Category Archives: The Journey of TRAVELING

We Live in a MAGICAL World ✈✈✈

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Wow!  Well this is CRAZYYY!

I completely forgot that I wrote a blog post a couple of months ago, regarding this next blog, that I am about to share with you. It wasn’t until I lived through a unique sequence of events, that I realized I had already written a blog about my travel intentions.

 

 And now there is so much JUICY news to share! 

To summarize the blog post (that I wrote back in April), it explored an overwhelming feeling to travel and #EXPLORE.  And not just anywhere, but somewhere tropical.  I had my own sense of #ISLANDFEVER.  I didn’t know where it was coming from. Was I meant to travel, or not? And what was the meaning behind it all? I didn’t know.  All I knew was that I was experiencing a strong sense to travel, which then moved me to write THIS (click to read previous blog post).

 

There were a series of events that occurred after I wrote ⇡ blog post.  I can’t pin point the exact dates of each event, but it was roughly 2 weeks after I wrote the first blog.

 

It must have been in the beginning of April when the first event took place.  My roommate had an Outside Magazine lying around the house, normally this magazine wouldn’t catch my eye, however, the cover was titled ‘20 Best Trips’.  This intrigued me.

 

I browsed through the magazine, seeing if anything resonated with me.  Nothing did.  I let it be. 

A couple of days later, I was in a friend’s car and this SAME magazine was sitting on his dashboard. “Weird,” I thought.  I took another browse through the magazine, but again, nothing resonated.  I let it be.

It must have been a week later, when I was on my way to visit my sister in San Diego, and as I was walking off the airplane, I glanced over my shoulder to see a man reading the SAME magazine.

 

At this point, I was like, okay there is something happening here.  I didn’t know what it was, but I went to buy this magazine for the sole purpose of feeling like I should have it in my possession. 

I got off the plane, went to the nearest newsstand, and purchased the magazine.  Again, I browsed through it, seeing if this time around something popped out at me.  Still nothing.

 Then, as I was sitting at the gate, waiting to depart, a question subtly arose:  “I wonder where the cover of this magazine was shot?” I thought to myself.

 

Here is the cover:

april-2014-cover

It was somewhere tropical and looked like my kind of place! 

It was too late to call Outside Magazine, as their offices had closed for the day.  So, I let it be.

On April 23rd, my Birthday, I went to a local coffee shop to do some writing, and as I reached for my computer, I noticed that I had had the Outside magazine in my backpack.  I took it out, pondered the cover for a second, and then decided to call Outside Magazine to see where they shot the cover of their April 2014 issue. 

 

Drum roll please….. Palawan.  

 

As I began researching Palawan, I soon realized that it was an island in the Phillippines, which excited me, as I could picture myself possibly traveling to this beautiful and remote #ISLAND.  I mean why else had I been led to this magazine!? ☺

 

I let this idea swarm through my mind for about a month.   

I was pretty excited about the prospect of traveling to Palawan, however, I decided to be open to any other ideas that may come my way.  I didn’t want to close the door on Palawan, but I also didn’t want to be closed off to any other possibilities.

 

One morning after I meditated, I set an #INTENTION for the day:  To be open to receive a sign from the Universe.  Palawan wasn’t even on my mind when I made this intention.  I just wanted to be available to any sign that the Universe may be trying to show me. 

Soon after that, I headed to the coffee shop.  As I was talking to the barista, a man behind me began talking with me.  Long story short, I ended up telling him that I wanted to travel and that I was thinking of going to an Island in the Philippines, but that I was waiting for a sign.  He then told me that he had a friend who ran an orphanage in the Philippines.  I asked where and he said ….. PALAWAN!  

 

LIKE WHATTTTTT! 

 

 Mind you, I live in a town the size of only 2,000 people, so the chances of this happening, are very slim!

 

After conversing with this man for a bit, I remember thinking: if this isn’t a sign, I don’t know what is.  I could wonder, going back and forth in my head, if this is yet a #TRUE sign and if I should perhaps wait for another one to come, just to make triple sure.  Or I could notice how I feel in my body when I ask myself a question that pertains to Palawan. How does it feel when I think about traveling to Palawan?  I get a warm and excited feeling in my heart space.  Almost a knowing feeling;  A feeling that tells me that Palawan is where I am supposed to go.  It feels scary for sure, but it doesn’t make me want to crawl out of my skin.

 

So with that being said, I will trust in that feeling and a little in the unknown, as scary as that may be, and I will follow that straight to Palawan, Philippines.

I am in such awe that life magically steers us into directions we once never thought imaginable.

 

 

We truly do live in a MAGICAL WORLD!!!!!

 

 I am set to go to Palawan at the end of October.  If you have any suggestions, PLEASE feel free to email me and give me your two cents.  😉

 

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With Love and CURIOUSITY,

Sarah

❤

✈

Evan Garcia GoPro Video! #WhiteWaterKayaking

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My boyfriend, Evan Garcia, has an unbeatable passion for whitewater kayaking! Paddling ever since he was a young boy, it has now become his life, passion, and love. He travels the world searching for class five white water. He has an unmeasurable liberty while pursuing his passion. It is humbling to witness, as Evan embarks on kayaking 100 foot waterfalls, paddles rivers most of us will never see, and ventures to the most remarkable and beautiful sights of nature.

Now that Evan has made a name for his self in the sport of whitewater kayaking, he utilizes his unique filming abilities to share with the world his adventures of kayaking and the explorations he finds while doing so.

He put together this five-minute video to show everyone a glimpse of what he does and how he captures his footage while on the river. All of this video is captured on a small Go Pro camera. It is amazing that we are able to see his explorations and days on the river through this tiny camera he can attach to his helmet and kayak!

ENJOY!!!

Paulo Coelho’s “9 Traveling Tips”

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Paulo Coelho, Author of The Alchemist, shares with us his 9 traveling tips! I think the one tip that stuck with me is to travel alone! This I have yet to do, but I can foresee it happening sometime in my life:)

My Top 9 Travel Tips
by PAULO COELHO

I realised very early on that, for me, travelling was the best way of learning. I still have a pilgrim soul, and I thought that I would use this blog to pass on some of the lessons I have learned, in the hope that they might prove useful to other pilgrims like me.

1. Avoid museums. This might seem to be absurd advice, but let’s just think about it a little: if you are in a foreign city, isn’t it far more interesting to go in search of the present than of the past? It’s just that people feel obliged to go to museums because they learned as children that travelling was about seeking out that kind of culture. Obviously museums are important, but they require time and objectivity – you need to know what you want to see there, otherwise you will leave with a sense of having seen a few really fundamental things, except that you can’t remember what they were.

2. Hang out in bars. Bars are the places where life in the city reveals itself, not in museums. By bars I don’t mean nightclubs, but the places where ordinary people go, have a drink, ponder the weather, and are always ready for a chat. Buy a newspaper and enjoy the ebb and flow of people. If someone strikes up a conversation, however silly, join in: you cannot judge the beauty of a particular path just by looking at the gate.

3. Be open. The best tour guide is someone who lives in the place, knows everything about it, is proud of his or her city, but does not work for any agency. Go out into the street, choose the person you want to talk to, and ask them something (Where is the cathedral? Where is the post office?). If nothing comes of it, try someone else – I guarantee that at the end of the day you will have found yourself an excellent companion.

4. Try to travel alone or – if you are married – with your spouse. It will be harder work, no one will be there taking care of you, but only in this way can you truly leave your own country behind. Traveling with a group is a way of being in a foreign country while speaking your mother tongue, doing whatever the leader of the flock tells you to do, and taking more interest in group gossip than in the place you are visiting.

5. Don’t compare. Don’t compare anything – prices, standards of hygiene, quality of life, means of transport, nothing! You are not traveling in order to prove that you have a better life than other people – your aim is to find out how other people live, what they can teach you, how they deal with reality and with the extraordinary.

6. Understand that everyone understands you. Even if you don’t speak the language, don’t be afraid: I’ve been in lots of places where I could not communicate with words at all, and I always found support, guidance, useful advice, and even girlfriends. Some people think that if they travel alone, they will set off down the street and be lost for ever. Just make sure you have the hotel card in your pocket and – if the worst comes to the worst – flag down a taxi and show the card to the driver.

7. Don’t buy too much. Spend your money on things you won’t need to carry: tickets to a good play, restaurants, trips. Nowadays, with the global economy and the Internet, you can buy anything you want without having to pay excess baggage.

8. Don’t try to see the world in a month. It is far better to stay in a city for four or five days than to visit five cities in a week. A city is like a capricious woman: she takes time to be seduced and to reveal herself completely.

9. A journey is an adventure. Henry Miller used to say that it is far more important to discover a church that no one else has ever heard of than to go to Rome and feel obliged to visit the Sistine Chapel with two hundred thousand other tourists bellowing in your ear. By all means go to the Sistine Chapel, but wander the streets too, explore alleyways, experience the freedom of looking for something – quite what you don’t know – but which, if you find it, will – you can be sure – change your life.