There’s something sacred about leaving what’s familiar.

In this episode of Conversations with Kate, I’m reflecting on my love of travel — not just the destinations, but the becoming that happens along the way. Travel has a way of stretching us, humbling us, reconnecting us to wonder, and reminding us how beautifully vast the world truly is.From the anticipation of packing a suitcase to the quiet clarity that often comes on a plane ride home, I’m sharing how travel has shaped my perspective, deepened my gratitude, and invited me to see both the world — and myself — differently.

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Conversations with Kate is like a conversation with your friend, hairstylist or therapist, where we will talk about music, life stories and everything in between with interviews and guests sprinkled in. As an LCC student, it's an honor and I love bringing a fresh perspective to the podcast menu on LCC Connect. I am your host, Kate. Let's get into this episode.

Welcome into this episode titled Miles and Meaning.

We're going to talk about how I feel about travel and see if any of you feel the same way. I honestly, I say this regularly now.

I could be dropped in, specifically city wise, I could be dropped in the middle of New York City, Chicago really. And truthfully, any large metropolis with my wallet and a suitcase and I'd be like, all right, good deuces and find my way and enjoy.

There is just something that is so freeing and just immersive, just immersing yourself in a new city, in new places, new things to explore that I just love. It's in my DNA.

And you would never think that because logically, being a Taurus, being a mom, being somebody that likes a schedule and that type of thing and didn't used to like, change when I was a young lass, I absolutely love the feeling of travel, no matter where it is, no matter what it is. And when did I first realize that? Because it hasn't always been that way.

When I was younger, I can very vividly remember having the worst panic attack while I was driving and I had to pull the car over and my little brother David, who was younger than me at the time by, he's younger than me by three years and made him drive because I was having such anxiety about traveling. Same thing as another occasion.

I had taken a flight to Boston and then a bus up to Maine and I had such, such anxiety about just the traveling and the amount of time that it took to get there and that type of thing. So when exactly did traveling change? Well, it didn't happen until I was an adult. I would have to say. The first real enjoyment trip was when I was 15.

I drove with my friend Nicole to her parents house for the summer. And it was actually a really fun trip.

Her and her family used to come to the Yogi Bears Jellystone park that I lived in in Orlando every year and for different holidays to vacation there. And one summer they were like, do you want to just come back up to Northeast Pennsylvania with us and hang out? And I was like, yeah.

And was kind of the first little like, ooh, this is fun. Because we traveled in their family's van with their family carpenter back up to their family home in Pennsylvania. And that was just so much fun.

It was like a New place. The length of time that it took us to get there didn't bother me at all.

I mean side note from that, the family carpenter, I can't remember his name, he drove the whole way so there's that fact too.

But it was really neat to just sit and explore and look outside and stop at the gas stat and see people and get snacks and things like that along the way. The next time after that was traveling with my ex husband, my brothers, my step kids and my son up to Nicole's house.

Actually first we stopped there and then we went on to our little brother David's high school graduation in Maine.

And that was so much fun because it was me, my ex husband Steve, our son Christian, my two stepsons Mark and Anthony and my brothers Timothy and Thomas in a chevrolet I think C20 van. And we drove from Florida. My husband at the time, ex husband now drove all the way up to about the, the.

The D.C. area and then my brother Tim took over and then we got, we drove to my friend Nicole's house. We stopped and enjoyed some time with them and then from there we to Maine.

And that was you know, again now I don't like to drive long distances because we have driven long distances so many times back and forth between Florida and Maine and then also Florida and here in Michigan. But that was like the, the turnaround for me. I still at that point wasn't super excited about flying.

I can very vividly remember traveling with my ex husband and my son to Maine in I think it was 06 September of 06 for vacation and I was having a severe panic attack on the plane because we. A tropical storm had come in off of the coast and we were in the air for a lot of extra time and I was like having a stage 10 panic attack about it.

Kind of just white knuckling it. And when I met my.

Fast forward to meeting my daughter's father and he, we got on a plane together and he just explained like what the noises were of everything in the plane and all of that. And that just obliterated my fear of flying from that moment on. I absolutely love flying. I will take a flight tomorrow if I didn't have stuff to do.

That's how much I enjoy flying. I always joke with people every day that if I could get paid to travel I would do that.

Something I wanted to talk about is the moments where you're in travel where your problems at home seem so stinking small. That's part of the great thing about traveling. You get away and it's just like, oh, you know what? I was like so worried about X, Y and Z.

And like when you get away, even if it's for like that small trip that Autumn and I took in November, it just kind of makes everything, puts everything into perspective, which is really nice. What did I learn about traveling that I don't know. It's just the freshness and the newness of getting into a new city, a new airport.

There is just something about the feeling of packing up your suitcase. And back when I was younger, before I traveled, I would pack like a week before. Now, not so much.

Sometimes I have literally waited until the day of or the couple of days beforehand to put some things together. Especially with, with shorter trips it's easier to do that. But there's just so much enjoyment in every aspect of, from the planning.

The like, okay, you know what? I think I want to take a week off or a couple of days here, a couple of days there.

And then, and then once you get the tickets bought, the hotel paid for, or the plans to stay with family, which I do do a lot, go back home to Florida, stay with my younger brother Thomas, or stay with my older brother Timothy, my sister in law on their property as well.

But then, then the fun is, you know, I like to, from that point where I've planned the vacation usually for 30 days ahead of time, saving that fun money. And usually that comes in the form of like, okay, this is what I'm squirreling away for the vacation fund me.

So that's a little fun little thing is saving that little bit of money just to have to spend on whatever.

If you know, you know, they don't have the little snack area there anymore. But I would, with every shift I would go in and I would buy a large Coke and a large popcorn.

And so for like, I think it was like a month leading up to going on vacation, I just stopped doing that.

And every time I wanted to go buy popcorn and the soda and it wasn't really that much, it was like two or three dollars for both the soda and the popcorn, I would just squirrel that money away. And that's another fun little aspect of traveling.

Some of the other things that I really, really, really enjoy also is like, looking into what I'm gonna see while I'm there. For instance, in Chicago, when Autumn and I went to Chicago checking out, of course, we went to Chicago to go Henry Varys.

But then, like, okay, I wanted to see the Big Silver Bean, or Cloud Gate is actually what it's called. I also wanted to go and see the Navy Pier.

I wanted to see a museum, which we did try to go to the museum, by the way, and there was construction around it, so we ended up just walking. And the cool side note that we discovered through just deciding to walk was Macy's. The Macy's building there. We walked inside of that building.

So Autumn was like, mom, let's go. And I'm like, okay, cool. And we get inside that building, and I stood inside of that building, and I was like, why does this look so familiar?

Oh, my gosh. It was the same building that they filmed the movie Mannequin in.

And if you haven't seen that or if you were not born prior to the late 80s, early 90s, there's this movie called Mannequin where this mannequin comes to life in a store. Guy falls in love, yada, yada, yada. So I googled it, and I'm like, oh, my gosh, yes, it did get filmed in a Macy's.

Not that the Chicago Macy's, a Pennsylvania Macy's, the Philly Macy's, I believe. But that store in Chicago looked exactly like that. And that was so cool that we discovered that there.

Or like, when I traveled to Dallas to go see Paula and Bryson, I went to the MOMA there, and I literally looked at the person that I was with that I was exploring the museum with, and I was like, if Fragonard's the Swing is in this museum, because it was. There was a lot of rococo in. In the museum at the time. I was like, you are going to see me ugly cry.

Which Fragonard's the Swing was not in the Dallas moma, but there was a lot of other wonderful paintings that were there. I got to see some Rembrandt stuff and also got to see a Rome exhibit there, too. So those are just the cool things about traveling.

I also really, really thoroughly enjoy traveling to the beach. There is just something to be said for getting on a plane and getting a rental car and traveling to the beach and putting your body in salt water.

The inner journey, you know, that happens when you travel. The discomfort slash comfort that I now have of. Of new places or unfamiliar places. And honestly, like, that's good for all of us.

If you have never traveled before, I recommend just trying it once because you find comfort in the discomfort of the unfamiliar. For instance, I now know that I love trains. They're so much fun. The things that travel has taught me is adaptability and trust in myself.

Like for instance, we get out of the Union Station in Chicago and Autumn did not believe that I could find us to the L, the public transit. And I was like, listen, I am a city slicker. You have nicknamed me that. I got this.

All we have to do is get to this station so that we can buy our day passes.

And what do you know, we ended up getting there and getting to the L, getting our day passes bought, getting to the hotel, and we even checked in early on time. So that was a cool little, little lesson in finding the comfort in the unfamiliar and the uncomfortable.

And as a lesson that that has taught me to just trust in myself. How do I come home changed every single time that I travel. It's just there's so many things to learn and see and do.

Don't get me wrong, I definitely have grown accustomed to living in a small town and my familiarity. I love having my little, my homeostasis, my space. But every single time I travel, I come back changed just a little bit.

Even this last time for my little brother's funeral that we went to January 10th in Griffith, Indiana. It was a cute little town. I've never been to that little area of Indiana and it was a really neat little area that we got to visit.

We'll be going back there as well. The way that travel strengthens relationships, me and my daughter, we are like peas and carrots when it comes to travel.

She is my favorite person to travel with, bar none. Hands down, whatever. I absolutely love it. We've got a rhythm down, even if it's early morning travel, like the trip to Miami.

We were both very tired because we didn't sleep a lot during that trip.

But also we just got up at like 6 in the morning to go to the airport to fly back home at 9am the way I remedied that a Cuban coffee from, I can't remember the name of it. We get into the Fort Lauderdale airport and she had never.

She knew that I talked about Cuban coffee all the time, but she had never seen a Cuban coffee before. So we get to this place, I order the Cuban coffee and we're waiting. They call my name and I pick up the coffee.

And for any of you who have had a Cuban coffee, it is a small double shot. Of very strong, very sweet coffee. And she looks at me and she's like, really? $4 For that? And I said, oh yeah, it's so good too.

But then it was like, all right, now we need to head to the more important thing. She wanted Einstein bagels. So we headed down and then we headed down there. So that is things that have connected us. We also went shopping.

There's so many different ways that you can connect through travel with the people that you love and care about. You can also connect through the things that you're going to.

For instance, one of my goals this year is to travel to Savannah, Georgia and Charleston. You can connect through. I would also like to get to Louisiana, specifically the. The areas where you can do like the ghost tours and have a beignet.

You know, the emotional side of travel there is just something that is so refreshing in my DNA about getting in a car, getting to the airport and traveling. It is like a second home for me.

Sometimes there is a little bit of a bittersweet feeling when you're leaving wherever it is that you have traveled from.

Especially for my daughter and I, when it comes to the beach, if we are anywhere at the beach, it's like we are excited to go home, but we are so sad to leave the beach because UV10 and the sound of the waves in the background is top tier for the both of us. The nostalgia that hits when you look back at all of those photos that you took.

But also how like travel definitely makes you appreciate your home a little bit differently as an adult. My wanderlust, it is not about escaping. It's about expanding every aspect of my life and expanding me. Some questions that I want to ask you guys.

So this is a little assignment for you. Things that I've asked myself. Where have you felt the most alive?

So in what city, in what environment has it been by waterfalls for like me and my daughter, it's always been by the ocean. One place or what place has changed you. What place do you think will change you?

If you've not traveled anywhere, what do you think would be or might be waiting for you outside of your comfort zone? That is a huge factor in why I pushed myself to travel when I used to not even like driving a car long distance.

And I challenge you to ask yourself what is outside of your comfort zone as far as travel is concerned? And then is there a trip you have been dreaming about but postponing? All you have to do is write it down and make it happen.

Take it into little bite sized pieces. If you need to. Or just say, you know what? This is happening now. Maybe the places we long to visit aren't random. Maybe they're invitations.

Invitations to grow, to soften, to see more clearly. The road doesn't just take us somewhere new. It reveals who we are. And when we step beyond the familiar, it reveals that to us.

Thank you so much for listening to me ramble on about my love of all things travel. I look forward to chatting with you more about exactly the places and things that I love about travel in another travel episode. Big Love.

Thanks for listening to this episode of Conversations with Kate. You can find more information on LCC Connect's site as well as all social platforms, Facebook, Instagram, yes, TikTok as well. Big love.