We're Chasing the Sun

Fall is here, and we're getting ready to head south to warmer weather.

Hello friends! We’re back in southern California recovering from a cold we got on our return travels from Europe (luckily, not COVID). Aside from that, Chris is wrapping up his last work project for the year, we’re completing our early voting, and we’re packing and prepping for our 5-week trip to Mexico that we depart on next week.

We didn’t think about it at the time that we booked the trip, but we’ll be in Mexico City for the Dia de Muertos celebrations (Day of the Dead) on November 2nd. It should be a lot of fun, and Chris will have a ton of opportunities to capture the festivities 📷. You can see Nat Geo photos of previous celebrations here if you’re curious.

We’ve also been getting up to date on all sorts of vaccines and boosters we’ll need for countries we’ll be visiting over the next year, we sold our car, and welcomed our nephew Simon into the world. ❤️

We’ll be in Mexico for 5 weeks, and the trip includes 2 weeks in Mexico City (staying in the Roma Sur/La Condesa area), 2 weeks in Oaxaca city, and 1 week in Tulum before we head to Florida for family time in December.

We have our Airbnbs and hotels booked for the trip, and now we’re booking intra-country flights, researching transportation to/from airports, and things we want to do like food tours, Mezcal and mole tastings, some hikes, snorkeling, and maybe visiting some Mayan ruins.

If you’ve been to any of these cities/areas, are there must-dos you’d recommend?

We’re also spending a lot of time thinking about how to develop more routines while we’re on the road. Routines, not for the sake of structure, but for making things easier and enjoyable each day.

Back home in Minnesota this summer, our friend Steve asked if we were going to miss having a home while we traveled. Chris quickly said no; I hesitated but said yes, but neither of us really knew how we’d feel as more time passed. Right now, we really miss home…specifically having a home to come back to and the comfort of being in our own space. We had more routines than we realized, and many create the ‘comfort of home’ feeling.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of feeling like we need to treat every day like a vacation. We do have the luxury of spending our time how we want to each day - which is overwhelmingly wonderful, and we are grateful. But, if we’re going to make the most of our extended travel, we need to make sure we have things that feel comforting and easy to help us stay healthy and happy.

Some areas we are focusing on right now are mornings (breakfast) and making more time each day/week for exercise, reading, and watching movies and shows (i.e. relaxing).

What are some of your routines?

In case you missed it…we created a Kauai Travel Guide that will make planning a trip to Kauai easy. The guide also includes info like:

📍where to stay
🚙 how to get around
🍣 where to eat
🏝️ what to do
💕recommendations from us

Check it out and let us know what you think! Or share it with someone else who needs a vacation. 😊

Many of you have just returned from trips recently, and it’s been fun to see photos from your travels! Keep posting - we love to see where you’re going and what you’re up to. Take care!

If you enjoy this newsletter, consider sharing it and clicking the heart icon to ‘like’ this post. ❤️ Thanks for your support!

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