Welcome Back to Breakfast with Lisa & Josh!

It is my very firm opinion that EVERYTHING in life should have a soundtrack, and I’ve spent most of my life attempting to find the perfect song to go with whatever I’m doing at the time. So from here on out the newsletter is going to have a song I’ve been loving lately that I want to share that goes with it. Hope you like it :)

Soundtrack for this newsletter: Surfaces - Take It Easy

Spotify

Apple Music

Hello from Mexico City!

One of the questions that we get the most is “How do you plan WHERE you want to go on your next trip? The world is so big! So many options! AHHHH OVERWHELM!”

We totally get that - and it’s something that we’ve struggled with ourselves for a long time.

For the longest time, “where” was the wrong question for us.

The question instead that we’ve been trying to ask is “why” go to a certain place.

After losing our minds going around in circles over and over trying to find the PERFECT destination, we created a framework for deciding.

We call it intention-based travel.

Before we fire up google flights, or look at prices of hotels, or start going wild on YouTube or TikTok looking at all the incredible destinations in the world, we ask ourselves one big question:

Why are we traveling right now?

Do we feel like we need a break - a disconnect from our daily routines to recharge? Are we seeking the comforts of home, with just a different scenery? Are we looking for exploration, adventure, to get our of our comfort zones? What quest do we want to go on? Do we want to meet new people? Do we want to learn something new? A bit of all of the above? If so, how much of each?

We find the answer to our “why” helps us narrow down the potential destinations significantly.

Let me introduce you to the continuum of travel, and then give you a few real life examples:

I feel like generally most travelers find themselves somewhere on this continuum between wanting to disconnect from their daily routines and recharge all the way to wanting to explore the world and get out of their comfort zones. It looks like this -

We definitely fluctuate between these two points as we travel and make videos.

During our 16 night cruise from Alaska to Hawaii, we really, really wanted to disconnect and relax. That’s exactly why we decided to try it in the first place. Our cat (very much a part of our family) had just passed away, we had just “finished” this 1 year around the world trip and were wondering what to do next, we were feeling lost with the films we were making, and it generally felt like things were very uncertain. So instead of keeping on moving like we usually do, we paused (well, just moved along slowly on a big boat), for a bit.

Disconnect and recharge we did. The ship provides everything for you from start to finish, it’s perfectly comfortable and safe, you get to see some truly beautiful far-off places, the on-board wi-fi is frustratingly spotty, forcing you to disconnect, and you don’t have to worry about missing any connections (well, except for the first one,) any booking or itinerary building. You just show up. Easy peasy.

We specifically wanted to get out of our daily lives and wanted to try something that was the polar opposite of what we usually do on our trips, and see how it felt. It was just what we hoped for, even if it wasn’t particularly adventurous or productive in the traditional sense.

For full transparency, the cruise was a bit of a challenge for us, a new muscle we were using. If you’ve watched our channel for a while, you know we have a really, really hard time relaxing, slowing down. Truly the epitome of “no chill.”

I think there’s a lot of overlap with our experience on the cruise and our time walking the Camino. While very different experiences and “why’s,” we just have a hard time sitting still. Even when we’re supposed to be relaxing. Can anyone else relate!?!And as antsy as we got on the boat at times, we left feeling inspired, we met some truly amazing people, we learned how and why so many people love cruises, and were ready to get back to the explore/get out of our comfort zone part of the continuum.

Looking back at the last couple of years, those times we were a little bit more on the explore/get out of our comfort zone side of the continuum, to be immersed in different lifestyles and cultures, but also have the option to relax and unwind, the first places that come to mind are places like Ubud (Bali), Koh Samui (Thailand), Naxos (Greece), Barcelona (Spain), Langkawi (Malaysia).

When we were craving a bit more adventure, feeling excited to meet other people, truly immerse ourselves, and feel like we were far from home?

I think of Yogyakarta (Indonesia), the Azores (Portugal), Longyearbyen (Norway), and Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia.)

And then right smack dab in the middle would be the times when we are feeling like a change of scenery with some familiarity and comforts of home. I tend to think of a major city that’s super safe and very used to tourists, but with a ton to do and explore, if you want to dive into the deep end.

Think: Paris, Seoul, Cabo, NYC, Lisbon, Oslo.

For us, it’s all about first figuring out how we want the trip to feel - what mood we’re in, what quest we’re hoping to embark on, and what we hope to come home with after the trip (not just those souvenirs) and THEN start looking into destinations. It often feels when we do it the other ways, we end up overwhelmed with possibility until we give up and just pick one at random, and end up having a trip that’s so far from what we hoped for.

We’ve definitely had a few trips like this.

We know not every destination can fit every mood and you definitely can’t plan for every feeling or experience you want to have (that can take all the joy and spontaneity out of travel sometimes!), and that the only important thing is that you’re in the right headspace to connect with wherever you end up. If we were wishing we were somewhere else, we’re not really on our trip, we’re just passing the time and that’s definitely not why we travel.

Today

Mexico City for a few days, eating all the delicious food and walking all over the place. Did you know that they shut down the entire main street in the middle of Mexico City every Sunday and make it pedestrian only?? It’s amazing! They even gave me a free Gatorade!

The (Near) Future

Back to Hawaii for a little bit, and get started on this documentary we’ve had on our minds forever.

Our Latest Videos

Cruises do hate him (me).

Big boys, even bigger stakes.

See you next Sunday…ish :)

- josh (and lisa)

Oh, and if you want to learn how we afford to take all these trips after quitting our jobs last year, you’ll likely be interested in our Skillshare course on Travel Hacking and Frequent Flier Miles. It’s been really taking off lately, but we still have a few uses of this link left for those of you who want to see the class for free. It comes with a free month of Skillshare, which is more than enough to watch our class and any of the other great courses on there!

Check it out here: https://skl.sh/lisaandjosh02221

Unsubscribe