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Hi, and welcome to the Travel Transformation Podcast with me, Jessica Grace Coleman. In this episode, I want to do a quick review of my 2022, including the places I've travelled to, but also looking at what I've achieved in terms of my travel transformation business and how I've got to the point where I am now. Because, as I'm sure you all know, creating a business or starting a passion project or whatever you're working on doesn't happen overnight. 

Some of this info can be found in my book, Intentional Travel Transformation, which you can get now from Amazon and several other online platforms. If you'd like to check that out, you can just head to traveltransformationcoach.com/books to find all the links. 

I also wanted to take a moment to reflect on the past twelve months and on how I've transformed myself and my life, because we don't often take the time to pause and look back on everything we've achieved and really congratulate ourselves for all the cool stuff we've done.

I don't know if you're like me, but I'm constantly looking at the next thing, always thinking what needs to be done now, constantly striving for more, and I don't often take the time to actually celebrate my successes, which is what I tell my clients they should do all the time. So, I should really listen to my own advice about that. 

And I think that, in the past, I've always equated success with money, so if I did something and didn't make money from it, I tend to not count it as a success in my mind, which of course is a load of rubbish. So I'm trying to get out of that mindset and celebrate my wins, big and small, whenever I can. And this is the perfect time to do it. 

When I got the paperback copy of my Intentional Travel Transformation book in the post a couple of weeks ago, I was excited, sure, but I kind of checked it over, went, oh, cool, and then put it down and carried on with my day. I just got straight back to work. And if I think back to 2012, when I first published my first novel, The Former World, getting that paperback in the post of my own book – a book I had spent years writing, and a book that represented so many hours of work – I felt incredible. I was so excited to actually hold a physical copy in my hands. But now, after having written eleven books, fiction and nonfiction, it just doesn't seem like such a big deal. But it should. It totally is. 

And I need to remind myself of that, especially as this book is so personal to me, and it includes some really personal stuff, which took quite a bit of courage to put out there – and especially as it represents pretty much my entire journey from when I decided to change my life last December to now. And when you look at things day by day or in little increments, it doesn't seem like you're doing much. But if you look at it over the whole year, you can see how much you've changed, grown, improved, and all the cool things you've done, which is what this podcast episode is about.

And I encourage you to do the same thing as well. Hopefully, this is reminding you that the amazing things you might be taking for granted – because you've done them a few times, or because they haven't brought you any financial gain, or whatever other reason you have for not really thinking they're a big deal – these deserve to be acknowledged and celebrated.

Let's take this podcast, for instance. I can get stuck in the weekly grind of organising interviews, recording episodes, editing them, scheduling them, creating the artwork, contacting the guests, and doing the promo, that I forget to stop and remind myself how awesome it is that I'm actually doing this. Especially considering it's been a dream of mine for years and considering I never felt ready or confident enough to do it until a few months ago.

So, after recording this episode… well, I was going to grab a glass of wine, but it's 9.13 in the morning, so maybe not… I will grab a cup of tea and I will really take a moment to celebrate everything I've achieved this past year, including my book, including my podcast, including launching my business, including everything else I've achieved, whether they're currently making me money or not. 

I also wanted to do this episode because my memory is pretty bad and I like the idea of having this recording to come back to and listen to in the future and remember just how life-changing 2022 really was for me, even if it might not have felt like it at the time, all the time, in the moment. I guess it's my way of keeping a diary, but one that other people can listen to and hopefully get something from. 

Okay, so I'm going to briefly look back – and I say briefly, but it usually ends up a lot longer –month by month at 2022, using my trusty Google Calendar to see what I got up to, and then I'm going to look ahead for 2023.

I'm all for being spontaneous and seeing where the wind takes you and all that, but I'm also a big planner and I need to have a plan in place for each year, even if it totally changes throughout the year. I also love planning stuff, so this isn't a chore for me. It's exciting to think about all the awesome things I'm going to achieve in the next twelve months, and I'm going to make sure I achieve awesome things in the next twelve months. So that, in December 2023, when this podcast is hopefully still going, I'll have lots of cool stuff to talk about at my next end-of-year review. Okay, so let's get started. 

January. In January of 2022, I was deep in my Flip The Script on Fear Challenge, which was one of the catalysts for my huge lifestyle overhaul and which I wrote a lot about in my book.

There's actually a whole chapter dedicated to it, explaining exactly what I did and telling you how you can do the challenge, too, which I highly recommend as it changed my life. One of the things I did for this challenge was apply to the Sun and Co. pop-up coliving house they were putting on in April in the Basque Country, Spain. I was umming and ahhing about it because I hadn't done anything like this in about four years – back before the pandemic hit and before I had all my back issues, which kept me housebound on and off for about a year before the lockdown started.

But, as I mentioned in my book, two books and a Netflix show had motivated me to shake up my life, and this was how I was going to do it. So, I filled in the online form for the villa, and then I went away for a weekend to Norfolk for my friend Laura's hen party, which was lovely. There was a group of us that had hired a holiday home – complete with hot tub, which is one of my favourite things in life. 

Seriously, hot tubs are like therapy or something for me; I feel so relaxed and content when I'm in one, although I really haven't been in that many, really, over the years. I've been in maybe one every four or five years, and obviously not at all when I was a kid. So little did I know then that this would be hot tub one of four this year, which I say is about three more hot tubs per year than I've ever had, and which sounds very decadent, but that's what I like to splash out on because it makes me so relaxed and happy. And if you have like, a happy place – you go to a physical happy place, not in your mind – this is my happy place, especially if it's at night with twinkly lights, especially if you've got a glass of bubbly in your hand, especially if you're with a good friend and you can just chill, if you've got some music playing… it's just my perfect place. So I was very happy with the amount of hot tubs I had this year. I'm going to have to make sure I go in five hot tubs next year to top my record. 

Anyway, I had a great time with Laura and her friends, and by the time I came back from that weekend, I was booked into the villa in Spain. So, January was the start of everything. I also had a quick trip up north in January to go to Leeds and go bridesmaid dress shopping for my friend Gemma's wedding. So there was another quick little trip there. 

January was also a little weird because it was the month I ended a four-year relationship, and I don't want to go into any details here, but it wasn't working for either of us and we were both pretty miserable with how things were going, so it was a sad thing, but it needed to happen. So, yeah, January was quite a life-changing month. 

February. February was also a month where, on the surface, it might look like not much happened, but in reality, huge changes were afoot. At the start of the month, I messaged my lovely landlord and lady and told them I'd be leaving the little house I'd been living in for the past three years to go travelling. They were really nice and super excited about my travels, and doing that one thing really made the whole digital nomad idea real. 

So, once that was done, I spent most of that month sorting through all my stuff. I've moved a fair few times over the past decade or so, and every time I move, I get rid of so much stuff. I Marie Kondo everything. And then, of course, in my new place, I gradually accumulate more and more stuff. So when I move again, I have to get rid of loads more. And this time in particular, as I was sorting through my stuff, I had to keep asking myself the question: Do I really want to have to pay to keep this in storage for years or should I just get rid of it now? 

So I got rid of a load of stuff. Old furniture, that had seen better days, either went to the tip or they were put on my estate’s Facebook group page to give away to my neighbours. I gave some stuff to friends and family. I took boxes and boxes of things to the local Catherine House charity warehouse. It took a lot of time and I did it gradually over the weeks, but it felt so therapeutic. It was like by getting rid of all this stuff I no longer needed, I was shedding my old self to make way for the new one, for my new lifestyle. And that felt great.

March. In March, I went to an Airbnb in Melbourne – sadly, Melbourne in Derbyshire, not in Australia – with my brother to film some videos for my online membership. I've done this a couple of times and it's really good because you get different backgrounds to film in and you get away from your normal day-to-day work and just focus on getting the filming done. And it also works well because I book it in advance and then I have a deadline where I have to get all my scripts ready and everything. So it's a good way of doing it. 

But this time went slightly wrong. The Airbnb itself is great. It was in this super cute old converted chapel. It was lovely as a place to stay, great decoration, great decor, great style. It had this Instagram wall which I filmed in front of, like a living wall. It was really cool. But as a place to film in, it was an absolute nightmare – and I'm sure my brother will agree with this.

It was quite cold in March, and the heating was so loud that we had to turn it off for filming – and for quite a bit before the filming as well. And I sat there absolutely freezing the whole time. I got so cold that, by the time I went to bed, I was chilled to the bone. You know that cold you just can't get rid of? And I just couldn't get warm no matter what I did. It was ridiculous. At one point, I literally had nine layers on. I counted. And I was piling any other clothes and coats I could on top of me to try to warm up. I even got up at 3.00 a.m.

and straightened my hair to get some warmth from the hair straighteners. It was really stupid. 

On top of that, the house was right on a main road with a crazy amount of traffic and people speeding right outside, and it was under a flight path. So literally every minute or so, and sometimes even every few seconds, I had to stop talking because of the noise. This meant it took about three to four times longer – maybe even more – to do the filming than it should have done. And I was knackered and cold and super frustrated the whole time, as was my brother, who was filming it for me.

And don't even get me going on editing of those videos. Nightmare. So that was a break, a little trip away, but it definitely wasn't a relaxing one. And I just want to say thanks to my brother for helping me with the filming, even when it was 11.00 p.m. and we were both yelling at the drivers and the planes and just generally losing the plot. 

In March, I also went to a self-storage unit place. I had a look around. I completely guessed what size storage unit I would need because I had no clue, even after measuring some of the bigger items I was going to put in there. And I put my deposit down – another no going back moment.

And then, on the 29th, I moved out of my house. Big thank you to my brother and my parents for helping me cart all my stuff to the storage unit. I then cleaned the entire house, gave my keys to my lovely landlord and lady, and left. I had a few weeks before I needed to leave for Spain, and my parents had kindly said I could stay with them until I went. 

At the end of March, we also had our Zoom call for the Sun and Co. pop-up, where we got to meet a lot of our new housemates online, and we started organising our social and professional events using an Excel spreadsheet. This is when I put my name down to do a professional event on Life Purpose and Legacy, and I didn't know it then, but this was the start of me overcoming my fear of public speaking through travel.

Again, this is basically what my Intentional Travel Transformation book is about, and it was what I went into this experience trying to achieve. It was an exercise in putting myself out there, but I had no idea it would turn into this whole book and this whole business and this podcast and everything. So even though this part literally just involved me typing a few words into an Excel document and seeing if anyone would sign up, I was super, super nervous.

April. The first half of April – I said that really creepily, didn't I? April! – passed by in a bit of a blur. Then, on the 21st, I jumped on an EasyJet flight – £68, including checking in my giant suitcase – from Manchester to Bilbao. I stayed in the Old Town area of Bilbao for a night, and then the next day, I met up with a digital nomad couple who would be staying at the villa, Kaisu and Nikki, and after having quite a few pintxos and drinks, we made our way together to a little village called Gautegiz Arteaga via Guernica. I was super nervous, but everyone was lovely and I soon settled into the villa. I worked remotely there, along with everyone else.

At this point, I was mainly focusing on my editing and proofreading work, as well as my Flip the Script Academy, which back then was aimed at female entrepreneurs. Again, I'm only mentioning this briefly because a lot of it is in my book, and I've talked a lot about this on my podcasts in previous episodes. 

April is also the month I delivered my Life Purpose and Legacy skillshare presentation, which people had actually signed up for on the Excel spreadsheet. I was so ridiculously nervous, like, you have no idea. But I did it, and I spent the next month throwing myself at every opportunity I could, whether it was professional events, scheduled social events, or just hanging out, drinking wine, and talking. Whatever we were doing, I made a conscious effort to really join in rather than just hang back and listen, which is what I usually do; I'm far more of a lurker than a taking parter, generally. The villa was beautiful, the people were amazing, and I had such a great time. April was awesome.

May. For most of May I was still at the villa, although after the initial two weeks, a lot of people left and new people came, so that shook things up a bit. We had some great times – again, you can read about it in my book. And on our last night in the villa, I kind of tested myself and read out a poem I'd written to the group about our stay there. A month before, I would have been terrified. Now, I felt fine. I even actually enjoyed it, which was amazing. 

Then, on the 22nd, I got up at 05.00 a.m. and I caught a plane from Bilbao to Alicante with three of my housemates, Irene, Tomislav and Nuria. And then Irene, Tomislav and I made our way to the main Sun and Co. house in Javea, which is a really cute town near the coast. This was another coliving house that gets turned into a hostel in the summer – so a bit of a different vibe to the villa, but it was run by the same company, so we had the same kind of format with the social events and professional events, and I met some more really great people. 

I continued working while I was there, though this time they had a separate coworking space a couple of minutes from the house, like a little office, that was really handy, and I did a lot of work there. 

June. June was a lot. At the start of June I was still in Javea. I was meant to stay at the Sun and Co. house until the 13th, but I'd met so many people who had told me so many great things about Valencia – including this lovely French lady, Nina, who'd just come from there – that I decided to cut my stay in Javea short and head to Valencia on my own for a few days. So, on the 7th, I said goodbye to everyone at the house – totes emosh – and got on a bus to Valencia, which took about two and a half hours.

I checked into my Airbnb, which was just a room in someone's house, and I went exploring. I loved Valencia, so I was so glad I went. And, on my first night there, I did a group tour, a walking tour of the City of Arts and Sciences, which is incredible – one of my favourite places – and some wine tasting and tapas on a penthouse rooftop. Super fancy. Sometimes you just have to treat yourself. 

That night, I met Alicia and Regina, two older sisters from Texas, and we spent the rest of that week hanging out in Valencia, grabbing food, having drinks, going on tours, and going to a jazz night on the Friday. I also met up with one of my roommates from Javea, Kendall, a couple of times while I was there, so I really didn't feel solo during any moment of my solo trip to Valencia. 

Then, on the 13th, I flew to Paris alone. But, strangely enough, Alicia and Regina were also going to Paris the same day, so I was able to meet up with them for food and drinks there, too. I was staying in a room in an apartment building which had its own tiny kitchenette, which was handy because it's very expensive to keep eating out in Paris. And although I wasn't anywhere near the centre – like, I was very far away from all the main stuff – the Metro was really easy and cheap to use.

If you've listened to episode 14 of this podcast, you'll have heard all about what I got up to in Paris, so I won't go over it all again. But I had a great time, even though I was on my own a lot of the time. It was really hot, though, and on my last day there, I caught an Uber to the train station. Well, actually, it was booked through an app called Free Now, which is their version, and the driver actually had to borrow my phone to navigate because his phone had melted in the heat. It was that bad. So it was kind of a relief to get on the Eurostar in sweaty, melty Paris and arrive a few hours later in grey, rainy, cold London – there's nothing quite like being back home! 

And I loved going back on the Eurostar, by the way, rather than flying. It made a nice change. There were no airports involved, which was good, and it was really simple and actually quite cheap if you book far enough in advance. If you leave it to the last minute, it can be very pricey. 

I'd had to come back to England for the summer because I already had quite a few things booked in before I’d decided to try the whole digital nomad thing. Things like events, parties, visiting friends and family, that kind of thing. And it was nice to come back after my two months of intenseness in Spain and France. 

So, at the end of June, I went to my hometown's annual Shakespeare festival, where they put on a play in the grounds of Stafford Castle, and this year it was Romeo and Juliet. It was really good, but it was pouring it down with rain by the end of it, and it's outside. And poor, dead Romeo and Juliet just had to lie there for about ten minutes, getting absolutely soaked while the others finished the play. I also went to Wolverhampton to see Derren Brown’s stage show, Showman. It was just as amazing as all his other shows I've seen, and actually really emotional too. It was really good and I may have had a wee tear in my eye at the end of that. Definitely worth coming back to England for, especially as I'd originally booked it for 2020 – and I'm sure you know what happened that year.

July. So at the end of June and into July, I did some pet-sitting for my friends. I looked after my friend Ruth's cat Marble and my friend Laura's dog, Albert. Pet or house sitting is a great option for digital nomads, especially if you're looking to save money for a bit and especially if you love animals like I do. So that was in Stafford and then Norwich. 

It was great to see Laura and visit her new husband Rob, who I'd never actually met before, and I had a nice roam around Norwich while I was there. I visited the cathedral and I checked out all the dinosaur statues that were dotted around the city when I was there, which was a kind of charity dino trail.

On the way back from Norwich, I stopped off in Cambridge and visited my friend Vicki, who had just moved back there after living in Leeds for a few years, so it was nice to see her and check out her new place. I then went down south to visit my friend Suzi and her husband Andy in their new house, which was lovely. We had such a nice weekend; the weather was amazing and we had days out to Portsmouth and the Isle of White – which we went to on a speedboat, as Suzi and Andy are part of a boat club, so that was really cool. And Windsor as well. We went around Windsor Castle – and this was before the Queen passed away and she was there when we were there, at least according to the flagpole. Just a lovely weekend.

It was then back to my home village to celebrate my parents’ golden wedding anniversary. 50 years. I also mentioned this in the book as my brother and I did a toast, reading out another poem I'd written, putting my fear of public speaking to the test again. I wasn't nervous and I even enjoyed it. And if you know just how terrified I've been of public speaking my entire life, you will know how much of a miracle this is. And it simply wouldn't have happened without the month I spent in the Basque Country. We had a lovely garden party with plenty of food and drink, and it was nice to see so much of my family after the pandemic. 

The end of July was spent in a lovely converted barn Airbnb in Warwickshire with my friend Vicki, a little break away for a few days, during which I did not work at all, which was nice. This was hot tub number two of the year and it was absolutely lovely out in the middle of the countryside. While we were there, we went to the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, had a wander around Stratford upon Avon, a place I love, and we checked out some of the super cute Cotswold villages: Chipping Camden, Chipping Norton, and Broadway. I really would love to live there one day. So cute. We also went and visited the Diddly Squat Farm shop, which is Jeremy Clarkson's farm shop, which you might know from his Amazon show, which was actually super cute. I was impressed. 

August. In August it was back to my home village for my dad's birthday and then off to Wales with my friends Vicki and Ruth, to an Airbnb literally in the middle of nowhere, with stunning views. I completely switched off for those six or so days, and I've written about this and talked about it on the podcast before – as this was the brain break I really needed to figure out so much stuff for my business. It was such a great time away. 

And it was also hot tub number three of the year, though it didn't quite go according to plan as it was a wood-fired hot tub, which was very nice, but it was a lot of hard work and we couldn't quite get the temperature right and we nearly boiled alive in it as we were there during one of the heat waves. And yeah, I actually felt a bit sick after cooking in it just for like a minute. At one point it was so hot and we had to wait until the night-time to go in it, when it had cooled down a bit. But still, hot tub number three – can't complain. And by the way, obviously, if you're sharing with friends and you get somewhere with a hot tub and you're splitting the cost, it really doesn't have to be an extortionate amount to pay for the pleasure of a hot tub. 

So, after this time away, I kind of had an epiphany about what I wanted to do. Again, this is all in my book and I've mentioned it on previous podcast episodes. And that's when I came up with the Travel Transformation Coach name. It's when I bought my new domain and got my new social media handles and it just completely changed what I was doing in my business. It's also when I enrolled in the Travel Coach Certification Program by the Travel Coach Network. In fact, I did all that literally the same day I got back from Wales. I was just so energised and ready to go. Obviously, I really needed that break away from my laptop. 

So, for the rest of August, I worked super hard, though I had a quick break when I went down to Bath to my cousin Abby and her husband Mark's wedding celebration party, hanging out with the other side of my family, who I hadn't seen since before the pandemic. So that was nice. It was a great night. Abby and Mark let me stay in their house, which was very nice, and the day after I headed to Totnes in Devon, stopping off briefly at Wells on the way, where the film Hot Fuzz was filmed – and that was a gorgeous place as well. I'd love to go back there and spend more time there. 

I was going to Devon to stay with my friend Sarah, who I met in Javea, as well as Sunny and Deanna who were also from the Sun and Co. house in Javea. We were there for a week and all of us were working that week, but we did also manage to fit in loads of fun activities too. I particularly loved going to the gong bath, which I'd never done before, driving through Dartmoor and seeing the wild Dartmoor ponies – so cute – and having afternoon tea at Bovey Castle. Very nice. A great week with great people. And I did a quick pit stop in Glastonbury on the way back, which I hadn't been to before and which is so cute and full of wonderful magical shops and secret hidden courtyards. I also need to go back there to explore some more as well.

September. At the start of September, I did some more cat-sitting for my friend Ruth – obviously, I'm working the whole time with this as well – and then I popped up to York for my friend Gemma's hen do before popping back down to Cambridge to meet up with my Colorado ladies, Vicki, Laura, and Katie, who I met at the University of Colorado, and my friend Ruth, who is now an honorary Coloradan, if that's the right word. 

A lot of zapping about the country this summer. Way more than I've ever done in my entire life. Way more driving than I've ever done in my entire life. And I've seen friends way more than I have before and way more than I would normally if I was staying in one place. So it's a very good benefit of this kind of lifestyle. In August, I also went to Lichfield to see Alan Fletcher – or Dr Karl Kennedy from Neighbours – with my mom, and we ran into my friend Heather, who I hadn't seen for years, which was nice, and I've since met up with her again. 

The rest of September was mostly spent working on editing and on my new travel coaching business. I think it took about two months or so to complete the certification program, maybe three, because it was drip fed to us week by week to do all the assignments. And I was also figuring out stuff for next year, including my South Africa trip, and I'll be going there for two months in January to stay with my Sun and Co. buddies Irene, Sunny, Alex and Ali, and a few other people Irene met in other coliving houses. So I booked my flight, started sorting out my schedule for next year, all that kind of stuff, which is very exciting. And I love planning and scheduling and getting out the Excel spreadsheets and all that stuff, so that was great. 

October. The best month. October is my birthday month and just generally my favourite month because I love autumn. So I had a nice time on my birthday in my home village, just chilled, and then went to this American diner in a nearby town with my family. And then I headed to Manchester at the end of that week to meet up with Brittany, a woman from the States who is in the Travel Coach Network. We had pizza and wine and we talked about business and travel coaching and travelling, and it was really cool to hear someone else talking about it and see how she does stuff. And then I introduced her to the wonders of Primark. It was a rubbish day weather-wise, but it was so nice to meet up with her and hear all about her business. And we both enjoyed going to the fake Central Perk Cafe inside Primark as well.

I then hot-footed it on the train to Stratford upon Avon again, which I think was the second of three visits to Stratford I had this year. I just love all the old buildings, and it's so cute and quaint, and I love how they've really embraced the whole Shakespeare's birthplace thing. As a writer myself – not that I am at all comparing myself to Shakespeare! – but as someone who loves writing and who appreciates literary stuff, I love how they've really embraced the whole Shakespeare thing. I love all the Shakespeare references you can find everywhere. I love all the statues, obviously, the theatres there, the ye olde pubs, the Avon River with all the swans is beautiful… I love all the old thatched houses… it's just so cute. 

Anyway, my friend Caitlin, who I met in the Basque Country villa, was visiting the UK from America and she asked me where I thought she should go. She was already going to Edinburgh and doing a lot in Scotland, and I suggested Stratford because we'd had lots of discussions about books in the villa, and I had recommended Hamnet to her, which is a fictional book about Shakespeare's son, which is set in Shakespeare's Stratford upon Avon and his birthplace. And she read the book and loved it, so I suggested we go there. 

So I went and hung out with her for a couple of days, staying with her in her Airbnb, and we did some nice touristy things. We saw Richard III at the Royal Shakespeare Company Theatre, which was amazing, and the first time I'd actually seen a play there, despite all my times visiting. And we ate and drank, including having a Shakesbeer in one of two pubs in Stratford that claim to be the oldest pub in Stratford. Yeah, great gimmick with the Shakesbeer – really appreciated that pun, that play on words. It was really nice to see Caitlin and to catch up and to just hang out and talk. And then she got back on a plane to New Jersey, and I got on a train back to Stafford.

In October, I also helped my brother with some filming. He has a YouTube channel. Yotty Laboratories – check it out, it's awesome. And he makes really cool videos with fun storylines and special effects. I was in one as part of a ghost-hunting team, which was really fun to film, even though I cannot act at all. So if you want to see me trying to act, go and check that out. It's the one about the ghost app on Yotty Laboratories on YouTube.

Then on the 18th October, I launched this podcast. I had recorded and edited quite a few episodes, all the artwork was done, everything was ready, show notes, all that kind of stuff…

and I was kind of just sitting on it, wondering when I should actually launch it. That thing of, I don't mind doing all the work, but when it comes to putting myself out there and doing that last little thing to get me over the last hurdle, I freeze up a little bit. 

I do it with everything, but I had my final assessment of my Travel Coach Network Certification Program, and part of that was a Zoom call with the CEO, Sahara Rose De Vore, who I actually interviewed for this podcast last week, so that will be coming out soon. And I mentioned my podcast and what it was going to be called. Sahara was surprised that the name hadn't already been taken, considering how travel coaching is becoming more of a thing and how travel transformation is a big thing, so she told me to get on it as soon as I could. So I did. 

On the 18th, I released the first four episodes, and this episode I'm recording now is number 16 – and I just recorded an interview right before this, which is number 18. So it's going pretty well, especially considering quite a lot of people start with podcasts, they get to about episode seven or eight, and they ditch it. So I'm quite proud of what I'm doing with the podcast. 

Towards the end of October, I travelled up north again to Leeds to be a bridesmaid at my friend Gemma's wedding. I also mentioned this in the book because, as a bridesmaid, I was asked to do a speech, so I wrote and read out another poem. Now, this is a whole other thing, like a formal wedding. Lots of people, there's a lot of pressure. It's not like just standing up in front of a group of people that you've been living with for a month. It is, quite honestly, a terrifying proposition – for past me. Current me, I just said yes straight away. 

I didn't even think about it. I even thought, oh, this will be a good opportunity to practise my public speaking. Like, what has happened to me? Like I say, a year ago, this would have freaked me right out and I would have come up with any excuse under the sun to get out of it. But after working on myself and my fear this year, I said yes straightaway. I did it.

And it was such a great wedding. 

November. In November I travelled to London to attend the World Travel Market event at the London Excel, which I've talked about on a previous episode of this podcast, episode 10. It was really cool and I really enjoyed it, and I also took the chance to look around a bit more of London – mainly Leicester Square and Covent Garden, because I love Covent Garden. It's one of my favourite places in London. I love the market.

After that, I sadly attended my great aunt Muriel – or Auntie Mu mu's – funeral, which was obviously very sad. She was 93 when she passed away, though, and she had a great life. I also mentioned this briefly in my book, as I was one of four people to read the eulogy at her funeral, along with my brother and our cousins Sarah and Nicki.

The rest of November was quite chill travel-wise, though work-wise, it was all go go go – especially as I was finishing writing my book and doing a lot of work on my podcast, especially in terms of scheduling interviews and doing all the research that goes along with that. I was also rebuilding and tweaking my website, clarifying my message, sorting out my online Academy membership, and all kinds of other stuff.

I also met up with some friends I hadn't seen in a while: Toni from high school and her fiance Emma, and my friend Heather, who I'd run into at the Dr Karl Kennedy event, and I got around to getting an injection for my upcoming trip to South Africa. I had tried before and they had booked me in a month later, and when I went to the clinic to get it, the clinic no longer existed. So that was good. So I went with a different company and finally got it. 

I also went to a lovely Airbnb in Nottinghamshire for a couple of days with my brother to get some work done – he's also self-employed – and that's where I had hot tub number four. A busy but great month. 

December. I kicked off this month with rage – and by that I mean I went to a rage room experience in Stockport with my friend Ruth, as she had given me an experience day for my birthday. It was in this random kind of murdery-looking basement in the middle of Stockport, and it was a bit gross because you had to wear boiler suits and shoes and gloves that other people had spent all day sweating in. But the actual rage room bit was really cool and a good way to get rid of angry energy – which we had lots of as we'd got stuck on the motorway for about an hour before and had nearly missed our slot. 

We got to take a sledgehammer to a printer and a monitor. And I did feel a bit bad about this because I have a habit of seeing inanimate objects as real living things. And this printer, bless it, its lid popped off as if it was opening its mouth and then it kept closing and opening as if it was screaming, so sorry, printer, but we did smash it to hell. And a monitor… there was a punching bag… there were all kinds of weapons and lots and lots of glass bottles that we could throw and smash against a wall. It was really fun and really knackering. And then we went and had a nice lunch and did some shopping before heading back. And they had a nice little Christmas market on too, which was nice. 

That weekend was also the weekend I finally started posting on TikTok. I'm @traveltransformation, if you want to check out my profile. I'd been putting this off for ages. I've been meaning to do it ever since Javea in Spain, when one of our housemates, Gurav, did a skillshare on TikTok and was explaining how useful it is for brands, for building audiences and that kind of thing. So I've been meaning to do it since then and I know it's a really good way of getting your name out there, so I finally did it – and I remember it was this time because the first video I posted was of Ruth and I going to the rage room. 

So far, that video has actually got the most views out of any I've posted. Possibly because I put a lot of effort into editing it, possibly because the algorithm is just pretty random, and possibly because I included my parents’ dog, Tilly Bean – well, her name's just Tilly, really. I added the Bean – in the video, and who doesn't love dogs? But anyway, starting my TikTok was another big milestone in my business because it represents me having the confidence to put myself out there, which I didn't have before. I'm still not doing any dancing videos, though. 

In December, I also went back to Stratford upon Avon for the third time this year for a lovely festive day out with my friends Jo, Kelly, and Ruth. They had the Victorian Christmas market on, they had loads of stalls, and some people were dressed in Victorian clothes – but not everyone. It was a nice frosty day. We had some delicious food and cocktails at a lovely place called Cafe Cocktail, which is super, super cute. Highly recommend it. 

And we also went on a candlelit tour of Shakespeare's birthplace, which was really cool. I've been there in the day before and done the tour, but going at night when it's dressed up for Christmas and when the candles are dotted around and we were holding like battery-operated candles in our hands, it was really quite magical. And we then had mulled cider and mince pies at Will's Kitchen while a trio of musicians played traditional Christmas songs. Really, really cute. 

The next evening, I met up with a load of friends from high school to go to Illuminate at Shugborough Hall, which is a nice stately home in the next village along from where my parents live – and my mom used to work at the Shugborough Estate, so I have a lot of nice memories of the place from childhood. And I even used the place in my Little Forest fiction book series, but I renamed it as Chillingsley Hall, where spooky things happen at Halloween. It was a really nice, festive evening with lights everywhere and all the trees lit up, though it was pretty cold – but luckily I'd taken a small hot water bottle with me and put it in the front pouch of my hoodie under my coat, so that kept me warm – top tip! 

I then had another quick jaunt up north to near Leeds. I stayed with my friends Lauren and Niall in Shipley as I was attending a PR Power Day with a company called Chocolate PR, which the founder Jo was having at her house near Shipley. I met some great women and got a lot of work done and Jo had made it all nice and festive and it was just a really good day all round. 

This past weekend – I’m catching up now! – I was meant to be going down to London. My friend Vicki and I had tickets to see Dolly Parton’s Smoky Mountain Christmas Carol, a musical that's showing at the South Bank Centre. But we sadly had to cancel because of the rail strikes and I didn't want to drive down to London, not around Christmas and not when there are strikes on, because it gets particularly chaotic. So sadly, that didn't happen. Pay rail workers more money, please! Thank you.

And that brings us up to present day, when I'm recording this podcast. I'm going to be spending Christmas with my parents and the family dog, Tilly Bean, and seeing my nan and my brother and his girlfriend on Christmas Day, so that will be nice. It's also my mom's birthday on Christmas Day, so happy early birthday to her. 

I've still got a lot of work to do before the end of the year – before I go to South Africa, really, in mid-January. So I will probably give myself Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and Boxing Day off, but I'll be working the rest of the time, although a lot of that will be work I don't get paid for, and that doesn't really feel like work, such as planning, recording and editing these podcasts, creating TikTok videos, and stuff like that. Fun stuff, along with some not-fun stuff, but it's not too bad. 

Which brings us on to 2023, which sounds pretty futuristic to me somehow. In terms of travel, I've got a couple of things planned, but I haven't got the whole year figured out.

From mid-January to mid-March, I'll be in South Africa. I'll be living with some of my friends in the Airbnb in Kalk Bay, which is about 40 minutes away from Cape Town, on the coast. It looks really cute and the Airbnb we've booked looks really nice. Then, for the last week of that, we'll be hiking the Whale Trail, which looks beautiful. 

I'll then be flying back to the UK as I've got a couple of things in the second half of March to attend in England. I'm going to the Neighbours tour in Birmingham with my mom, as we're both huge fans. It was meant to be the farewell tour as it ended, but Amazon Freevee has picked it up – thank you! – so now it's a celebration tour, and this might sound crazy, but Neighbours has been on the air pretty much every weekday for 37 years, and I grew up with it. So when it got cancelled, it was like losing a whole part of your life, which I know sounds ridiculous, but it was like a constant in my life and it was a slice of sunny Australian madness for 20 minutes every day. And it was madness because some of the storylines were actually insane – but that's why we loved it, and we're so happy it's coming back, so I'm definitely not going to miss that. There are quite a few actors coming over to do a Q and A and all that stuff, and lots of Neighbours fans coming together to celebrate it, so I have that. 

And then I'll also be going to London to attend a business event in Wembley, which I'm really excited about. One of my online mentors, Denise Duffield-Thomas – she has her podcast, Chill and Prosper, which I highly recommend checking out, and all her books as well – she's coming over from Australia and she's going to be one of the guest speakers. I was also one of the first 50 people to buy tickets through her link, which means I get to go to a kind of VIP breakfast with her too, which sounds awesome, so I'm looking forward to that. And if anyone listened to episode 10 where I talk about going to the World Travel Market and staying in the Airbnb room full of foist and crambles, you'll be glad to know I booked an actual hotel room this time, so I shouldn't have that problem.

I am also hopefully going to Switzerland in June to cat sit for a lovely lady I met through my friend Lydia who I met in the Basque Country. Evelina has her own podcast, which I've been on – I was on last week – and the podcast I recorded before this one was me interviewing her for the Travel Transformation Podcast, so that will be out soon. And yeah, she mentioned she needed a cat sitter, and I love Switzerland, but I really haven't seen that much of it, so I jumped at the chance. So hopefully that will go ahead and I might explore a bit more of the country before or after, I'm not sure. There are definitely places I'd like to go in Switzerland – everywhere, really – but I will do some more research about that. 

Two of my friends are getting married in England next year, so I have those weddings to look forward to in September and October, and obviously I'm going to make sure I'm in the country for those too. And in between those two weddings, I have about six weeks, and ideally I'd love to go to the States then, in particular back to New England, as it will be prime leaf-peeping season, and I've talked about my road trip to America during autumn – or fall – on a past podcast episode. I'd love to go back and do more leaf peeping and go to all the cute little towns in New England. 

I'd also love to go to Nashville and Tennessee. Not going to lie, I'd love to go to Dollywood. I'd love to go to Austin, Texas, too. I'm not sure if I'd be able to fit all that in with the New England things, but you can get quite far in six weeks, so we'll see. Those three have been on my bucket list for a while, so if anyone has any recommendations for any of those places, especially cheap accommodation, please let me know. 

I'd like to be back in my home village for Christmas again next year, though it's always been a goal of mine to visit some of the European Christmas markets, so maybe I'll get a chance to do that in December 2023. Other than that, my calendar is wide open in terms of travel.

So if I meet people on the road and they suggest places, or if they're also digital nomads and they want to travel somewhere with me or split some accommodation – or if I get more pet-sitting gigs in different places – then I'll have the time and space to fit them in. I'd also love to go to Banff National Park in Canada and the Alberta area in general. It's been right at the top of my bucket list for a while, but it's obviously a lot further away from England than, say, New England, so I've been putting it off, but I really should stop putting off the places I really want to go to. So maybe 2023 will be the year I go. If you have any recommendations, especially with accommodation, please let me know.

In terms of my business, I think 2022 was the year of pivoting, of figuring out what I actually want to do and of getting things started. I launched my podcast, I released my Intentional Travel Transformation book, I completed my coaching certification, I created my Academy membership and my Flip The Script party packs and some mini-courses, which you can all find at traveltransformationcoach.com/store. So this year was all about laying the foundations for my business. 

2023, then, is going to be about building my brand, growing my audience, and getting my message out there. It's going to be about putting myself out there, about marketing and PR, basically doing everything I can to get noticed and to spread my message, because that's how I'm going to grow my audience, my brand, my business. And it could be the start of collaborations and working with others and all other kinds of things that I can't even imagine right now. 

It's also going to be about networking, both in terms of my business and my life in general. Networking to reach my business goals and networking while travelling and getting to know people for the fun of it – and because having connections all over the world is really useful, whether it's travelling with other people, visiting them, getting and giving recommendations, or just feeling like I'm part of a global community. And the interviews I do on my podcast really help with that as well, with networking and with feeling part of a community. 

In 2021, my world was very small. In 2022, it started getting a lot bigger, and in 2023 I want it to get even bigger still. And that happens not just by seeing the world, but by making connections with the people you meet along the way. So I'm going to focus on building brand awareness and getting my message out there and just helping as many people as possible to transform themselves and their lives, because that is the important bit. And if I'm helping people, enjoying my work, and hopefully making some profit from it, that will be a brilliant result. 

For next year, it is my goal to still be doing this podcast at least once a week until the end of 2023, and I would even like to get to twice a week by the end of the year as well, releasing an episode every Tuesday and every Thursday. I've been doing a few bonus episodes like this one, but generally it's every Tuesday at the moment.

I'd also like to start writing my next book. I have no idea what that will be yet, but I'll be keeping notes of my travels and the intentions I'm going into every trip with. And who knows, maybe one day I'll write a full-on memoir! I'm reading Eat, Pray, Love at the moment by Elizabeth Gilbert, and I would love to be able to write as beautifully as she does. I love the way she sees words and language, and that would be amazing. 

I also need to get more proactive in 2023, seeking out opportunities rather than just hoping they will somehow miraculously come to me. I recently rewatched all seven seasons of Gilmore Girls and the Netflix special A Year In The Life. It took me several months, and there's a bit at the end of season seven where Rory Gilmore and her friend Paris Geller are getting ready to graduate from Yale, and in true Paris style, she goes into overdrive trying to organise both of their futures. Rory comes home one day, and the living room is filled with whiteboards that Paris has written tasks on for every possible path their post-Yale life could take: applying for internships, applying for other universities for medical degrees, or law school, applying for jobs, doing extracurriculars to make their resumes better, getting in touch with any contacts who could help them get a job, and a million other things.

Rory sends something like 75 resumes out to jobs all in one day. Paris applies to every medical and law school going, and they both just power through their lists like their lives depend on it, because I guess they do. And yes, I know it's fiction, but the things we do to put ourselves out there will directly impact our life and our lifestyle. And in 2023, I'm going to turbocharge my putting myself out there, just like Rory Gilmore and Paris Geller did. And yes, again, I know they're fictional, but it doesn't mean we can't learn from them.

So, in 2023, I'm going to do something that I'm calling Operation Geller and Gilmore. I'm going to write a ridiculously long list of all the things I could possibly do to get my message out there, and then I'm going to do it. Also, as a side note, I am also going to be channelling Grant Cardone, author of The Ten X Rule, who states that you should do ten times the amount of activities, tasks, and actions than you think you need to do to get to where you want to be. Just 10X everything, and you'll get there a lot quicker. I'm probably going to write my list down in a Word doc, rather than a load of whiteboards – because lugging a load of whiteboards around the world could get pretty pricey and annoying – but other than that, I'm going to channel my inner Paris Geller and Rory Gilmore and just get shit done. Maybe you could also do your own Operation Geller and Gilmore, and let's make 2023 the year of getting shit done. 

Anyway, that's my 2022 and my 2023, so what about you? I hope you're able to carve some time out over the festive period to sit and really reflect on the past year, to celebrate all your achievements, and to ponder what has been good and what has been not so good about 2022 – and how you can work on this next year. I also hope you get time to plan out some, but not all, of the year ahead. It's good to have a plan, but it's also good to leave time and space for spontaneity and for unexpected plans, as you never know what could happen over the next twelve months.

Come up with some business or career goals, some personal goals, and some fun goals to help you make the most of 2023. And if you do it right, this could be a really fun exercise. Grab a mug of mulled wine or a nice cup of tea, get comfy and cosy, and really take the time to look back over the past year. We forget so much. So remind yourself and celebrate yourself. 

It can also be fun to look ahead and make fun plans and goals, and do it in a way that is fun to you, whatever that might mean. Use a calendar or a diary, a spreadsheet, a big piece of paper with colourful pens and glitter and stickers… whatever makes it fun for you, because life should be fun. 2023 is a new year, a new book, a new blank page, and we can write whatever we want. 

That's it for this episode. As usual, it went on way longer than I meant it to, so thanks for sticking with it and listening until the very end. I hope you have a lovely festive period – whether you celebrate Christmas or not – and I hope you have a nice new year, whether you're going to a big New Year's Eve party or just chilling on the sofa on your own. 

There will be a podcast episode this Tuesday the 27th – the interview with Sahara Rose De Vore that I mentioned, the founder of the Travel Coach Network – but for now, I'll say have a good one and I'll talk to you in 2023. Thanks again, and I'll catch you on the flip side, bye! 

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