Blog
Tips, helpful information and resources to help you travel and live alcohol free.
Arctic Circle Adventures
Guest Blog Post By Jan Carpenter Winter travels from Tromsø, Norway to Kilpisjärvi, Finland; Beauty, Balance, and flexibility.As I travel through life, my needs and preferences on the road evolve. I want to do and experience everything but need balance. Alcohol...
How to Travel Alcohol Free
When I was about ten months sober I discovered an unusually cheap roundtrip airfare to Copenhagen. Yes, this is something I regularly do. Some people watch the stock market, I watch airfare prices. My time in Copenhagen included jumping on trains going in the wrong...
TEETOTALING IN TUSCANY
Close your eyes. Imagine you are sitting outside, sunlight hitting your face and the Tuscan hills surrounding you. What comes to mind. I’m guessing your first thought was of wine. Tuscany automatically brings visions of vineyards and people happily clinking glasses...
The French Braid
It was never about the chardonnay. It was always about the French braid. 6000 times. That’s how many times I watched the youtube video showing step by step instructions on how to create a French braid. It was the video equivalent of "French braid for dummies". Every...
Pandemic Dreams
I had a professor in law school who loved oxymorons. Oxymorons are a figure of speech in which seemingly contradictory terms appear side by side. Some of his favorites were “old-news”, “icy-hot” and “student-teacher”. Now, thanks to the global pandemic, my professor...
A Week in Provence
Baudelaire. I don't remember anything else contained in my college essay save this single word. Baudelaire. I was mesmerized with how the word rolled off my tongue. I felt confident everyone would believe my "frenchness" when they heard this word uttered from my very...
THE GEN X PROMISE
We were promised we could have it all. The world was our oyster. We could not only bring home the bacon, we could also fry it up in a pan. And many of us gen x women did just that. Or at least we tried. We got the degrees, all the initials after our names prove it....
Summer Travel Toolkit
The world is opening back up! Restrictions are being lifted and people are eager to resume traveling. One friend, after receiving her second vaccination, promptly went home and purchased a roundtrip airline ticket. I don't even think she cared where the ticket was for...
Winter Running
If you live in the northern hemisphere and are a runner you know this time of year all too well. It’s time to put away the shorts and pull out the tights. It’s time to dig in the bottom of the drawer for the neck warmer and gloves. It’s time for winter running. Winter...
Let’s talk about the A word…Anxiety
As parents we often joke that our mistakes will lead to forking over a ton of money for our children's future therapy. We all collectively chuckle and then silently think to ourselves, that won't be my kid. And then it is. And I couldn't be prouder. At five years old...
Second Seasons
When the Long Island Medium with Teresa Caputa first aired in 2011, I was completely obsessed. Every Sunday night I would position myself on the living room couch, glass of chardonnay in hand, and daydream about her showing up at my house, offering to hold a private...
Dear Younger Self
Dear Margaret, I sat looking at old photographs today. Blurred photos of you enmeshed with people that have long since exited your life. Photos of time spent traveling. You were too preoccupied with having a good time and overly concerned about what others thought of...
Four Seasons
365 days ago I made the decision to eliminate alcohol from my life. The decision had already been made countless times before. But on this day, I drew a line in the sand and knew that I would never cross over it again. There had been periods of time in the past where...
Living Out Loud
I've become obsessed lately. This is nothing new for me. I often become fixated on places or things or books. In this case it's a Broadway musical. Dear Evan Hansen. I've watched every YouTube video, listened to the soundtrack incessantly, started following the cast...
Motherhood
Lately I've been feeling an unsettling calmness. Usually those two words would not be used in the same sentence. Calm is suppose to mean peaceful. But this is more akin to the quiet before the storm. The feeling like something big is about to happen but I am not privy...
The Teetotaling Traveler
I am sitting at my gate in the Copenhagen Airport. To get to my gate, I negotiated my way through the duty free area, with row after row of tax free booze. Next, I walked past no less than four bars where, at 10:30 am, most were already standing room only. I stopped...