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Reader mailbag!
I’ve saved so many trips from Instagram, but now I feel completely overwhelmed. How do I even start figuring out where to go, or what’s right for me?
Ciara Turner-Ewert
Founder of Wellness Travel Diaries
Ciara is a certified travel coach, writer, and coauthor of The Wellness Bucketlist. She helps people find wellness-focused adventures and experiences.
Hands up if you’ve ever felt overwhelmed planning a trip. Even after visiting 40+ countries, I’ve learned this feeling often comes from internal pressure, lack of clarity, mistrust in ourselves, or trying to please others.
Social media is incredible for discovering new places, but chasing viral destinations can leave you feeling unfulfilled. Take Disneyland, for example. It’s often called the happiest place on earth, with endless content showcasing must-try eats and insider hacks. I’m a Disney adult, but if you don’t enjoy crowds, rides, or loud spaces, forcing a trip there just because it’s trending is likely to disappoint. Instead of following trends, start by getting clear on what you actually want.
First, step into a more expansive, confident, energetic state—hands on hips, back straight, and feet shoulder-width apart. Then ask yourself: what type of experience am I craving right now? Give yourself space and see what pops up. Maybe you’re craving white sandy shores or an adventure deep in the forest. Trust that wherever pops up is right for you.
If you keep a travel list, revisit it. Writing things down can bring clarity and reveal what’s been calling you all along. And if you’re still unsure, spend time researching a few destinations more deeply. There are no perfect trips. What feels right now might shift in a few months. Trust that—and trust yourself.
Megan Baker
Founder of Link2Cultures
Travel Coach and Retreat Leader helping people explore the world through intentional, meaningful, culturally immersive experiences
When choosing your next destination, social media is a great way to spark ideas and find inspiration. When looking at all the saved photos, reels and influencer accounts, ask yourself: which one do you keep going back to over and over? Which one is pulling you the hardest? Something internally is already nudging you towards that next destination experience.
Also, other factors to consider: what time of year? What type of experience? Are you looking for a relaxing summer beach experience? A winter holiday at Europe’s dazzling Christmas markets? A cruise through the luscious Caribbean? As a Travel Coach and cultural educator, I encourage you to pause and consider your current wants and needs.
Once you unpack these questions and explore your feelings about those possibilities, your next destination will become clearer. And remember – All those other experiences will still be waiting for you the next time you’re ready to explore!
Iuliana Marchian
Founder of Authentic Travels
Iuliana helps women who feel lost, stuck, and confused find their voice and direction in life through intentional do-it-yourself travel.
Saving dozens of trips isn’t the problem; the lack of a clear filter is. Instead of asking “Where should I go?”, start with: “What do I actually want to do right now?”
Make a simple list of 10 concrete places you feel drawn to: walking in a city, staying by the sea, exploring food, being in nature, moving between places. Not feelings—actions. Then reduce it: 10 → 5 → 3 → 1. That final choice becomes your direction.
From there, choose a destination that supports that one intention, not the other way around. This is how you move from overwhelm to clarity: by making one aligned decision at a time.
Also, stay realistic: check the current conditions of a place (safety, logistics, access). The right trip is not just inspiring, it’s workable. You don’t need the perfect destination. You need a clear starting point and the willingness to choose
Terri Reynolds
Owner of Terri Reynolds Coaching [podcast]
Terri is a transformational Travel Coach helping women over 40 build confidence, embrace solo travel, and create meaningful, life-changing travel experiences worldwide.
You’re not alone. I do it all the time, along with many others—those saved Instagram trips can be a beautiful but overwhelming blur. One minute you’re dreaming, the next you’ve got 50 destinations and no idea where to start.
Here’s the shift: stop choosing a place, and start choosing a feeling. Ask yourself—what do I need right now? Rest and stillness? Adventure and challenge? Connection or solo time?
Once you’re clear on that, your destination naturally narrows. A calm beach, a vibrant city, or a cultural escape will start to stand out because it matches your energy—not just a pretty picture. Think of it like music—you don’t pick a random song, you pick what fits your mood.
Then choose just one option that excites you the most and explore it a little deeper. You don’t need the “perfect” trip—you just need the right one for you, right now. Clarity doesn’t come from more options. It comes from tuning into yourself first.
Dík ‘Portales’ Doroja
Founder of OrganikAdventures
Dík guides midlife men to their best version through culture-immersive travel and in-person coaching.
You’ve stared at those saved posts long enough to know that none of them are actually calling to you. That feeling is a signal. Somewhere along the way, instead of finding inspiration in planning your trips you ended up handing your imagination to those creating their post-trip highlight reels. Most people who consume content don’t realize this has happened. The saves pile up, the overwhelm grows, and the question shifts from “where do I want to go?” to “where am I supposed to go?”
Only one of them leads anywhere worth travelling. The first step is reclaiming what is truly yours, what you delegated to content creators without realizing it: your curiosity, your passions, the personal development questions you’ve been carrying a two-week adventure might finally have room to answer. When you lead with those, the destination reveals itself. You stop moving through a country like a bucket-list checker and start to belong to it.
You build homes in people’s hearts, and they build the same in yours. The sights, the food, the experiences still come, because they always do. They come as a consequence of a real immersive experience. That is what it means to travel as an ambassador of a culture rather than a consumer of it. And that is where your answer to “where should I go?” actually lives.
Rachel Verlik, PCC
Founder of Curious Traveler
Executive and Travel Coach. Helping mid-career women navigate life transitions with courage, curiosity, and transformative travel.
Social media is incredible for travel inspiration—but it can quickly turn into overwhelm. When everything looks amazing, it’s hard to know where to begin.
I encourage clients to start by turning inward before looking outward. Ask yourself: What am I craving right now? Is it the energy of a vibrant city? The calm of nature? Time for reflection, adventure, or connection? Let the feeling guide you first.
Next, revisit your saved Instagram posts with a more objective lens. Look for patterns—destinations, colors, experiences, or even moods that repeat. Are you drawn to coastlines, mountains, culture, or solitude? Name the common thread you see emerging.
From there, you can use tools like AI, YouTube, and travel platforms to refine your options. Narrow your choices by aligning that feeling with practical factors like time, budget, travel companions, and distance. The goal is to match your current season of life with a destination that supports it.
For example, after the pandemic, I felt a strong pull to travel internationally again, but this time solo. I searched for a destination that was safe, open, and accessible from the U.S. East Coast. That process led me to Iceland, which turned out to be exactly what I needed.
The key is simple: start with intention, look for patterns, and take one step forward. Clarity comes through action.
Melinda Alcosser
Owner at With Heart Travel
Melinda Alcosser utilizes travel as practice, a means of self-discovery, and to imagine what is possible.
You yearn to travel. Excited at the prospect of having an incredible experience, one like you’ve never had before! And yet, when you consider where to go and what to do, you become overwhelmed. There are so many options that it is difficult to wade through.
If this sounds like you, please read on. Pause. Breathe. Doing so is a start to listen to your body, connect to what is truly in your heart, and discover your whys. What lights you up? What do you seek? Maybe it is seeing a new place or being outside of your comfort zone. Maybe connecting with family. Maybe it is an active adventure.
Travel offers so much that brings life to living! Consider how you want to be, not just what you want to do. Being intentional by starting with these questions can really make a difference. The world is a big place, and there is a lot to choose from. Being more intentional invites meaningful and lasting transformative experiences to unfold.
Dawn Pick Benson
Founder of GlobeStory Travel
Dawn is a self-discovery travel coach who helps women rediscover themselves through travel. Her passion is curating a like-spirited community of women who are thriving in the second half of their lives through transformational internal and external journeys. She’s visited more than 50 countries and splits her time between the U.S. & Kosovo.
So many travelers can feel overwhelmed by the possibilities (including me!), so one thing I’ve discovered that really works is to ask a single question: “What is the most beautiful, extraordinary journey I can imagine for myself?”
With this question in mind, choose a quiet & peaceful place where you feel inspired and connected. Close your eyes and again ask, “What is the most beautiful, extraordinary journey I can imagine for myself?” Use all your senses. See it in as much detail as possible. Let yourself feel it ALL.
Where are you? What do you see? Who is around you? How do you feel? What do you smell? What do you hear?
Jot down what you see in detail. Specifically notice how you feel in these imagined moments. Peaceful? Invigorated? Brave? Curious? Alive? Do any of these feelings speak to you at a gut level, so that you find yourself yearning to experience them?
Pick 2-3 feeling words, write them down, and they can immediately help direct your planning process moving forward. If you desire to feel peaceful and grounded, that trip and location might look very different from one in which you long to feel brave and alive.
Try it, and I know you’ll find this 1 question can make all the difference between a trip and a transformational journey!
Corinne Lennox
Bucket List Travel Coaching
Corinne is the Bucket List Travel Coach for solo, child-free travellers who just want to book that dream trip.
It can be really hard to figure out where you want to travel when surrounded by other people’s ideal vacations and opinions. To work out what’s really right for you, I’d recommend grabbing a pen and paper, then set aside an hour for yourself and do the following steps.
1. Brain dump your bucket list destinations. Don’t check your saved trips on Instagram when you do this. Just brain dump whatever comes into your head. It can be as long or as short as you like. Keep writing until you feel you’ve got nowhere else to add to the list.
2. Put that brain dump list aside and, on a fresh piece of paper, write down why this trip is so important to you. Is it to try new things? Get out of your comfort zone? To find yourself? Knowing your whys will help you narrow down your where.
3. Now take list 2 and compare it to list 1, and ask yourself if this is the only trip I ever take, which destination is going to check off all my whys? From experience, I’ll bet your right destination will jump right out at you.
Tracy Smyth
Owner of Travel Bug Tonic
Tracy Smyth helps women ditch the overwhelm, trust their instincts, and travel in ways that genuinely light them up.
Your Instagram saves are inspiring and a beautiful starting point, but scrolling through destinations before knowing what you need is like shopping for shoes without knowing your size. You are bound to feel overwhelmed.
There’s a better question than, “Where should I go?” Ask yourself, “What kind of travel do I need right now?”
The answer will shift depending on what’s happening in your life. Exhausted? You need travel that nourishes more than it drains. In a period of change? Travel can offer perspective and clarity. Ready to stretch? It can energize and grow you.
Start by getting curious about your current energy, capacity, and longings. Those are the key filters that turn an overwhelming saved folder into a shortlist that actually fits. Once you know what you need, choosing where to go becomes surprisingly simple and exciting again. (I created a Travel Alignment Quiz for exactly this moment if you need a place to start!).