Solo Female Travel Safety, Travelling for Sports, Exploring Yellowknife's Beauty with Travel Blogger Lindsay

EPISODE SUMMARY:

This week on Travelling Through Life: A Podcast on the Go we meet Lindsay Davies from the Canadian travel blog I've Been Bit. We chat about her background as a graphic designer & how that's influenced her career in travel blogging. We also discuss travelling for sports throughout her childhood, brushing up on her French skills to work in Québec, & her desire to venture into backcountry camping. Lindsay also shares a fantastic piece of travel advice from her mom.

Travelling through Life: A Podcast on the Go is a fun & quirky show from Travel with TMc that delves into all things travel & adventures from the road, in the air, & in between here & there. Make sure to subscribe for weekly updates!

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MORE RESOURCES & LINK FROM TODAY’S EPISODE:

Lindsay's Song Choice - Raging (Kygo)

CHAPTERS:

00:00 Introduction to Lindsay Davies, Owner of I've Been Bit Travel Blog
05:15 From Graphic Design to Travel Blogging
18:21 First Trips & Childhood Experiences
24:25 How to Choose Where to Travel:  Snow & Sun, Say Yes Era, Bucket List Trips
30:56 Travel Traditions
32:20 Language & Travel: Speaking French for Work in Québec + Favourite Phrases
37:23 The Impact of Technology on Travel & Solo Female Traveller Safety
41:55 Preparing for Travel: Blogs, Google Maps, & Personal Recommendations
45:15 Documenting Travel Memories: Journalling, Collecting Items, & Photos
48:13 Personal & External Impacts of Travel: Skill Development
50:51 Most Surprising Destinations: Yellowknife
53:41 How to Respect Other Cultures as a Foreigner
56:28 Untried Types of Travel: Cruises & Backcountry Trips
57:28 Something You Do When Travelling that You Don't Do at Home
59:42 Weirdest Place Slept: Art Hotel in Berlin
01:03:26 Using Points & Miles for Travel
01:05:33 Necessary Travel Items
01:07:58 Safety Tips for Solo Female Travellers 
01:10:25 How to Deal with the Post-Trip Blues
01:11:31 Travel Playlist: Lindsay’s Choice
01:13:27 Speed Round: Spontaneous Trips, London’s Overrated, You’re Never Stuck
01:16:38 Until Next Time & Where to Find @ibbtravel

Transcript

Tara (Travel With TMc) (00:07)
Welcome to Travelling Through Life: A Podcast on the Go. I'm your host Tara and the founder of the blog Travel with TMc, which is where this adventure all began. Travelling Through Life: A Podcast on the Go is a fun and quirky show that delves into all things travel and adventures from the road, in the air, and in between here and there. And if you listened to last week's episode with Sim and Kartik of The Brown Vanlife

You'll know that I had an in-between moment and I'm having another one today. I'm fresh off returning from my trip to Guatemala and tomorrow morning I'm off on a last-minute domestic flight on which I saved about $2,000 thanks to the use of Points and Miles. If you're curious to learn more about what I'm talking about and how you can do the same, visit the show notes for the link to my Points and Miles course for Canadians.

Also, make sure to subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen and leave a 5-star review with a comment about who you'd like to hear in future episodes. This season we cover all sorts of travel topics, from retirees living that van life to travelling with pets and even to living in North Korea. It's my hope that at least one of these episodes will be relatable and you'll see yourselves and the guests that come on here.

or that other episodes will inspire you to explore the world in a brand new way. This week on Travelling Through Life: A Podcast on the Go, we meet Lindsay Davies from the Canadian travel blog, I've Been Bit. Lindsay is a multi-talented woman with a background in graphic design. She grew up travelling for sports and since then has combined her love of travel with her love of learning. She's tackled French, learning about nature,

and loves learning about Indigenous cultures. Lindsay rounds out our chat with an excellent piece of advice from her mom. I know that you're going to love this episode as much as I enjoyed hosting her. Thanks for listening, and let's dive in.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (02:09)
Welcome, Lindsay. I'm so happy to have you on the show today.

Lindz (02:14)
Aw thanks, it's a pleasure to be here.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (02:17)
Awesome. If people aren't following along on either of our social channels where you might have seen us sharing each other in our hangouts from time to time, Lindsay and I go back a few years. I actually reached out to you on Instagram because I had seen your name on a list of Canadian bloggers and I saw that you were in Kitchener and I was like, wait, hold up, there's another travel blogger in Kitchener?! And so I messaged you and was like, yo.

We should meet up and you were game for it, to your credit, and the rest is history.

Lindz (02:47)
Oh yeah. Of course, I was like, for some

reason randomly someone's like, hey, why don't we hang out and be friends? I'm like, uh, okay. Please, thank you.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (02:52)
Yeah,

Yeah, yeah, we met up for coffee at the original Café Pyrus location and I know I know and shenanigans have been ensuing ever since so yeah, but that is Yeah More to come. Yeah, we do need to plan a van trip this year. I'm serious about that. I think that would be a blast. Yeah, awesome. Well, why don't you tell everybody a bit about yourself? So who you are,

Lindz (02:57)
Yes. R .I .P.

100 % and plenty of great shenanigans for sure with more on the way hopefully so

Yes. Oh yes, yes we do.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (03:21)
what you do, and where you're calling in from today.

Lindz (03:25)
Okay, so as Tara said, I am Lindsay and I've been bit by the travel bug, so hence my blog is called I've Been Bit. I've been in the blogger sphere I unofficially I would say since 2015, because that's when I started this whole thing, but I had no idea what I was doing. And I'd say really, it was like 2019, pretty much when we met that things started to actually get like serious. So

We went, you know, unofficial with the blog. My background is in graphic design and then I, dabbled in social media and then it just kind of all fell into place from there. I've always been a big fan of the outdoors and that's, I'll do a lot of hiking and more recently kayaking. I'm born and raised in St. Catharines, which is where I am now for...

Tara (Travel with TMc) (04:09)
St. Catharines, Ontario,

Canada. If we have any international listeners. Yeah.

Lindz (04:11)
Yes, right. Yes, true. Sorry, my

Ontario centric brain here, my bad. So yeah, that's where I am now. So I've been doing a lot more travel and just like meandering in my own backyard, which has been really cool. Because many people know that Niagara Falls or, you know, wine country with Niagara on the Lake But there's a lot more to see and do. So it's been fun to kind of pick out some, lesser known destinations. I've got some.

ideas planned now that the warmer weather is coming, hopefully, you know.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (04:41)
I know, we've had like reverse seasons this year. It's like we had spring and winter and now we've got winter happening in the spring.

Lindz (04:47)
Yeah, it's, don't even get me started. Yeah, it's been a while. This is at least it's a wild ride no matter what with what we do. But then it's, you know, when Mother Nature likes to step in, then it's extra wild and here we are. So yeah, I think that's kind of me in a nutshell. I will let you, you know, poke and prod me as I go. I'm not great from shoe from the hip. I'm good at answering questions though. So here we go.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (05:02)
Yes.

Yeah.

Fabulous. Well, that's good. I know a lot of people have questions to our industry, like what is travel blogging and what does that look like? And can you speak both to your work as a graphic designer and to a travel blogger and maybe how the two complement each other as well?

Lindz (05:35)
Yeah, sure. My background in graphic design that comes with a lot of like colour theory and, rule of thirds, things like this. So those kind of design principles really transfer well into, you know, what we do as content creators and travel writers. So, what makes a, you know, the composition of a photo a little bit better, videography wise, you know, having

a little bit of motion in a clip versus, you know, a steady shot, and then as well the programs behind it, like I know, Photoshop is my bread and butter. So being able to do the photo editing and that for my blogs, as well as, other publications is very beneficial. So in that regard, that kind of transfers over well. And then because I'm in a marketing background, you know, my familiarity, you know, early on with

know, Facebook, Twitter, X, whatever it is now, Instagram, that kind of thing. Uh, it helps. Obviously it's not nearly what it was, 10 years ago. And, uh, I've kind of kicked myself. I wish I started sooner, but Hey, better late than never. Right. Um, yeah. So, uh, in that regard, yeah. So having that background really helps to smooth things along. Um, for me, especially even, um, I have a little bit of a tech background too. So if my site breaks.

Not always, but sometimes I can actually fix it myself, which is very beneficial. Or if I go in and like style.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (06:56)
Yeah, and I've even come to

you for help, because you are more tech inclined than I am. So I'll message Lindsay and be like, oh my God, I'm panicking. What do I do? And she can go into nitty gritty coding details and help out sometimes.

Lindz (07:05)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah,

uh, so sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. If it's a lot of styling stuff and like what the website looks like, I can usually figure that out. But if it's actually the functional backend, it's like, I'm afraid I'm going to break it more. So, but I do it, I do what I can.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (07:23)
Yeah, and so you went to school for graphic design, right?

Lindz (07:27)
Yes, yeah, so I have a diploma in graphic design. And then I went back to school because that was the era of, you know, when trying to find a job, they were like, well, we want you to have a degree. And so I was like, I can do the work. So I went back to school. Actually, funny enough, I went to the University of Waterloo. Yeah, I love that. I love it so much. And then, yeah, and then I joined the I did the Arts and Business.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (07:36)
Yeah.

I wore it for you today.

Lindz (07:54)
program with Fine Arts as my major because that was the closest thing they had to graphic design at the time. Do not even get me started on Stratford campus opening halfway through my degree.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (08:03)
And I'm going to interrupt you for a second because for people who are listening and not watching, you're referring to the University of Waterloo, which is the sweatshirt that I'm wearing and the campus that you went to for your degree. Yeah.

Lindz (08:10)
Yes, fair. Yes,

exactly. and then with that, I was a part of the co -op program. And so that allowed me to pick up some jobs in between school. After my first year, the way the art the it works for Arts and Business is you alternate semesters, you know, do one term of working one term school vice versa until the your final year.

I thought it was interesting because that helped me travel a little bit more as well. My first co -op, I actually ended up staying out for two terms and doing eight months and that was out west in Vancouver where I worked for Triumph, which is Canada's national laboratory for particle and nuclear physics. It was a blast. It was a wild, wild adventure. It's very interesting being one of two or three artists because the marketing team was quite small in a very predominantly not just science.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (08:48)
That is a mouthful.

Lindz (09:03)
like oriented, but like, state of the art, like research facility, you know, where we're dealing with, radiation and it can be a very, it was a very interesting time, especially since that's when Fukushima happened, while it was there. So it was really, it nuclear is a very, a topic that is very touchy for sure. But it can be done in very safe ways.

So as part of my job was to help educate the public and say, Hey, you know, nuclear is scary. Yes, but we're going about it the right way. Um, to, in order to not just, you know, provide power, but also, there's a lot of cancer research and treatments and that, that rely on cyclotrons and, radiation research. And that's what Triumph does. So.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (09:48)
That's

gotta be one cool thing about design is that you, and travel blogging as well actually, is that you get to learn so much about things that are outside your expertise in order for you to be able to do your job well.

Lindz (10:00)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah, 100%. Yeah, it's been super cool. And then, you know, it's one of those things where, if I were to go back and do this journey all over again, would I change a couple of things? Yeah. But at the same time, like, if I didn't get me into like these crazy situations that I'd, you know, up until today, they're like, I think I did all right. You know, even though it was a bit of, you know, organized chaos is what I like to call it. It's pretty much the story of my life. So.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (10:04)
Yeah.

Yeah.

And like, where did travel blogging come from for you? You said you started in 2015, which is ironically the same year that I started. But yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What was the impetus for you to like pick up the technological pen, let's say?

Lindz (10:34)
Oh stop, I didn't realize that, that's awesome.

Um,

so I did a little bit of blogging while I was at Triumph. So it was called, what was it? Pick Pixels and Particles, I think is what they called it. And I talked a little bit about, I love my alliteration. So we talked about being an artist, your artist oriented, I would say, and the research facility and, and, you know, just the interesting conversations I would have with, these, state of the art, scientists and

Tara (Travel with TMc) (10:52)
That's amazing.

Lindz (11:07)
these are people out at the top of their fields trying to explain their research to me and it's like a deer in the headlights. Like I have no idea what's going on. I remember the first time I wrote an article for our website and my boss at the time was absolutely fantastic. He was like a dad to me, such a sweetheart. He prefaced it with, don't worry, you did very good. Like, I just don't be concerned about the edits. And literally there were three words that weren't edited or switched around or

or whatnot, it was like at the and and or something like that. So funny. But, you know, it's, it's again, it's trying to write, like crazy, you know, yeah, top of their field research and trying to, you know, I say dumb it down, but translate it really into, you know, layman's terms as, oh, it was, it was tricky. It was, it was a difficult challenge, but yeah, it was, it was fun. No. Yeah.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (11:52)
Yeah, for the lay person.

So your first blog wasn't even I've Been Bit. It was Pixels and Particles. Okay, so when did

I've Been Bit come in? I don't know if I've asked you this question before. Bad friend move.

Lindz (12:10)
Oh,

Gosh no, not at all. So I graduated Waterloo in 2014. And then prior to that, I had taken a year off and done a year out. Not a year. I took my summer semesters. Instead of going and doing a co -op, because we're allowed to have one miss, I went and travelled Europe. And then I went out east when I graduated university.

And then coming back, I moved back in with my parents and that, and I was like, I just need something to do to keep me sane. So that's kind of when I took the jump, because people before that had said to me, they're like, you know, Lindsay, like, why aren't you writing about this? Why aren't you blogging about this? I'm like, I don't even know what, like, what? Because especially for, yeah, exactly. Because especially for, you know, Pixels and Particles there, it was mainly just, you know, it was just interesting. It was just like an accessory that'll add to like our social media because...

Tara (Travel with TMc) (12:55)
What a blog it is. Yeah. Yeah.

Lindz (13:07)
At that time, I think they only had a Facebook page. I don't even know if Instagram was really a thing yet. This would have been back in 2011? Instagram was around, but for their purposes, it wasn't really... I don't remember. Yeah, I might have opened their Instagram. I definitely started their Twitter account. That, I remember. And then I pretty much took over their Facebook because they posted once a month kind of thing.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (13:23)
Wasn't a marketing tool at that time.

Lindz (13:36)
So that became a big part of my job and this was just, a supplemental item that I could, help create content and share and whatnot. But there was no, you know, if you had uttered the acronym SEO, I would have no idea what you're talking about. Whereas now it makes me want to pull my hair out. But that's besides the point. 100%.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (13:51)
That's why I have gray hair.

Yeah.

Lindz (13:54)
In my opinion, gray

just means that I have to lighten my hair less. It means the colour will stay longer when I do have colour. I say I don't have the colour in my hair, but I am wearing the crazy tights for you. So.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (14:00)
Yeah!

tights yeah

okay so we're gonna side note this again for anybody who doesn't know Lindsay she always has fantastically coloured hair and the best funky tights. Those are like her signatures. So I was gonna ask if you were wearing any today.

Lindz (14:15)
Thanks.

Yeah,

I was honestly I thought about it this morning. I was like, do I have enough time to dye my hair quickly for this? I'm like, oh, let's see. Like you're you're being a little extra. So I'm like, OK, I've got the got the tights here. They even match my glasses. You know, they're both teal for those that are listening and not watching. And teal is my favourite colour. So, that's pretty much par for the course. But it is a me colour. Yeah. Yeah. Back. Yeah. Back to the tangent of.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (14:35)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It is a you colour, yep.

Yeah.

Lindz (14:47)
I got into blogging. Yeah, so pretty much I had people, especially once I came back from Europe, people like, Oh, like, why aren't you like writing about it? Why aren't you doing this? This and that? And I'm like, I don't know. Like, I don't know what I'm doing. So I just started finally, when I came back, and I thought about it. And honestly, I was like, you know, I took a month just to like think on my name. And of course, I've Been Bit was the first one I had thought of. And then I was like, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. And then I just couldn't get my you know,

off my brains. I was like, well, if I'm still thinking about a month later, then here we go. This is what I'll stick with. So yeah. And after that, it was just, it was very much, I'm sure you were probably very similar when you first started writing. It was like, I went here. I did this. It was fun. Yeah. Yeah.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (15:32)
Yeah, the whole like journal style. It was a way to document. It wasn't

your parents and your friends were reading it. It wasn't for the World Wide Web, really. Yeah.

Lindz (15:41)
Yeah, exactly.

And funny enough, it wasn't until and I was much more even since like the beginning, I was much more in tune with like social media. I used to spend a lot of time on Twitter, back in the era of Twitter chats and things like this. I just loved hanging out and chatting. And that was kind of where I got more involved with the community versus, you know, actually the blog itself.

Yeah, it wasn't until I posted, I had gone up to up north, up north, like up towards Tobermory area, not quite as far. But I went to one of the waterfalls up there and I took a picture and I posted on Twitter and I had tagged Bruce County. Not realizing that I got my boundaries wrong and it was actually in Grey County. And so Grey County, you know, being great sports, they were like, hey, that picture is great. But like, it's in our area, not Bruce County. And I was mortified.

you know, being a recovering perfectionist, I was like, oh, I made a mistake. God, this is the worst. I'm so embarrassed. And then a couple months later, I got an email from them saying, hey, we want to have you up for a winter fam tour. And I was like, what's that? What's a fam tour? They're like, oh, it's a familiarization tour. We create an itinerary. We have you up and we get you to try out these different attractions and experiences. And then we want you to write an article about it.

And that's when it kind of clicked. So this would have been 20. Oh, I was still working full time. So that would have been 20. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Sorry. I should say the, the, the typical, I should work full time in the typical sense of nine to five versus when I want to. want to say 2017, 2018 in there. And, uh, and that's what kind of, you know, dinged is like, Oh,

Tara (Travel with TMc) (17:10)
for someone else instead of for yourself, because you definitely work full time right now.

Yes.

Yeah.

Lindz (17:29)
Oh, I could do this to help people plan trips, but then also for people to, you destinations to promote what the things to do and whatnot. So, uh, that's when it first kind of clicked. And, I was going to the odd conference. Like I went to the, my big one was the Women in Travel Summit, especially when I was a beginner. Yes, that is WITS and, uh, you know, it was great for, especially first starting out where I was looking more so for community versus making this, you know, a business. And that's how,

Tara (Travel with TMc) (17:44)
known as wits.

Lindz (17:54)
that was a big part of my social media presence was, being in the Wanderful Twitter chats and stuff like this. Since then, I've parted ways a bit with with Wanderful just because, you know, I'm I'm very focused up here, in Canada now and my job trying to expand a little more, but we'll see how that goes. But it's been a very.

interesting journey to say the least. It was definitely filled with a lot of oopses that turned into, oh okay this isn't so bad.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (18:21)
I love that. Did okay so I want to I want to go back in time a little bit. I'd love to know more about do you like do you remember the first trip you ever took growing up or where did your travel bug come from? Like what was travel and to clarify for people listening as well like when I think of travel personally it's changed so much since the pandemic. I always used to think of travel as going

Lindz (18:22)
I'm

Yeah.

Yeah.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (18:46)
elsewhere. But the pandemic and actually being friends with you, Lindsay, has taught me about how much travel can be like local and what's closer to home as well, whether home is like the province or the city that you're in. So like, yeah, what was travel like growing up for you? And when did you get bit?

Lindz (18:47)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah, um, the travel was always pretty, it was pretty calm, I would say until I was about the big trips that we did as a family. I'm an only child. So that kind of plays a little bit into it. But when I was four, five and six, my parents took me to Disney in Florida. I don't remember anything about it really personally, I was still that little bit too young, but they remember they still tell me stories of how like excited I was to meet Mickey and

and all this and you know and I'm glad that they they did it and they took me. But it really wasn't until I would say high school. So I played ringette when I was younger which for those that don't know it's kind of a kind of like a mix of hockey and basketball if that makes sense. It's very it's very quick and fast paced like basketball. There's a lot of passing and but it's played on ice like hockey. There's just a couple of different rules and regulations.

And so that took me on a trip with our team to Finland and Sweden. Yeah, that was. Yeah, you get to you're probably hearing things be like, Oh, this all makes sense now. So.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (20:09)
so much about you right now. This is fantastic.

Well, like having

just gone to Finland in December myself, this is, I don't know, another spot we can dig into a little bit. Anyhow, back to you.

Lindz (20:25)
Yeah, for sure.

So we did a trip to Finland and Sweden as a team and it was it was interesting because at the time here we were considered an A team. We were borderline A team. We were not a very strong team, but there we just got walloped. And as expected, there's a reason why there are so many great hockey players from Finland and Sweden and why the KHL is so...

so popular over there and whatnot. And even that, like I don't remember a ton about that trip because yeah it had its different purpose, right? Yeah, I remember more so the arenas and what we were playing and, and things like this. But it was, the first time we really had gone outside of, of, you know, Canada. And it was it was just interesting. It was like, you know, things like back then, I think we arrived on a Sunday.

and it was still, you know, in some countries are still like this, but there was very much the era of like, everything's closed on Sunday, it's a family day, you know, and so the only thing we could find for food was, I don't even remember what it was called, it was some fast food joint, and they fried everything in fish oil or something, it was like the strangest thing, it was, again, just some of those weird things, they were like, what? And then...

we hopped on a bus and we didn't realize we had to pay. It was just absolute chaos, especially with 12, 13, 14 girls all travelling together. Oh my gosh, it was ridiculous. Too, too funny. And then after that, I kind of took a step back from ringette and then I started getting involved with the first robotics program in high school. So I went from more the sports in to nerddom.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (22:01)
Wait.

Lindz (22:07)
And so for those that don't, yes, so they're still held in arenas funny enough, but yes, they're very different kind of arena. So FIRST is For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology is what it stands for. And so every year this organization comes out with a game, that you then each, any high school team that is involved, then crew designs a robot to complete this game. And, you know, often you're working with mentors from,

Tara (Travel with TMc) (22:08)
A different kind of arena.

Yeah.

Lindz (22:32)
organizations like, you car companies and engineering firms and things like this to help, learn and utilize those skills in a functional manner, to hopefully get kids more involved in joining STEM. So that was a little bit crazy, too. It was pretty much like the Super Bowl of Nerds. I think they called it the Super Bowl of SMARTs is what they called it. So if your team made it to, you know, the finals during my era, it was in Atlanta, Georgia.

And it was at the, I'm pretty sure it was at the Georgia Dome. It was like this big arena, it was a huge like three day affair. Um, and so that really is kind of what, that's what I really remember. It's like I were meeting up with friends down there and we'd go to the Coca Cola museum and then go and like wander around, downtown, like I say downtown, but like, you know, like near the hotel in Georgia and go to the little restaurants and things like this. And that's when you start to get your little bit of freedom. Cause this is again, this was late high school for me. So this was grade 11, grade 12.

You know, have a little bit more autonomy and, and whatnot. And then after that, it was just, it was really was university then and getting my job at Triumph and moving, literally on a whim, it was a, I applied for the position randomly, it was a last minute, well, I'll apply for it, we'll see what happens. And then they picked me because of my graphic design diploma that I had, I beat out third and fourth years because I had those skills already.

And so, you know, in two months I was moving across the country for originally four months and then it turned into eight. So, um, I would say after that, it was kind of like, well, if I can do that, but I could probably figure out other places to go and I'm probably not going to die. So here we go. Let's see what happens.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (23:52)
Nice.

Amazing.

It's really cool to hear all the different influences and experiences in your life that have contributed to this love and part of your identity too, right? Like this is so important to you and who you are and what you do. How do you choose now where you travel to? I know that you are really interested in Indigenous culture. You're really interested in sustainability, the outdoors. What are all, you know,

Lindz (24:21)
Mm -hmm.

Oh, for sure. Yeah.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (24:37)
whether it's those things or other things, how do you choose your destinations?

Lindz (24:41)
Um, honestly, lately, it's just been kind of what opportunities kind of present themselves. I just say it's one of those I'm kind of in that well, I'm just going to say yes era and see what happens. Um, you know, more recently, funny enough, I've been heading to more tropical destinations, which for anybody who knows me, I am absolute winter baby. So I've had many friends laughing at me being like, what are you doing trading snow for sunshine? Like, who are you? You know, saying the girl who went up to

Tara (Travel with TMc) (25:08)
Yeah.

Lindz (25:10)
Yellowknife in April, a couple of years back and, wasn't dealing with negative 40 degree weather to extend her winter. But I figured especially with our weather this year, I was like, well, if you can't beat them, join them. Okay, Mama Nature, if you're going to give us warm weather, I'll just keep going the other way. But no, I funny enough, I met some, you know, some fast fast friends. And one of them, her name is Heather and

Tara (Travel with TMc) (25:27)
Yeah.

Lindz (25:38)
we are thick as thieves already and I only met her in October and her and her partner own a condo in Mexico. And so I hitched on to one of their adventures with some of their friends. And that was my first real taste of Mexico. Cause I had been to Mexico before in 2019, but I was in Cozumel. So it was like not really real Mexico. And so we flew into Cancun.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (26:00)
the resorts.

Lindz (26:02)
Yes, it's very all resorts, cruise, you know, it's a cruise port, it's a cruise town. It's, a beautiful spot, definitely worth visiting for sure, but, you know, a very much different vibe from Puerto Morelos, which is where their, where their condo is, and it's 20 minutes south of Cancun. So it was interesting just to, you know, again, I didn't really know what to expect. I'd never travelled with these people before. It was very much a, well, I have the opportunity.

why not? So I booked my flights while I was in Europe, visiting my friend, Kasia in Italy. And it was great. We had a blast. And so actually, funny enough, we leave this Saturday. So in a couple of days to head back down there. But where was I going with this tangent? Oh my gosh, this has to be all the time. Oh, how am I picking? How am I picking my? This is why I have blonde hair. How am I picking my stuff?

Tara (Travel with TMc) (26:53)
Oh no, that'd

be nice.

Lindz (26:56)
So yeah, it just so happened that like that, you know, that's why I picked Mexico, which is opportunity presented itself. So it's like, okay, like, why not? And then even with Cuba a couple of weeks ago, my lovely friend, Julia from who is Little Miss Ottawa, she posted a reel about, you know, finding cheap vacation deals. And I was like, hmm, interesting, just how cheap and.

I found an all inclusive in Cuba for $865 for the whole eight days, seven nights, flight, everything. I was like, well, I'm like never been to Cuba before. Why not? So, and I typically I do, because you mentioned sustainability and that, and I do typically prefer to stay out of things like that and book with locals as much as I can and do local experiences and whatnot. But, I...

Tara (Travel with TMc) (27:30)
Yeah. Yeah.

Lindz (27:48)
you can't knock all inclusives because it does allow, especially for less experienced travellers, it gives them an easy way to get out, you know, to access it and to get outside the country that they're from. And so, you know, there's a time and place I would say for it. And, you know, you know me, I'm not, I'm not one to sit still. So, you know, I went off resort and multiple times and you know, and the area that I was in, Cayo Coco is very

Tara (Travel with TMc) (28:00)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Lindz (28:17)
is very resort heavy it's pretty much a reserve like an ecological reserve and then hotels and that's it really um but there's the odd little restaurant here and there that's run by locals that you can you know go to and enjoy dinner and whatnot. So we did that three times in our week so you know that's how I've been choosing lately. There's a couple bucket list trips that I'm working towards that I really want to do one being uh

Tara (Travel with TMc) (28:34)
Nice.

Lindz (28:42)
I think I mentioned to you New Zealand next year. So I'm talking with a friend of mine that I met through WITS who lives down in Milwaukee and she's a tour guide. And so we're trying to see how we can work together to, you know, kind of run this group trip and get down there. And she just came back a couple of weeks ago from running her first group trip there and she had an absolute blast. So, yeah, both.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (28:44)
Yeah.

Oh fantastic! North Island or South Island or both?

Very cool.

Lindz (29:09)
Yeah, it was a

10, I think it was a 10 day,

And then obviously, in this lovely gig economy that we have chosen to be a part of, a lot of the travel too will then depend on partnerships and destinations like that. So as of -

right now I'm hopefully going to be heading back to Virginia just waiting on a contract in a couple of months to check out a different area of the state which is always you know is always cool it's always a great time. So, you know but again is that somewhere that I would go on my own probably not so it's it's a neat it's a neat experience to have these destinations say hey like we want to have you and it's like oh I didn't know that you guys had xyz and that's kind of what happened when I first went to Virginia in 2019.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (29:42)
Yeah.

Lindz (29:53)
And it was eight day, seven night road trip where I landed and started at the southern border of the state on the western side, right with Tennessee. And then it went all the way up the I -81 and stopped at little towns and that along the way. And it was awesome. I had such a great time. It's such a beautiful state. You know, you've got the, depending on where you are, either the Appalachian or the Appalachian mountains pronunciation depends on where you are in the state, which I found very interesting.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (30:19)
Right, right.

Lindz (30:23)
And yeah, so lots of great hiking at Shenandoah National Park. And so it was interesting to not only experience these popular destinations, but then also hit smaller towns such as Wytheville, which is there is only one Wytheville in the entire world. You will not find another town named it. Yeah, and it's a great little community with so much to do and a lot of really cool attractions and hikes. And it's a good mix of history, food, outdoors.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (30:40)
Cool.

Lindz (30:53)
Yeah, lots of fun to be had. So yeah.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (30:54)
All the good things.

Yeah, awesome. Do you have any travel traditions? Like anything that you either do to prepare for your trips or while you're on your trips or even like post trip?

Lindz (31:06)
Yeah, usually to prepare. One thing I do, that's part of why I will typically have coloured hair before I go is because I will tip that's my that's why I force myself to sit for 45 minutes to an hour and just chill before I embrace the chaos and to give me a break from the chaos of getting ready is that I will you know, put the dye my hair and then I'll have a bath and then I sit and I just decompress and

Tara (Travel with TMc) (31:16)
Hahaha!

Lindz (31:35)
have some self care time for it. And then it just allows me to kind of a little bit more grounded and, you know, reset and it forces me to take some time that I may not normally do otherwise. And that is pretty much my ritual before any big trip that I go on. So yeah.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (31:51)
Yeah, I

love that. That's so cool. I haven't heard somebody talk about that centering before they leave on a trip before because as you mentioned, like it's often chaos before you go, whether it's a family trip or a solo trip or a work trip. There's so many things you have to do before you leave, but that's actually really cool to take a breath and just, yeah.

Lindz (32:11)
Yeah, and yeah,

The little hamster that continuously spins up here sometimes needs a break, so I give her the break.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (32:18)
Definitely.

Definitely. And you kind of alluded to the next section a little bit without even realizing it, but for those who are just tuning in for the first time or don't know me outside of the podcast, prior to travel, language and words are my first love. And Lindsay, we've done French lessons together. I'm...

Lindz (32:26)
Okay.

We have.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (32:44)
I'm an Ontario Certified French teacher and in addition to blogging and travel coaching, I also teach privately, English, French, and Spanish. And Lindsay and I worked on some French before you had a Québecois work trip.

Lindz (32:57)
Yes, that was I think it was before I

did the road trip to the North starting in Tadoussac all the way to Kegashka Yeah.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (33:03)
Yeah and you spoke

some French before that right? Like I know growing up in Ontario you obviously spoke French but yeah can you talk a little bit about...

Lindz (33:09)
Yeah, it was definitely,

yeah, I am nowhere near conversational or anything like that by any means. For funny enough, French was actually my best subject up until high school where, I'm the unfortunately, it's the typical story of, you know, I'd had the French teacher and I didn't quite jive. And so that was, that was the end of that, which is really unfortunate, because

I really did enjoy the classes and learning the language, but good old Duolingo came back into play. And especially with, you know, with the knowing that that trip was coming up, I was like, well, you know, I'm heading, you for those who aren't familiar, you know, the route that I took was the Route des Baleines which is the Whale Route. It's fantastic for whale watching. It's a big draw into Northern Québec. And it follows the North Shore of the St. Lawrence River. And so we, I took...

It was almost two weeks, I think it was 10 days that I was out there. And just took my time and you know, and it's travelled through and for a part of it, I had a lovely gentleman by the name of Étienne who worked for the tourism board who stuck with me and helped me with, communicating and things like this. But there were times when I was on my own and you know, small fishing villages like Havre Saint -Pierre and I say small, Havre Saint -Pierre is a little bit larger but.

They're very more rural and not a lot of English spoken. And so I was pretty much preface every conversation with, yeah, je parle pas en français, mais n 'est pas bon, so I'm not very good. And everybody was great. They're like, no problem. They spoke slowly. They helped me. If I couldn't figure out the words, it's a lot of sign language. It was great. And it's one of those things too, where if you go into it saying like, hey, like,

I'm not good, but I'm going to try. There's a lot of an appreciation for that. And I think that that's Québec gets a bad reputation because a lot of people just go in there assuming that everybody's going to speak English. And it's like, well, no, that's not the culture. And to just go in and expect that, of course you're going to be met with some friction and some confrontation because, you know, that's, and I was just going say it's rude. It's very rude. So, uh,

Tara (Travel with TMc) (34:56)
Yeah.

I'm with you on that if you're somewhere new. It's so important to make an effort and learn the language and use it and bumble your way through. Like that's part of the fun of it, but it's also respect. It's a sign of respect, yeah.

Lindz (35:30)
Yeah. Yeah,

exactly. So that's why, you know, I tapped Tara on the shoulders like, please help me with my words. Cause, uh, for me to like, I can, reading again, it's not like I could read, you know, a novel by any means, but, you know, basic things like a menu at a grocery store, you know, a functional French, I can, I can read and I can, I can listen not bad if it's, you a bit slower, if it's not too fast, but.

to be able to speak it especially with conjugations and things like this your brain just gets overwhelmed and vocabulary has never been my strong suit it takes me ten times to remember what the name of something is even if you said now it's like oh what's that I'd be like I probably know this word but I can't think of it I don't work with it yeah so uh oh no oh no oh no okay

Tara (Travel with TMc) (36:14)
It's hard when you're on the spot too. Actually, I'm gonna put you on the spot right now. But more so in a fun way, in

a fun way. I'm wondering if you have any like favourite words or phrases from French or you also know some German, don't you? Yeah.

Lindz (36:31)
I do. As soon as she says that I'm

like, I already know my favourite word ever is German. And it is Schadenfreude, which is pretty much having the amusement out of somebody's mishap. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. And I feel like that sums up a good chunk of my personality. But moving on.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (36:36)
Okay, okay, what is it?

Oh! Classic. Classic.

Someone else's pain is entertaining.

Okay, all right, we'll hop into the next question soon. Amazing, I was gonna say, on peut parler en français maintenant si tu veux, mais no, I won't put you in there, yeah.

Lindz (37:04)
Oh.

Ohhhh... No.

But one of these days when I can actually be conversational, then 100 % that I will be fair. It'll be fair game.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (37:19)
You would do amazing.

Awesome. We've touched a little bit about this, touched on a little bit about this because you have worked in the industry, but travel and tech is something I'm always curious to chat to people about because you and I grew up in the era where like we didn't have cell phones as a kid, we didn't have iPads, we went out and we fell from trees and we played road hockey and we were like out in the world. We wanted to see a friend, we ran over to their house or we called their home phone.

Lindz (37:42)
Yeah.

Mm -hmm.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (37:49)
And so we also travelled that way before we do now with Instagram and blogs and all the things that we do professionally, but also that we use in our personal travel. So I'm curious to know how technology, how has technology changed the way that you travel?

Lindz (37:53)
Yeah.

Um, I'm definitely don't get nearly as lost as I used to. That's definitely a plus because I am directly challenged at the best of times. Um, but I remember the days of, when I played ringette, it was a lot of, you know, there weren't a lot of teams. So it was pretty much given that it was, you were a travel team. Um, and so, you know, that would take us to, sometimes it was just to, you know, Burlington or the Falls or went up. But sometimes it would take us up into Barrie or, you know, Elora, Fergus, you know, Hagersville.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (38:11)
Ha ha ha!

Lindz (38:35)
And, uh, we'd print out, I remember printing out the Map Quest directions to get us from A to B. And then if, you know, and heaven forbid if, there was a road closed, then it was like, oh no, like, where do we go? What do we do? How do we get there? Um, so it definitely made, I would say it may allowed me to be a little bit more of a, I don't know if I would say tolerant, but you know, when things went wrong, I, when things go with kind of like haywire,

and I can be a little bit more chilled than I think I would be if I didn't have that kind of background. But I have to say it is really nice now to be able to, you know, if you're lost or something, the offline maps function is just brilliant. It is, saving so many, hours of, you know, countless, you know, aimless wandering trying to figure out where I am or things like this. But sometimes, it's fun to just be able to, you know,

just turn it off. I think it's nice that we're in that era of, it's a choice as opposed to a necessity. And I think that allows us to have a lot more freedom in that we can plan out our days as many of us do, especially if we're researching for a blog post or things like this. But then we can kind of just say, well, you know what? I kind of know where I am. I'm just going to turn it off for a while and just wander.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (39:31)
Get off line, yeah.

Lindz (39:55)
Um, but then it's having that security blanket of, if you get into a spot where you're kind of like, Oh, okay. Where am I? I don't feel so comfortable anymore. You can flick the flick of the switch, turn, you know, turn on your maps or contact somebody or, be, in a, sit back into safe position as opposed to, you know, kind of being stuck high and dry. Um, which I think is very important, especially, as female travellers that often are solo.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (39:55)
Mm -hmm.

Lindz (40:17)
know this is something that we do have to think about and do have to you know kind of have on the back of our mind so I think in a way technology has really allowed us to to do so in a more safe manner because we can contact people if things go haywire much more quickly than if we didn't have that you know 20, 30, 40 years ago so.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (40:36)
Yeah,

It's interesting too because it's almost a bit of a double -edged sword when you talk about technology for like safety for females because I know a lot of us in the blogging world also...

might use technology specifically Instagram, let's say differently than our like layperson friends who don't blog because we'll post a day later or hours after we've left a place specifically for safety reasons as well. So as much as it can help us in situations, it can also, if we're not conscious about how we use it, it can be a little dicey at times too. Yeah.

Lindz (40:56)
Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

100 % Yeah,

I've fortunately never had that happen, but I've definitely had friends who have had stories of people you know my trying to message them try to figure out where they are and I say now even working with tourism boards especially because I do often travel alone I'll tell them right up front like I'm going off I'm posting about the hotel it's like I will post about the hotel upon checking out so if you know if they

Tara (Travel with TMc) (41:33)
Yep.

Lindz (41:35)
And it's a little bit different too when I'm travelling with somebody, whether it's a friend or family or in a group or whatnot, then hey, by all means, and I'll post more so in real time. But yeah, when I'm alone, it's like, nope, it's gonna go up later. It's gonna go up when I check out and then I'll talk about how awesome the hotel was after I am off the premises.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (41:39)
Mm -hmm.

Right.

Yeah, yeah. And as a travel blogger, how do you plan and prepare for travel? Like are there blogs that are go -tos for you or podcasts or YouTube channels? Or do you prefer like guidebooks and family and friend recommendations? What's your prep process like?

Lindz (42:12)
It's

a menagerie of things. If you look at my phone is out of reach right now. If you look at my Google Maps, it's just a barrage of stars and flags and things. So I'm very much wondering if I'm on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, whatever, and I see a cool spot, I'll flag it. And then if I'm going to a destination that I know, say you've been to, for example, then it's like, hey, what are some, when I was in Dublin, I was like, hey, what are some good restaurants to go to? And.

some good recommendations and whatnot, just to kind of get a feel and get an idea of what I want to do. And honestly, a lot of the time I just, I literally just look at Google Maps. I'll just go into Google Maps and look and be like, you know, restaurants, okay. And it's like, and you just kind of go around and see what's, you know, we've got some good ratings and what looks cute and whatnot. And then, in blogs and that as well too, I typically go for, I opt to tap on the shoulders of.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (42:49)
Yeah.

Lindz (43:06)
know the bloggers that I know or have followed for a long time. It's always curious like I always I always search just like a things to do in Toronto on Google just to see like what's what is coming up and that's also just my that's my SEO brain going like Google what are you showing me.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (43:22)
And it's interesting you bring up Toronto as well, because I know you saw that, like speaking of doing research and things, this week I had a large publication, steal a photo of mine for their website. And this is a website that a lot of people do use for their, I'm just gonna come out and say it, Blog TO Like everybody knows that they're, yeah.

Lindz (43:32)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah, they did it. So if they didn't

like it, they shouldn't have done it. So we go and talk about it.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (43:49)
Right, exactly. So, and people need to be, large corporations need to be called out on stuff like that as well, I think. But when it comes, I was curious about when it comes to your preparation period, because you know all the work that goes into blogs beforehand, but I also know that you love talking to people and gathering your information that way. And so I was curious to see, yeah, like where you get your travel inspiration from. So that's neat.

Lindz (43:55)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah, it's again, and especially to once you get into like into the nitty gritty of a place then you know and I think a lot of time it depends too on how long I'm in a destination. Like you know for example for Dublin since I only had the two days I pretty much kind of had my days planned out and ahead of time and it still allowed me a bit of just meandering be booping around and whatnot but uh you know if I'm somewhere for say like a week like even in Cuba I was like you know we were asking a lot of the um

Tara (Travel with TMc) (44:24)
Mm.

Lindz (44:39)
you know, the folks that are lovely folks that like to work there and that being like, Hey, like, what do you what do you recommend? They told us about, taking the bus over down to Playa Pilar which was one of the it's one of the best beaches in Cuba. And it's just, you know, short, 45 minute drive on a open, double decker open top sightseeing bus and there was some amazing snorkelling like probably some of the best snorkelling I've had the pleasure of experiencing.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (44:42)
Great.

Lindz (45:04)
so far and whatnot. And yeah, and if we didn't ask around or talk to people, we might not have known about it. So yeah. Yeah.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (45:10)
Definitely, yeah, ask the locals for sure.

All of your prep doesn't have to be done before you leave. Yeah. Do you document like for yourself personally your journeys at all? I mean, it's part of the work that you do, but do you journal or do you scrapbook or do you like voice note? Do you do anything like that?

Lindz (45:15)
Exactly.

Uh, I used to journal like when I did my big Euro trip in that was 2012, I was really, really. Oh, stop. That's so funny.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (45:39)
Dude, we were in Europe at the same time. That's when I lived in Ireland, was 2012, 2013. We were on campus at

the same time at Waterloo. We were in Europe at the same time. We were meant to meet and become friends. Yeah.

Lindz (45:50)
Wild, absolutely wild. Exactly, exactly. It just took us a little longer, you know, just

the universe was like, okay, maybe no, okay, maybe no. It's like, okay, now, now it's going to happen. Yeah, I used to journal, honestly, and for me, it was I just couldn't keep up with it. And then it just became that like, thing in the back of my head where I'm like, I really wanted to do this. But I'll often still save little

Tara (Travel with TMc) (45:59)
Yeah.

Lindz (46:16)
I don't save my flight passes or tickets as much just because a lot of the time they all look the same, especially if they're printed out of Pearson, it's always just thin, flimsy, whatever. But little things like when I was in Italy, we got a little pass for the museums and so I kept the ticket that they printed out or I have the odd wristband from...

an exit or entry into like a cenote in Mexico and like I'll have that. Just like little trinkets like this that I, you know, eventually I would like to put up on like a cork board or something as a little collection of things. But right, right now they're the things that I do keep and they're few and far between too, just because it's, you know, it's also a matter of I don't want to be carrying around a bunch of stuff. Back in the day, I used to originally I was thinking, oh yeah, oh yeah, I'll get like shot glasses.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (46:53)
Yeah.

Lindz (47:10)
No, that was that stopped I think after about five. I'm like, this is stupid. I don't need this many shot glasses. I don't even drink that much. And then, in Europe, there was patches, but then it became hard. It was just hard to find them. And I was like, you know, especially in the little more, more obscure, you know, areas like I did a trip part of that trip, I was in Bosnia. So try to find a Bosnian patches.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (47:23)
Yeah.

Lindz (47:34)
near impossible. Funny enough, I think I found it in like Italy or something. There's somebody selling one. I'm like, you know what, good enough. Like close enough. I was there, you know, that kind of thing. But yeah, I mean, you know, pictures are always the best way to do it. And, even if they aren't being used all the time, there's it's still nice to be able to go back and, you know, I do appreciate when Google does that, like, Hey, remember this from last year? The odd time it's kind of like,

Tara (Travel with TMc) (47:57)
Yeah.

Lindz (47:58)
I don't remember that part, but that's becoming few and far between for the most part. It's like, oh yeah, I was here. Like, oh, or especially the ones where it's like five or six years ago and it pops up, you're like, oh my gosh, that feels like another lifetime ago.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (48:11)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. When we talk about travel, we often talk about like the impact or the benefits that we receive from travel. And there's only kind of one question I want to touch on with that because I have some other questions that I think we could dig into a bit deeper. But are there any new skills or yeah, are there any new skills that you've developed or previous skills that you've honed from your travels?

Lindz (48:40)
Hmm, that's a good question. I'm sure there are but to think if I pull them out of the top of my head.

I would say I'm definitely a lot more... I've become a lot more aware, like, personally of my own, like, energy levels, because, like, very much I can be a very do -all -the -things kind of person, where it's like, you know, I've got this big list, it's like, okay, I want to do everything. And then you just get to the point of exhaustion, where you're just so tired that all you can do is cry. And it's like, well, that's not good. Like, that's not a good way to operate as a human. And so I would say I've...

become more organized in that regard and be more aware of, it's like, I only have so much capacity. It's like, I'm not going to see everything unless I am, you know, if I am somewhere for a week, then yeah, you know what, maybe I'm going to be able to see everything that I want to see. However, it's kind of defeating that FOMO of like, you know what, it's okay if you don't see everything. If you really want to come back, you'll make time and you'll come back. And so being able to, you know, decipher what's, the must do's.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (49:24)
Mm.

Lindz (49:45)
And then, hey, this would be nice. And then, well, if I have free time. And that's kind of how I organize how the attractions and experiences and that that I want to have when I go somewhere.

We as content creators, I think we don't travel often like normal people. We are very much like we want to see as much as we can. We want to do as much as we can do and so we there's always this underlying like oh like I want to I gotta go I gotta go I gotta do this I gotta do that I gotta do this and so that's being able to be like actually like why don't we just take a minute? Why don't we plan this out a little better and?

Tara (Travel with TMc) (50:01)
Ha ha ha!

Lindz (50:20)
And definitely research wise, like I definitely, plan my trips a lot better than I used to be able to. Like I could definitely fit in more because I have to be able to hone those skills of, I know what to look for. I know the kind of things, the kind of attractions I want to see and the experiences I want to have, um, which then, will craft my trip to be something very different versus, just the, you know, somebody who's, kind of pops themselves. It's like, Hey.

Where am I gonna go today? And there's nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with that by any means. I'm just too type A for that.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (50:52)
What's been a place that's really surprised you? You either had a preconceived notion of it or you had no idea about it and it just kind of blew you out of it.

Lindz (51:03)
Hmm. Honestly, for me, a big one was probably Yellowknife. Because when I booked it, I didn't even really have like, I have a goal of being able to visit every province and territory in Canada. And so I have now crossed as of last year, I crossed off Saskatchewan, and so I have all the provinces done. All I have left now is Nunavut and Yukon. But when I was crossing off the Northwest Territories,

This was back in 2018 I think it was. I just found cheap flights. I found a $600 return flight from Kitchener. So I was like... And I was sitting there and I remember... Yeah, I was sitting and I sat on it for a bit because I was like, well, should I, shouldn't I, should I, shouldn't I? And the deal was still there like a week later and I was like, okay, you know, book it. Here we go. But I booked it for April and I was like, okay, April, spring. Yeah. Not...

Tara (Travel with TMc) (51:39)
I remember you getting that. I think we had no need to. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You were so pumped.

Lindz (51:59)
on the 49th parallel night, it's still winter. And so leading up to it, it was like, cause that shock of, you know, I'm looking at the weather, it's like negative 30, 35. What? Like, oh, you're going how far north? Like it was just this funny concept of oops, like didn't realize that. But it was really, it was really, really neat. Yellowknife is the capital, but it has that small town.

feel. You know, it's only 30, 35 ,000 people. And so it's a fairly tight knit community. And so when I landed, I'd reached out to some people ahead of time, and, had arranged some tours and whatnot, but it, quickly became, oh, so and so knows this, you know, who knows, who knows, who knows, right, it's like two degrees of separation, pretty much in Yellowknife. So that was really, really interesting to see, and just just the variety of,

not just experiences, but also like food and that that's in Yellowknife, which you wouldn't really expect to have an Ethiopian restaurant in Yellowknife. You wouldn't expect to. Yeah, like it was really, really cool. And everybody there is just, again, it has that small town feel like we have in rural Ontario where it's that, you know, if you see somebody at the side of the road, people stop. It's like, hey, are you okay? Like, is everything all good? You know, yeah, yeah, no, I'm okay. You know, people actually check in, as opposed to the...

Tara (Travel with TMc) (52:56)
Nice.

Hmm.

Lindz (53:15)
the blinders of the kind of bigger cities. It's one of the places where I almost didn't take my flight home, like I almost stayed. Yeah, I was, I was pretty, it was pretty close to just be like, nah, you know what, I think I'll, I think I'll stay here. It was, yeah, it was really, really great. And that was again in April and it's still in the dead of winter. So.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (53:20)
No way!

Right.

You pack your Michelin Man outfit for that trip. Yeah. You're also a traveller who I think of as somebody who's like pretty conscientious. Like when it comes to the place that you're visiting, I know that it's important to you to be respectful and to do research as you've talked about and to think about your impact being there, not just what you're getting out of it, but...

Lindz (53:38)
Yeah, exactly. Oh, exactly.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (54:00)
how you are contributing to the place or the people and what you're leaving behind. Like, where did that come from for you and do you have any tips for people who may be new to travelling on how they can respect local cultures when they're the odd person out?

Lindz (54:04)
I'm going to go ahead and close the video.

Yeah, where that came from. That's honestly a great question. I think it's probably just a matter of my family and I we've always kind of for as long as I can remember, given back like every year my mom and I put together kits for the YWCA here in Niagara. You know, and more recently, my mom is a big knitter. She knits like crazy. And so, you know, she started knitting blankets for the Niagara Native Centre for some of the ladies there at Christmas time and stuff like this. And so I think that's just always been kind of

ingrained in, you know, the everyday for me. I think it, I think it just comes as well with as you travel, you know, as you travel, and you realize, the people that you connect with, it opens a lot of doors to be more respectful and understanding and showing interest, just a matter of, if you see somebody, walking down the street, you know, it can be something as simple as like,

Tara (Travel with TMc) (55:01)
-hmm.

Lindz (55:05)
Hey, I love your dress. Like, where did you get that? It's like, well, actually, you know, I got it from XYZ and blah, blah, blah. And it just starts a whole new conversation and who knows where it'll take you. A big thing too, you know, the big, the big brands and you know, COVID really showed this for the big brands are the powerhouses. And so I think became more and more important to support.

small businesses and local mom and pa shops and, I think it became more prevalent to do that at home. But then, you know, and don't get me wrong, you know, Starbucks and McDonald's, they have their time and place. You just want like a taste of something familiar. Like, you know, it's like.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (55:35)
Okay.

Lindz (55:37)
You know, like, I'm not gonna rag on anybody if you've been travelling for, you know, three months and all you want is a fricking Timmy's Double Double. Like, I'm the first that comes off that plane and like, I want my everything bagel with herb and garlic cream cheese and I am a happy camper, you know? It's, but again, it's that knowing where you are and how you can contribute to, the local economy. Because a lot in, you know, Cuba, for example, like a lot of the...

Tara (Travel with TMc) (55:44)
for sure.

Lindz (56:04)
countries, they rely on tourism. They really do. And unfortunately, the way that tourism is often set up is that it's putting some money maybe into that local community, but it's not putting as much as it could. And so being cognizant of that and figuring out ways in order to help contribute so that you can make an impact and can be supporting the local economy and not just these big names that you can't really get away from.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (56:28)
Yep, yep, Is there a type of travel that you haven't tried yet that you want to try?

Lindz (56:33)
What

type of travel I haven't done? I've never been on a cruise. I still don't know if I want to, honestly. I'm still kind of like, it sounds like a giant Petri dish of germs, so I'm not really sure yet. I feel like I need, if I find the right one, I think I'll be like, okay. say like an Alaskan cruise or something like this. Like that would be a little bit more like, okay to do.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (56:37)
I knew you were gonna say that one!

Lindz (56:58)
I would love to do like a multi -day like back country. Like I've never done anything like that. So, and I have a multitude of friends that have, I'm very much a, I'm more of a glamper than huff it through the bush with a big bag on, fighting off mosquitoes. You know, mosquitoes are kind of really usually what get me. But to do that, or even like a multi -day canoe trip.

or the kayaking trip or something like that. That is definitely on my list of something I would like to experience.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (57:28)
What's something that you do when you're travelling that you don't do when you're at home or when you've lived in a new place? Because you also lived in Florida as well as Vancouver, right?

Lindz (57:37)
I did, I lived for four months on Miami Beach.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (57:40)
Yeah, and you've lived in a few cities within Ontario too. So yeah, whether it's living in a place other than where you grew up or whether it's while you're travelling, what's something different that you do?

Lindz (57:54)
Hmm, that's a good question. I would say when I move somewhere new, I'm definitely more prone to like, getting out and exploring and trying new things. I find when I'm at home, I'm a little bit more of a creature of habit. It's like, I'll go to the same coffee shop or go to the same restaurants or all, you know, and whereas if I go somewhere new, it's like, okay, I've got my list. It's like, I've got these 30 restaurants that I want to try and I'm here for 20 days. How do I do it? Deal, you know?

Tara (Travel with TMc) (58:16)
Yeah.

Lindz (58:24)
thing that I always do no matter where I am is I just walk. Like just walk in. Yeah, like especially like during COVID and that when we were in the lockdowns and we were really only allowed to get out for our physical activity and whatnot. Like I remember especially in like that kind of May, June, the first lockdown there, like I would just wake up and as soon as I wake up, I'd make myself a coffee and just go for a walk.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (58:28)
You are great with that.

Lindz (58:48)
And it was really nice because it was honestly it was so quiet because you know people weren't driving anywhere. It was it was that eerie quiet. It's like the you know the picture. Yeah it's almost like the the picturesque weird juxtaposition of where you see like the Walking Dead or things like this where it's like it's the calm after a storm kind of thing where it's like you know it's like oh this is actually like really pretty but it's like quiet for a really bad reason. It's like that I was like that kind of thing.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (58:57)
Oh yeah, I remember those days.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Lindz (59:14)
But I like being able to try to find those moments wherever you go. I'm definitely more prone to wake up for a sunrise away than I am at home. just be able to have that like moment of peace before the world wakes up or even seeing, what it's like in somewhere that maybe is a little bit busier than what I'm used to, watching that, you know, it come to life and whatnot. I think those moments are really fun. it's like you really get to know a place because of them. So.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (59:38)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, kind of like the untouched experience before everything comes to life for the day. Yeah. What's the weirdest place that you've ever slept?

Lindz (59:42)
Mm -hmm.

Weirdest place I've ever slept. That's a great question.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (59:53)
I love this question.

Lindz (59:56)
Weirdest place. The weirdest place I ever slept was this. It was a... I wouldn't even call it a boutique hotel. It was an art hotel in Berlin and it was an artist who designed all these different rooms and they were all unique and all...

wacky. The room that I had was suspended off of four beams, these big four wooden beams. I have to try and find a picture. What was it called? It was like an artist studio and every couple of years he'd take out one of the rooms and redo it.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (1:00:23)
Yeah, you gotta find the name of this place.

Lindz (1:00:30)
As we were checking out, we were able to see a bunch of the rooms that were open. It's like one was almost like a surgical setup, whereas they had these mirrors and things. And then the bed was the operating table. Oh, yeah. And then one was all mirrors. It was entirely mirrored. And then there was one handle for the door. And that was it. So I can only imagine what happened in that room.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (1:00:33)
Oh!

What?

No, no, no, no, no, no, thank you.

Oh my god.

It sounds like the love hotels in Korea. Anyhow.

Lindz (1:00:57)
And then another

was like you I was like coffins so you would actually sleep inside of a coffin Yeah, oh, oh, yeah, it was it was a really it was really cool. Oh, what was it called? Oh It's gonna drive me nuts.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (1:01:04)
Nope. Hard pass.

put a little add in. Yeah.

Lindz (1:01:13)
I think I think

I have to go tumbling down the rabbit hole because it is I don't think it's open anymore. I think above that, or beside it or something was his studio. So it's like connected to like his workspace. I know I did I know I did a blog post on it before I just don't know if it's still living.

or not, but if not, maybe I'll have to go and revive it I think there was 20 different rooms. I think I got to see about 10 of them. It was, yeah, it was super neat. That was definitely the weirdest. Yeah, that was definitely the weirdest place. And it was just like, it just felt eerie. It was in one of, it wasn't in one of the popular neighborhoods of Berlin. It was a little bit more further out.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (1:01:33)
Cool. Oh, I hope it's still around.

Berlin's got some of that edge to it too. So it's like, yeah, uh -huh.

Lindz (1:01:49)
Yeah. Yeah. I remember

the first time I went to Berlin, I absolutely loved it. I was like, Oh, I can't wait. I want to live here. I went back in 2019 and I was like, there was an eeriness. There was this like this undertone that I didn't really remember from before. And I don't if it's just because I'm a bit older or if I'm like, I don't know more in tune with energies and juju or I don't know. But, uh, it was, uh, I'm like, this is like something, something right. Something right here. Like something's weird here.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (1:02:10)
Yeah.

Lindz (1:02:18)
But, Berlin is such a cool, it is such a cool destination. I feel like Berlin is one of those places that everybody should go to just because of that history between East and West and, you know, that man who will not be named.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (1:02:27)
Yeah.

Yeah, did I tell you my mom was there when the wall came down? Just by chance, she was there when the wall came down. Yeah, yeah, and a former partner of mine lived in Germany, not in Berlin, but lived in Germany during that time period as well. Yeah, all of that's present history still, the people who can speak to that experience.

Lindz (1:02:35)
No.

Wow.

Yeah.

Yeah, I feel like media does a really good job of making things seem a lot like they happened a lot further ago than they actually did.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (1:03:05)
Yeah, yeah, I think, I think that's something that travel teaches us too is that whatever we learned about in the textbooks or saw on the video in class is it's actually pretty still like right in front of us in a lot of ways, whether it's through our grandparents, our parents or our own lived experiences. Yeah. Oh, man, so much to dive into. But yeah, I'm curious to know because you and I have started talking about this a little bit lately.

Lindz (1:03:17)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Man, so much to dive into. I know, right?

Tara (Travel with TMc) (1:03:35)
I work with points and miles and I teach people how to use points and miles and you've started to dive into this a little bit. I can see you starting to laugh over there.

Lindz (1:03:42)
I'm just like, I

have the dumb when it comes to points, 100%. Especially when you you post is a reel of like, of how you save one of your clients for spending so much money and business class or using so many points and I'm looking and thinking about it. I'm like,

Tara (Travel with TMc) (1:03:47)
No.

Yeah, like 950 bucks.

Lindz (1:04:01)
I'm like I bet you that was me because I just have no idea but and I just honestly I just don't have the capacity to sit there and go and learn about it. I'm just like nope like so yeah

Tara (Travel with TMc) (1:04:05)
Yeah.

Which is understandable

because the rabbit holes for them, like I've been...

The past 12 years I've been down a good chunk of those rabbit holes. There's still some I haven't dove into, but yeah, no, I can't wait for you to start travelling more on points and miles. And for anybody else listening or watching who's curious about this, I do have an online course. I'll put it in the show notes and I do do one- on-one coaching and workshops and stuff like that. But Lindsay, I feel like you are gonna take off once you do more of this.

Lindz (1:04:18)
Yeah.

Oh, I hope so. That's the plan. I mean, I'm

kind of kicking myself in that I should have because I know the last I had it because I had a pretty good chunk of Aeroplan. The one that originally I used to save a lot with Air Miles. But obviously over the past couple of years, I feel like Air Miles has really become a lot weaker as a points program. And so and and really here in Canada, it's kind of like, well, you know, if you're going to pick an airline, it's either Air Canada or WestJet. And.

I used to be a really big fan of WestJet until this past January when they grounded all their flights during that deep freeze in Calgary. And you know, if Lynx Air, who just went bankrupt, what, three weeks ago, could fly and WestJet couldn't and their hub is Calgary, I was like that to me just says they're not that not overly reliable. So I'm like, well, there's only other one big one. So we're going Air Canada, baby. Aeroplan, here I come.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (1:05:13)
Hmm.

Yeah, definitely. Very cool. What's one or two items that you travel with that are like necessities for you and maybe it's something that's helpful to other people or maybe it's something that you just swear by?

Lindz (1:05:38)
Yeah.

Yeah, um, we're gonna we're gonna go heavily functional because everybody travels with a phone. A lot of the time I actually don't travel with my DSLR a ton anymore. It really depends on the trip. But that's another rabbit hole to go down. But we're gonna go super functionality. Two things I never travel without earplugs and wet wipes.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (1:06:03)
I'm gonna go to bed.

Lindz (1:06:09)
started when I would hustle it up in Europe. Now I just sleep so much better with it. And it's not even a matter of keeping the noise out. It's just a matter of helping me stay asleep. Because I am a fairly light sleeper. And so if I hear a strange noise, or if I'm going to be somewhere for multiple days the first night, I typically don't sleep very well. And so earplugs help me just stay asleep. Because it's just a difference in...

scenery, different noises and things you're just not used to and I don't want to answer your plugs. Help me, help me stay asleep so that I'm not a cranky lady the next day. And then wet wipes are just, especially anywhere tropical. Like I just, like, I just need to, sometimes you just need a little freshening up. That's all I got to say. Yeah, exactly. And especially too, like there's been so many times like...

Tara (Travel with TMc) (1:06:55)
Little personal hygiene on the go. Yeah.

Lindz (1:07:03)
a more recent time. So when I came back from Europe, I don't know where I caught it or what happened, but it pretty much came back and I had brainworm. Yeah. And so now I'm like hyper aware of that stuff and don't get me wrong. I want, especially in  Mexico and places like this, like I want to pet all the cats, but I don't want to go through that ordeal again. And so I have a literally a Ziploc bag of wet wipes that I keep in like every bag that I own, whether it's a camera bag, backpack, a day bag, purse.

And then you know what? Then yeah, I can pet the cat and then I use the wet wipes. Or if you go into a restaurant and they're like, tacos are messy. It's like, I don't like that. I could just, there you go. You know what I mean? It's just like, it's just having that ease of, I feel sticky. I feel gross or I'm sweating my face off here. I need just to just freshen up a little. I will not trade that for the world. So yeah, wet wipes come with me everywhere.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (1:07:32)
Yeah!

Those are both great tips. And speaking of tips, as a female who often but not always travels solo, do you have one safety tip, either for women or just for anybody in general who's travelling? What's something that you do?

Lindz (1:08:05)
Hmm.

If you're, especially in the evenings, not if you're travelling alone, share your location, I would say. Snapchat is an easy one. I don't use it very often, but you'll just flick it on and say, hey, and then anybody who you've selected that you're friends with can see where you are. And it doesn't drain your battery a lot. Whereas, say if you do it in WhatsApp where you can share the location for a set period of time, but it's...

Tara (Travel with TMc) (1:08:16)
Mm -hmm. -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Oh nice.

Lindz (1:08:37)
It's pinging your location live, and so it can really kill your battery. But just letting people know where you are is the biggest thing. Yeah.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (1:08:44)
Do you ever do the Google

map share your location one? And if so, do you know how that affects battery? Because I know people in the van life and RV community who do that. But have you ever tried it?

Lindz (1:08:56)
I've never, no, I've never tried the Google, Google one. Um, it might be a little bit better on battery, especially I do have a pixel phone. So I feel like that would probably jive a little bit more technology wise, but definitely something to, to look into. But even if you don't want to share your location or you are getting low on battery, just messaging somebody and say, Hey, if you don't hear from me for in three hours call.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (1:09:08)
Hmm.

Lindz (1:09:18)
just like allowing somebody else to know where you are, especially when you're halfway across the world, because it can, be a matter of life and death, you know, depending on the situation. So it never hurts.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (1:09:28)
Yeah.

Lindz (1:09:29)
to tell somebody, hey, I'm here.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (1:09:32)
I started doing that when I moved to Dublin, because it was my first time away from like not living at home. I lived through home, at home through university. And so with the, yeah, I lived through, yeah. No, my parents are the best. But yeah, like I dubbed them Safety Texts because I would make all my friends text me when they got home after the pub and I would text my friends. And it was just like that little check -in where we know that.

Lindz (1:09:41)
You lived through home. I think that's an accurate descriptor. Sorry, Tara's parents.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (1:10:02)
Yeah, someone knows that you're somewhere safe. Yeah. Yep.

Lindz (1:10:02)
Yeah. Yeah. And I feel like that's a very, like that's a girl thing to do. It's like that mama bear

instinct comes out where it's like, Hey, where are you? You good? Yeah. Okay. Cool.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (1:10:10)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. And I even, I do that with my dude friends too. Or I'm like, text me when you're home. Yeah, no, it's definitely mama vibes, mama bear vibes. Yeah.

Lindz (1:10:16)
I love it. Yeah. Yeah, I do with my partner, like, especially if like, say if we've been out,

it's a long night, and then we're heading home or whatever, I'm like, let me know you're home.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (1:10:27)
something that you do to deal with the post -trip blues?

Lindz (1:10:32)
Is it plan another one? Honestly a lot of the time it's funny because I was just thinking about this

Tara (Travel with TMc) (1:10:33)
Yeah, I knew it, I knew it!

Lindz (1:10:41)
It's one of those things I think that as you travel more, the effects become lower. It's kind of mitigated because it's like, okay, this is your usual, it's not going to be your last trip. It's going to be something coming kind of thing. And I think part of it too is also just doing something with the memories, how we are crafting content.

And that from it, it's like we get to still talk about it. We get to still share about it. It's almost like we're reliving it and, either the hopes of, people just being curious and interested and yay, or, hopefully maybe planning their own trip. And so it's almost like, like, I love getting those messages where, you know, I've given somebody a recommendation and then they messaged me back going like, Hey, I went here because of you. Like, it's awesome. Like, I love like that stuff. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's so, so neat.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (1:11:24)
Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I'm with you on that. It's the best part of blogging. 100%. Yeah.

Very cool. Um, as a bonus for the podcast listeners, I'm putting together with the help of my guests, um, a travel playlist. And so I'm wondering if you either have one song that sums up your travel style or that reminds you of one of your trips. Cause I feel like a lot of trips have anthems to them. You know what I mean? Yeah.

Lindz (1:11:35)
Oh.

Oh.

Oh, 100%, 100%.

Oh, can I think of one off the top of my head though? That's a good question. I mean, I absolutely love Kygo. Kygo is always a, he's one I seem to circle back to. There is a really good song that kind of talks about.

it alludes to travel, I think it's called Raging, funny enough. The title doesn't really quite match the lyrics, but it kind of talks about that feeling of a trip coming to an end or having to leave somebody and then be able to try and reconnect later kind of thing. But I hope that's the correct one that I'm thinking of. My brain is not a jumble of songs. My friends love playing this game with me where it's like, what's that song? And I'm like...

I know all the lyrics but don't I could I remember the title or who sings it? Absolutely not.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (1:12:48)
I couldn't answer this question myself because I never know the names of songs or lyrics unless they're Keith Urban songs. That's it. Yeah.

Lindz (1:12:54)
Yeah.

There you go. Love it. Love it. And I mean,

I mean, I'm very much the EDM upbeat poppy, just like the Kygo Lady Gaga Cruella, like those are my like a big top three for Tiesto, Yeah, that's me. That's me.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (1:13:09)
love that! That's

Lindz (1:13:11)
That's 100 % me

Tara (Travel with TMc) (1:13:11)
awesome.

Lindz (1:13:12)
and that's definitely me while travelling. It's just like, oh, okay, we're gonna go. It's that golden retriever energy. It's like, oh, where? Go here, go here. Okay, let's go. Yeah. Yeah.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (1:13:19)
Yeah, enthusiastic about everything. Awesome. Well,

once you find out the exact song name, if you're sure if it's that, we'll plop it into the playlist. Awesome. Okay, we're gonna end with a speed round. So in one word, yeah, I know, one word or one sentence. That's what we're going for, okay? You can do it, I have faith in you. Where's your next trip?

Lindz (1:13:27)
Perfect, sounds good.

Oh no. Oh no.

Okay.

Oh, thank you. I'm glad one of us does.

Mexico.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (1:13:46)
What's your favourite mode of transportation?

Planned trips or spontaneous trips?

Lindz (1:13:55)
both.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (1:13:56)
I knew you were going to say that because lately you've been doing so many, like your last what, two or three trips and this one, they're all spontaneous, no? Yeah.

Lindz (1:14:01)
Yeah, yeah, this

trip, this coming trip is a little bit more planned because we booked our flights in January, but again, like we have nothing planned for it. Like we were like, oh, we, you know, we want to, you know, we have an idea of things, but it's very shoot from the hip of like, what are we feeling doing today? So, yeah.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (1:14:10)
Yeah.

Yeah, love

it. Underpacker or overpacker?

Lindz (1:14:21)
Overpacker.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (1:14:23)
Most overrated destination.

Lindz (1:14:29)
I say London. London, England. Yeah, yeah. Funny enough, I've never really been to London, Ontario. What? I know, I know. I lived in Kistner for, well, on and off for 10 years and I never went to London. Yep.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (1:14:32)
London, England, I'm guessing, not Ontario. What?

Okay.

Hilarious. Okay,

most underrated destination.

Lindz (1:14:49)
Morphless territories.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (1:14:52)
What home comfort do you miss the most when you're away?

Lindz (1:14:56)
Hmm.

Mm, my cat.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (1:15:01)
Oh yeah, so true! What's the best piece of travel advice you've received?

Lindz (1:15:02)
My baby, my fur baby, I miss her. If I could take her everywhere I would.

You're never stuck.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (1:15:13)
Ooh, that's a great one. Who gave you that piece of advice? Oh, mommas are so smart. Okay.

Lindz (1:15:16)
Yeah. My mama bear.

Yeah, yeah, she always said to

me, she's like, you're never stuck. She's like, you know, if you, you know, your plans fall through, whatever, she's like, you have a credit card for a reason, you know, you can figure that out later. It's safety first, you know, make sure you're somewhere safe, make sure you're okay. You know.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (1:15:34)
Yeah.

Mama bear for the win. Window seat or aisle seat? Describe yourself as a traveller in three words.

Lindz (1:15:37)
Yeah.

window always.

I mean, I already said it with two organized chaos. Bubbly, bubbly organized chaos. We'll go with that.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (1:15:50)
Yeah!

Yeah, okay. And what are three characteristics that make a good travel partner, whether that partner is a friend, a partner partner, or a family member?

Lindz (1:16:03)
understanding, communicative.

Respectful.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (1:16:12)
Best gift for a traveller.

And it can be tangible or intangible. I've had some interesting answers with this.

Lindz (1:16:14)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

I would say for a traveller, I'm just gonna say for planning, plan something. So instead of tangible things, plan and experience.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (1:16:27)
Cool, awesome. Last but not least, best travel app that you can outlive without.

Lindz (1:16:33)
I'm gonna go base at Google Maps, baby. I'd be so lost. I'd never get home.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (1:16:39)
Keep it simple, right? Amazing. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show, Lindsay. I know we've been talking about this for a bit. It was so good to have you here to chat and to learn more about you. Yeah.

Lindz (1:16:39)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, welcome! Oh! Yeah! Oh my gosh, I was a hear

- I'm glad that I could uh, make a surprise - I can still surprise you after how many years of friendship. This is - this is fun.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (1:16:56)
Yeah,

yeah. And where can people find you online and is there anything else that you want to add?

Lindz (1:17:05)
Um, see, so my website is I'veBeenBit.ca Go Canada! And then Facebook and Pinterest, my username is I've Been Bit on Instagram and threads and Twitter x whatever. It's IBBTravel Travel I'm also IBBTravel on TikTok. Other than that, yeah.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (1:17:11)
I'm

Lindz (1:17:28)
you know, shoot, we message, say hello, if you, go somewhere that because you've seen one of our things or whatever, tag us in it. We love that stuff. It makes our days. So especially when we're, when we're not travelling and we're at home in front of our computer typing about the adventures that we just did, we want to live vicariously through,

Tara (Travel with TMc) (1:17:34)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Lindz (1:17:42)
if you're going somewhere, we want to hear about it, we want to see where you are, we love following along, so tell us, tell us more.

Tara (Travel with TMc) (1:17:42)
Yeah.

Yeah, and I really think

online spaces are spaces for dialogue, not just for us to blab about where we've been. We want to hear what's up with, yeah, everybody else as well. I'm with you on that. Fantastic. Well, thank you, my friend. We'll chat soon. Oh, yes. Cheers. See you later.

Lindz (1:17:52)
Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

Yes we will! Let's say it with - let's cheers with our little mugs here! Yay!

Bye!