a big role in putting me on that journey. I believe I have, taking root somewhere deep down inside of me, a philosophy for how to move about the world that converts the precious time, resources and energy people already invest in travel to return at the highest possible levels.
But more than that, I believe I have to share it.
It’s not about telling anyone where to go, how to get there or what to do when they arrive. Instead it’s about inspiring a genuine, effortless pause so first and always they move within.
Once inside that pause, from that place where words can’t carry the weight of meaning, they can unlock awareness and agency to uncover what truly moves them.
It’s not about me trying to make my style of travel stick, it’s about helping you find yours.
And when I really stop to think about it, I feel from that same deep down place – that is exactly what I’m here for.
Every week, I send one new Tessera Blog on taste, travel and the truths we collect along the way. If this piece resonated, I’d be honored if you’d share or subscribe.
