Travel Oracles

After taking some time off from storytelling, and processing my last few years of experiences & conversations on the road, I have found myself renewed, aligned and more passionate than ever about the cross-section of culture, travel, education, and women of all ages, and how we can explore & learn together. Travel Oracles, let’s begin…

Shop some of my travel essentials or my children’s travel book

After traveling extensively internationally for work & play (beginning with my first meandering adventure backpacking across Europe at 19), I started exploring these topics more in-depth on my many recent cross-country solo road trips. I kept exploring in an attempt to research emerging markets/business, and to meet the myriad people that make up America, at a time when diversity (our very founding) is under ignorant attack. In this time I collaborated with publications on travel content, wrote personal blog posts like “Ageism in our Travel Marketing & Media“, “Women as Cultural Storytellers“ and “Culture Connection: The Art of Local Travel & Hospitality”, interviewed fellow-traveling women on my previous podcast Travel Oracles + interviewed them on stage at events, and wrote a kids book “To Be We: The Adventures of Owen & Lucy” dedicated to my niece and nephew in an effort to get preschool kids excited about multiple cultures around the world. And while I enjoyed all of these experiences immensely, I realized I had not really dug into a common thread for which to channel these discussions into, that can have more of an impact and hopefully do some good along the way, especially in elevating women’s voices of all ages and backgrounds. It was a conversation I have with a fellow media pro while we were touring Bermuda with Conde Nast Traveler’s “Women Who Travel”, where we lamented to lack of multigenerational learning when it came to culture and travel, that the light went on for both of us. We have 40+ years of media experience and travel between us, why can’t we develop a project to do just that, and fill what was missing from the conversation? So we did and we are. As budgets get continually cut back in the magazine space, and with the loss of such authentic giants like Anthony Bourdain, we thought that this was an opportunity for all of us in the space to bring dedicated content (the one area that is growing, like video and podcasts) to life. Why bang on the drum of recycled stories when you can dig into what you are passionate about?

I love seeing great cross-generational/cultural content led by women like “past grannies” and “cooking with Nona” and “cooking with granny”, learning the lost art of cooking from women elders who hold the secrets (and the stories). I was gripped reading 80-something Gloria Steinem’s book “My Life On the Road”, and hearing of my mother’s own extensive travels as well. I want to hear more stories on all manner of life lessons from women older than me, not famous, in a variety of fields that we can learn from. While there are a growing number of incredibly talented female podcast hosts talking culture (Hello “Fresh Air, “Hysteria”, “Call Your Girlfriend”, “The High Low”, “2 Dope Queens” and more), there are still very few prime tv travel hosts (Hello Samantha Brown, Kellee Edwards), and even fewer deep diving in historical context and cultural lessons, so we have a long way to go, combining it all. We have ageism issues in the country, as well as lack of women’s stories, and general education around cultural traditions, history and more, so let’s talk stories and learn together!

So with that, I look forward to the exploring, connecting, conversations, and learning to come in our new episodes. It will be a slow process unlike some previous projects, but we are so excited to have conversations on global travel, culture & history with women 40, 50, 60+