From Montreal to Strasbourg: A Journey of Cultural Connection

Ever wondered how slow travel can enhance the way you connect with new cultures? Join me as I recount the journey that led me to embrace this transformative travel philosophy. From a childhood trip to Montreal with my grandmother that sparked a lifelong love for French culture, to the cultural shifts I experienced moving between different states and countries, I'll walk you through the moments that shaped my passion for immersive travel. Hear about the profound impact of studying abroad in Strasbourg, France, and how my career in the art industry and a major French company helped foster deep, meaningful connections with diverse cultures around the world.

This episode also explores how travel has served as a sanctuary during challenging times in my life. Learn how places like France and the ocean have been sources of solace and rejuvenation for me. Plus, I'm excited to build a community through this podcast, featuring insightful conversations with friends, colleagues, and networking acquaintances. Together, we aim to share experiences and support each other in our slow travel journeys. Don’t miss out—tune in for more on the power of slow travel and how it can profoundly impact your life.

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Chapters

• 0:08 Slow Travel Diaries
• 8:51 Soulful Escapes in France

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:08

I'm so excited that you have decided to join me on this new adventure called the Slow Travel Diaries. I'm going to just start by telling you a little bit about my travel history and what has brought me to today. And what has brought me to today where I've decided, where I want to talk to you about a type of travel that I think is kind of up and coming and really important to me, and I think it allows you to discover more, and on a deeper level, of the places that you travel and hopefully, after those travels, um, you have a wider view, better perspective, maybe a deeper understanding of um other people that may be different from you, may have different experiences than you, may come from a different background as you, but really we're all the same on that human level. So let me start off by saying that my first experience with international travel was when I was 10 years old. My grandmother, my father's mother, wanted to do these 10-year-old trips and I got to choose where I wanted to go, and it was the first time she had done it, so we weren't going very far, but we ended up going to Montreal, canada. Now, if I look back, this is probably where my love affair with all things French started with all things French started. I just loved the different vibe that was there. I loved the food, the architecture and given I was 10, but I've always had kind of this, I guess old soul and I just loved it, and I'll go into that more later on. There's a lot of stories about that trip, but that's probably where it all started.

Speaker 1: 2:41

Then I grew up in Massachusetts and when I was about 13 years old we moved to Tulsa, oklahoma, um, with my dad's job and that was again another change in culture, coming from New England going to Oklahoma um. But I loved it. You know, you, you the Southwest vibe barbecue, native Americans. It was great Football. But you know, I was really involved in my youth group and we did mission trips and those were both very poignant for me. One was to Juarez, mexico, and one was to the Cherokee Nation, I believe in Arizona college.

Speaker 1: 3:48

I went to college in Maryland and I was fortunate enough to be able to do study abroad my junior year. And I went to France, but not Paris like everyone would think. I went to Strasbourg. I went to Strasbourg, which is in the Alsace region. It's up in the corner between Switzerland and Germany, and I actually have ancestry in that area and I will go into talking about this more too, but it was just such an amazing experience. I stayed for a year and I don't think that I would be the person I am today without that experience. The friends I made and I've gone back multiple times since I left left.

Speaker 1: 4:40

So while I was there, I took my spring break in Italy with two friends that I had made. We had gone. We went to Rome, florence and Venice. It was actually a very short trip. It was only a week, very different from the type of travel I like to do now, crammed a lot in on a very, very low budget. But I have great memories from that trip as well. And then, at the end of that year of study abroad, my parents and my sisters came over to basically bring me home, but we didn't go straight home. We went from Strasbourg to Paris and then we had family, friends that lived in England English friends and we went and we spent some time in England with them and that was also a great trip. My parents still talk about it to this day and I think that might have been where I started to kind of get this more slower journey, want to learn a little bit more about where I am, the people that might have started during that trip.

Speaker 1: 6:04

Then, kind of in my adult years, I was trying to work in the art industry. Art world Didn't work very well, came upon the recession of 08. But I did end up working for a large French company and that gave me a lot of experience with people from all over the world, made a lot of friends from a lot of different places and kind of got to have a deeper understanding of different cultures that I hadn't really interacted with much before that. And then I did a lot of travel while I was working there and I would have people say you're going where, you're going where again, you're going for how long? And to me it didn't really seem like a big deal. But not everyone there had even left the state of Massachusetts, let alone left the USA, massachusetts, let alone left the USA. And that was kind of an eye opener to me, because to me it wasn't really a big thing. It was, yeah, I'm going to see my friends, I'm going back to where I lived, and so that was really interesting to me.

Speaker 1: 7:36

So I also have kept in touch with a lot of those friends that I had met when I worked there and also friends that I met when I was studying in Strasbourg. So I've had chances to go visit friends in Ecuador, barcelona. I've gone to the south of France. I've gone back to Paris many times, back to Strasbourg, many times went to a friend's wedding in Cancun, plata Carmen, in Mexico, and all of these different experiences have built kind of my what I'll talk about later, about my like philosophy of travel, about my like philosophy of travel, and they really helped me with some really hard times in my life that I will talk about later as well.

Speaker 1: 8:28

But, for example, I've had lots of tragic losses in my life, lost a lot of, you know, people that were very near and dear to me, trying to get over that grief and that trauma which you don't really ever get over but you try to learn to how to live with it.

Speaker 1: 8:49

I've had multiple job losses.

Speaker 1: 8:51

I've had to learn how to kind of like, you know, not really reinvent myself, but kind of have you know those those phoenix rising from the ashes moments, and it's hard and I've learned that my personality, my way of dealing with that is I need a change of scenery, I need to go somewhere that fills my soul, and a lot of times for me, that place is France.

Speaker 1: 9:23

Sometimes it's just I need to go for a drive up by the ocean and sit and listen to the waves. Sometimes it's as simple as that, but I'm hoping to talk a lot about this. I'm planning on having a bunch of different friends and business contacts and people that I've met through networking events and conferences as guests, and I really am excited to build a community to lean on each other and to share our different experiences and what we learned from them, and hopefully they will help others as well. So thank you so much for listening in and I hope to have you join us for episode two, which I will be talking a little bit more about the power of slow travel. So have a great day.