Lyd's Travels Newsletter - October 2024 Issue

Welcome to My Quarterly Travel Newsletter! these are where I share my personal stories & views from my travels, PLUS additional travel tips and other goodies!

In this season’s newsletter you’ll find:

• Recent & Future Travels: It’s Travel Season 🎉

  • 📍2025 Travel Theme - Food Festivals!!!

• How-To Travels Post ✈️ Travel Emergency Kit

• Travel Inspiration 🗺️ Nature Cruise? Train Ride? I can’t decide

• New News🎉 - My Travel Handbook is on Google Books 🎉

• Additional Resources and ✨Travel Handbook Giveaway✨

Recent & Future Travels

Happy Fall!!! I am not a summer person, the heat just drains me and makes me feel miserable! Even living in Florida, I prefer to go to the beach and take the paddle boards out, this time of year. Less heat and less tourists about.

So, Fall, Winter and Spring are my favorite times of the year to travel! I am planning some awesome trips for the rest of this year and 2025.

Trip Ideas in the Works:

• Fall Road trip - Tennessee & Georgia - I grew up in Pennsylvania, so I am missing those bright and beautiful fall colors! and treats like apple butters and cider.

• New Orleans - I have been dying to do a food and history tour here!

• Montreal Canada - This was my first international and solo trip! I’m excited to revisit some of my favorites and find some new ones.

• Carribean Cruise - In Florida we have access to literally hundreds of cruises! I’m honestly having a hard time sorting through and vetting them to pick one. I’ve never done a cruise but I’m super excited to try one!

• Back to Arizona - We visited family here earlier this year but missed most of the amazing sites in the area.

2025 Travel Theme - Food Festivals!!! I love food festivals, they are an amazing way to try different foods you normally wouldn’t and find some new favorites! Here are the ones I’m scoping out, a few of these are only a road trip away for me!

• Savor St Pete Food Festival - November

• Charleston Wine & Food - March

• Tampa Wine & Food Festival - April

• Charleston Black Food Truck Festival - April

• British Columbia Dumpling Festival - August

• Family Reunion Black Food Festival - August

• NYC Food and Wine - October

• Did I miss any of your favorites? reply to this email if you have a food festival recommendation!

I had an amazing time at the Tampa Wine and Food festival earlier this year - Check out my blog post to see all of the awesome food we tried AND how I prepare for food festivals!

“How-To” Travel Blog Post

It is Hurricane Season! in the Southeastern US. As I have been refreshing my hurricane and camping supplies, I also went through my Emergency Travel Prep, documents and items. Here’s my blog post on simple things I prep for emergencies on my travels!

Travel Inspiration

For years!! I have wanted to do a trip focused on nature and wildlife. My BS is in Animal Science and as a HUGE science gal, I love experiencing the local nature and wildlife on my travels.

In Seattle, we visited their multi-level aquarium packed with local species, I was even able to “hear” like a killer whale, through my chin, in one of the aquarium’s exhibits. On the train to Vancouver, we watched otters play on the shores and eagles hunt in the tributaries. In Savannah, we explored a local wildlife research center hosting seahorses and other fish that call the coastal low country home. I LOVE this stuff!

I’m starting to plan this trip now for 2026! For a larger trip, at least a week, I’m imagining a wildlife cruise in the Pacific Northwest or a Train trip across Canada to explore North American Wildlife! This year I am focusing on making a list of everything I want to see, researching the best time to go, city stops and tours, so I can start purchasing things for the trip next year. Would you ever take a trip like this? I’ve very much excited to!

New News

My Travel Skills Handbook is now Available on Google Books! Why make my Travel Skills Handbook available on Google Books you ask? for 2 HUGE reasons, to increase the accessibility of my book (it’s now available in over 60 countries) AND so I can now provide discount codes to my book as well! (this is not available via Amazon Sales)

Use code DG8XBAB0WXH19 at checkout to get 20% OFF my Travel Handbook E-Book on Google Play Books!

This is a huge step for me as I look for more organizations to share my book with. So far, I am thinking of being able to give Education Orgs and Charities access to discounted copies and even start a program where Travel Agents can educate their clients with my travel skills book and earn a portion of the sales for themselves. Wish me luck!

Thanks for Reading! I’m Wishing you a full and peaceful fall season! Feel free to reply to this email to contact me or request any blog topics!

Keep Traveling & Pouring into Yourself - XOXO - Lydia

Additional Travel & Life Resources

Here is my main blog page, LydsLifeSkills.com, full of all of my blog posts! Use the tabs in the headers to find the blog post subjects that you love like travel, career and finance.

I love being organized when I travel so I’ve decided to share my FREE Travel Planning Template via GoogeSheets! This template has an itinerary that automagically creates a spend review for your trip! it also includes travel packing and to-do lists. Upon opening, select “make a copy” to save it to your google account.

You can also follow me on Google Reviews and Trip Advisor to see my reviews of the attractions, hotels and restaurants along my travels and at home in Tampa, Florida.

By Popular Demand! Here’s my Week Planner Worksheet Download, I built this to give me peace and keep me focused on my goals each week. May you have a wonderful week with it, filled with many achievements✨

Travel Planning Handbook & Giveaway

I had a hard time learning the basics of travel, so I’m committed to helping others gain the skills and resources to travel. In 2023, I published my Travel Planning Handbook, “An Introduction Use code Traveling: The First Step of Many Around the World”. I wrote this Travel Handbook to inspire people, especially people of color, to travel and learn the travel skills needed to become a confident traveler! In it, I cover essential travel planning guides, travel processes and tips on how to travel!

Thank You For Subscribing to My Newsletter! As a Subscriber, You are entered into a Quarterly Giveaway for my Travel Planning Handbook! The winner will be selected 2-weeks after this newsletters release.

You Can Also Buy Your Copy Today! Thank you for Supporting my Blog & Newsletter by Grabbing a Copy!