It’s early 2019 and I am getting ready for a travel adventure of a lifetime…

…and so naturally, literally 5 minutes before we get into our rather loud friend’s ride to be wheeled off to the airport, I decide to make a video.

Truth is, even back then I was itching to do videos and help people travel healthy with fun and useful tips (like the one you are about to watch). You see, I really did believe back then like I do now that life can be stress free in the middle of chaos, even when your bags are not yet quite packed, you have a 6 am flight, you’ve gotten 3 hours of sleep, and in the middle of all this, you suddenly get a creative itch you just have to scratch.

So I filmed the B roll and then we jetting off “across the pond.”

What I don’t talk about in this little segment here is what happened after we landed.

We were in the UK, France, Belgium, and Scotland for about four months. Oh did we have adventures. A, well, quite a bit of heartache too. You would think that Europe would be the PERFECT place to start a healthy travel blog for a wide-eyed American writer, right? Well, as you well know my friend, life doesn’t always turn out as one expects. But that is a story for another time.

Fast forward to summer, 2023. It was “coffee with God” time in the early morning– just me, the “Family,” and a strong cup of joe. A thick fog bank was rolling in as I closed my eyes to slip into a meditative bliss when I heard quite clearly:

…”Remember that little video you took right before you left for Europe way back in 2019? Now I wonder if that would make a good vignette for your new healthy travel blog?”

Huh?

When God hands you an “inspiration on a platter” like that, of course, any true believer would snatch it up and run with it, right?

Not me. I dismissed the idea almost immediately. After all, that was 4 years ago, a LOT has changed, and not just the scenery. What in the world could that little vignette offer to people now? And more to the point, what would watching my pre-Europe, pre-pandemic, pre-singledom, pre-pretty much everything self do for the “me” I was now?

It took a couple of weeks of gentle prodding, but in the end, basically, God just wouldn’t let it go. The idea stayed with me and I started to warm to it, like the taste of buttery croissant that stays on your tongue long after you’ve left the patisserie.

I really hope you enjoy this post and that you get at least one little nugget of travely advice out of it. But to be honest, doing this particular ten-minute video is just as much about closure on a certain chapter in my own life as it is about passing on fun little gems to you.

Can I be honest about something here? It is darn scary being vulnerable and putting my mug out there on these videos like this. I’ve only done a few and I’m still not used to it. I know I will get the hang of it and I will improve (on all levels, including technically) as time goes on. But at the moment I can say that what I am proud of the most is that I LISTENED to my mentor, my friend, my savior, that “still small voice,” Yeshua, who guides me every day.

I FINALLY listened and scooped up that rough, raw footage from a time so long ago. I didn’t just trash it, I made something relevant, maybe even creative, out of it. I dusted it off, put a new spin on it, added maybe a little more wisdom, grit, and punch…and put it out there for the world to see.

Now that it is completed, it feels less like a sad reminder of regrets and more like a celebration of a moment in time, a tipping of the hat to the me who was (that poor, confused girl) from the woman I am now, walking confidently…okay and at times a bit clumsily…into a brand new day.

And who knows, maybe more of the miles of adventure and travel I have put in prior to starting this blog will come back around in stories, photos, and videos in the months to come. Only time will tell. In the meantime, I will keep on having coffee with God and listening…oh how I will listen… for more juicy inspirations.

See you on the road,

Nikki P

aka The Gentle Healthy Traveler