lifestyle Archives • The Bliss Movement

Mood and Mindset, Self-Care, Tips, Planning and Packing, Travel

Overcoming Post-Travel Depression: Make The Most of Coming Home

For many people, coming home can be harder than it was to leave. You've spent the last little while on the adventure of a lifetime, yet you come back to a place where it feels like time has stood still and you can't help but shake that post-travel depression feeling. I know that for me, that space between actively traveling feels a lot like a state of limbo, where I'm just not really sure what I'm supposed to be doing in this place that is supposed to feel like home but doesn't really. Post-travel depression is a reality for many travelers, but you don't have[...]

Tips, Planning and Packing, Travel

Packing Tips: 5 Tips for the Over-Packer

My first trip of the year is coming up in exactly one week so you can bet I've been itching to pack for the last month! Unfortunately, I think there is such a thing as packing too early and have had to practice restraint. I made it until this past Thursday and couldn't take it anymore - in a heart-racing frenzy I pulled out my summer clothes and the packing began! If you've ever gone on a long trip or even a one week holiday, you'll understand me when I say that packing is a skill that is best when practiced to perfection. While there is a huge difference in packi[...]

Personal Development, Travel

A World of Possibility

Sorry for being such an inconsistent blogger lately I find it difficult to write engaging posts for you when I'm home, spending most of my time working and saving for the next adventure (and it's a big adventure). But being home and surrounded by family and friends brings with it a little bit of enlightenment, so I'll likely be sharing some of that with you lately with more reflection posts rather than actual travel posts. It's a funny moment when you realize how differently you view the progression of your life compared to those around you. It's exciting to th[...]

Mood and Mindset, Self-Care

Stop Apologizing For Laughing Too Much: 4 Ways Laughter Leads To A Better Life

There was a moment in my life when I did the unthinkable. I was sitting in the front row of my late uncle’s funeral service. Somebody was up at the podium, delivering a tear-stained speech, and I was sitting there, listening. But I was also thinking about a time I had spent with him, a hilarious moment where laughter had been contagious and we had both gotten belly aches from laughing too hard. So I did the unthinkable. One of the most horrific social taboos at a funeral: I laughed. A bubbling giggle erupted from within, and I laughed in the middle of a very s[...]

Personal Development, Self-Care, Travel

An Open Letter To The Man I Met Abroad

It hits at the most unexpected times. It's not written in stone and it can sneak up on you when you're least expecting it. We all know the feeling: the undeniable tightening of the chest, the butterflies soaring in your stomach and the endless need to hear his voice, see his face. Love has a funny way of working and travel has a funny way of making itself a larger priority. Maybe it's not really love if it doesn't come first but it has gotten pretty close. The first time I saw him he was singing in a café that my friends and I went to every Wednesday: a guitar s[...]

Personal Development, Self-Care, Travel

It’s Time To Rephrase the Question.

I have grown up in a society blinded by the goal of having money. Money has always seemed to be the first priority and people around me work insane hours in order to make as much as they can. The result? We stop working to live and start living to work. I can't count the number of times visiting with my friends revolved around a quick dinner and spending most of that time talking about our jobs - and don't even get me started on the dating scene, where the first question is always what do you do for work? Every time someone asks me that question I want to bang my[...]

Barbados, Caribbean, Travel

On Living, Learning and Leaving

Time moves at a different pace when your senses are being stimulated by all the wonders that the world has to offer. Home feels stagnant; there is a desperation to continue living a life that is elsewhere. The mystery of the earth and all that creates it pulls me from home time and time again. This time, I was pulled when I least expected it, to a place I had never dreamed of experiencing. Uprooting in the middle of my final year of my degree, I boarded a plane and stepped out onto a Caribbean island, determined to create a life for myself during the following fo[...]

Caribbean, St. Vincent and the Grenadines

Hiking La Soufrière, St. Vincent

“Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is a necessity," -John Muir His name is Franklin and at the age of 58 he has hiked St. Vincent's active volcano 317 times. His trip with us up to the summit will bring his count up to 318, with the majority of his hikes being on the leeward side, where the hike doubles in time and the difficulty intensifies. Feeling a little intimidated by the thought of hiking up this 4049 ft. active volcano on the more difficult side (Ba[...]

Caribbean, St. Vincent and the Grenadines

A Misadventure Turned Serendipitous Moment In St. Vincent

The palm trail was a straight forward hike, no more than an hour, or so they said. That hour came and went when we came to the conclusion that we definitely missed the trail - this shrub and dirt covered mountainside surely could not have been the right way. Just as we were about to admit defeat, a head popped out from further above. A Rasta man holding a machete was hollering something at us but with distance and difficulty understanding his accent, we were unsure what he was saying. After some yelling back and forth over the sound of the wind, it became c[...]

Barbados, Caribbean, Travel

The Day I Learned to Crack Open a Coconut in Barbados

"At the beach, life is different. Time doesn't move hour to hour, but mood to moment. We live by the currents, plan by the tides and follow the sun." -Unknown The bus weaved it's way up and over the hills that make up Barbados' east coast, winding down the road until at last it came around a corner presenting the most beautiful of views, capturing us all into silence. We were high above the rugged coastline, looking down upon the many cliffs that jutted out into the Atlantic and the palm trees that dotted the shore. A very religious island, Easter in Barbados[...]

Mood and Mindset, Self-Care

The Practice of Being Still

The practice of taking moments of being still can be transformative for our mental wellness. I love the sound of silence, the stillness of a lazy morning or the setting of the sun. It feeds the energy in my soul, energizing and rejuvenating it. I come away from stillness feeling refreshed and truly ready to take on whatever the world wants to throw at me. When I lose sight of my intentions for this life of mine, I try to find that space of stillness. Life sweeps you away sometimes, the good and the bad of it tangle you up until you are tumbling around in it. Th[...]

Barbados, Caribbean, Mood and Mindset, Self-Care, Travel

The Traveler’s Shift

I zoom through. Cities, countries, museums and temples, I zoom through them all. That has been my past travel experience nearly everywhere but Thailand. It paved the way for the title of this blog, a whirlwind. A travel affair where I leave after one short, intense kiss. I land in one destination and move frantically through it, desperate to see it all in three days or a week and then I disappear, leaving a city or a country behind me without seeing but a sliver of it. I've questioned this way of travel before and yet I continued to justify it. In some places th[...]