Helping you slow down and soak it all in.
The trip that taught me how to slow down and savor.
I spent over a month in Isla Mujeres during COVID. The kind of slow-down that only happens when the world is closed and you're stuck on a small Mexican island where the only thing on the schedule is the next sunset.
It changed how I think about travel entirely. A great trip isn't a packed itinerary. It's the morning you wake up with nothing on the schedule. The afternoon you spend doing nothing in particular. The bar where the bartender remembers what you drank last night. The dinner that lasts three hours because nobody wanted to leave.
That's the kind of trip I plan now. The slow. The savor. The room you'll be reluctant to leave. The trip you'll still be feeling six months after you're home.
My Hotel Non-Negotiables.
A great hotel has a soul. You feel it when you walk in. The lobby smells like a candle someone picked. The bar is the kind you'd sit at without a reason. The room makes you want to stay tucked into bed. This is the bar.
A few more of my non-negotiables:
- —A plush robe. Always.
- —Room service breakfast worth ordering.
- —A pool that doesn't close at 6pm.
- —A property with actual personality, not the same lobby as every other resort.
- —A staff that knows the difference between hospitable and scripted.
A few signs we'll get along.
- —You travel a lot, but you don't have the time or honestly the patience to plan it.
- —You'd rather have one excellent hotel than three okay ones.
- —You'd describe yourself as "particular," but in the good way.
- —You've made peace with paying for what you actually want.
- —You scroll past a hotel that says "modern, comfortable rooms" without finishing the sentence.
- —You're done settling for the resort everyone you know has already been to.
- —You want the trip to feel like you, not like the brochure version of you.
If you're nodding along, that's our cue.
