What in the world is Forest Bathing?

What in the world is forest based?

That's what I said.

I'm joined in the studio today by a good friend of mine and fellow travel advisor, T McNeil of McNeil Luxury Travel.

Besides from being totally awesome, T is one interesting idea, let me tell you.

It was on one of her recent trips to Hawaii when I heard that T was forest-based.

And I was like, say what?

Exactly.

And ironically, forest basic, it doesn't involve waterfalls, rivers, or even so big, as I said.

And then though, just a note about T.

T.

isn't home.

That's right.

T has no home.

Mind blow.

My tea?

What are you thinking?

That's crazy.

But that's what makes T the lady she is.

That's what made her the perfect guest for the podcast.

So, if you're ready, let's go ahead and dive into a little forest baby with T McNeil.

Hey, I am here today with a fellow travel advisor, T McNeil.

T, welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_02: Hey, Kevin.

Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_01: Oh, well, I am so glad you've chosen to join me today.

It might seem a little bit odd to everybody listening that I have another travel advisor on the podcast, but that's because us in the travel industry, we are definitely more like friends and family than competitors.

So that's why I wanted to have one of my favorite travel advisor friends on with me today.

So, T, why don't you introduce yourself?

SPEAKER_02: Hello, everybody.

My name is T McNeil, and my travel agency is called McNeil Let's You Travel.

And I specialize in a different kind of travel.

I like to focus my efforts on creating travel experiences that transforms you in some way.

So, you know, I want you to be different when you come home.

I know a lot of people they they say, oh, I just I book everything.

And I think that's really great.

But what I like to focus on is connecting with clients who want to be changed by their travel experience.

So I would say my superpower is transformative travel.

SPEAKER_01: That's awesome.

That's awesome, T.

And that's what for everybody to know that me and T, we have been part of the same kind of mastermind group where we have done some different education things in in the uh travel industry, and that's how we got to know each other.

T was somebody who really stuck out to me because of her travel business.

We most of us in this industry anymore are now, you know, what they call home-based agents.

So we, you know, are working from home.

But uh T kind of takes that to another level.

T, would you like to kind of expand on what I'm referring to?

SPEAKER_02: Sure.

That's a very polite way of saying that I am a nomad.

So when I talk to clients and they, you know, are trying to understand who I am as an advisor and what I bring to the table, the first thing I mention is that I'm a digital nomad.

And they're like, what?

What is that?

Well, basically, what that means is that I travel full-time around the world.

I don't have a set home.

I gave up my apartment in the San Francisco Bay Area about three years ago.

And I've been living out of a suitcase ever since.

So, yeah, so every three or four months, I change locations.

I just look around the world and say, where do you want to go?

What kind of experience do you want to have?

How do you want to be transformed?

And I look for an appropriate location that will allow me to have a really great experience.

And so I explain to my clients that this is a really fantastic benefit for them because I get to travel the world full-time, visiting new locations, evaluating destinations, looking for the kind of experience that my clients might be interested in having.

So it's a huge benefit for my clientele, but it is definitely unusual.

SPEAKER_01: I literally, when the first day when something was brought up in the group and and ever, I was like, wait a minute, T, you don't have a home?

She's like, nope, I don't have a home.

So so now now, T, one thing that I've I've never asked you, but I mean, how many different places in the world have you have you lived?

Because I'm assuming, you know, you don't just stay in the United States, you go worldwide.

SPEAKER_02: That's right.

I really believe in international travel.

I mean, I've spent most of my life traveling the United States.

So once I became a digital nomad, I thought, well, I want to see the rest of the world.

I want to see what else is out there.

So when I first left in uh actually it was Christmas Eve 2017, I left San Francisco for Thailand.

So I spent four months in Thailand.

And then since I was in Southeast Asia and it takes so long to get there, it takes about 24 hours to travel from San Francisco to Southeast Asia.

I thought I'm gonna stick around here and travel a little bit.

So I traveled throughout Thailand.

I was based in Chiang Mai.

Then I went to Bali, which was amazing.

And Bali is, you know, a small island network in Indonesia.

And then, of course, Bali was made famous by the book Eat Pray Love, and then subsequently the movie.

Then I went to Portugal, Ireland, Switzerland.

I really did just kind of like travel around.

And so I've just been traveling in and out of the United States now.

In case you're wondering, I do return to the United States every now and then because sometimes you just need to be in a domestic location to get business done or to visit with people.

So it's not like I never come back to the United States.

So I travel internationally, but then I always come back.

So right now I'm headquartered in Miami, Florida, because it's really warm here.

It's safe and uh it's a great place to sort of wait things out.

But yeah, so I've been to quite a few international locations.

Mexico, of course, I've been all over Mexico, Merida, Playa del Carmen, the Mexican Riviera.

So, yes, quite a few destinations.

SPEAKER_01: So now I'm curious.

So when you when you first made the decision to head to Thailand, did you immediately know that you were going to spend the next however many years of your life constantly traveling, or was that something that just developed as time went on?

SPEAKER_02: That is a really good question.

I'm trying to think back to my mindset back then.

It was a grand, you know, idea that I was going to be doing.

And so I had this sense of excitement.

And the only thing that I had in the front of my mind was that I was going to Thailand to experience the people, the culture, the food, because I really love Thai food.

SPEAKER_01: Me too.

Me too.

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: Culinary trial is a really big portion of my business.

So it was really exciting for me to go and, you know, eat Thai food in Thailand.

But I think what I was thinking about was I want to see what will happen.

I kind of didn't have a set idea that I would be spending exactly four months in Thailand.

It evolved.

And that's what I love about this lifestyle is I have learned that it doesn't make sense for me, just my personality and the way that I do things, to have things set in stone.

So even back then, when I was first starting out, I didn't have this specific idea that I'm spending exactly four months in Thailand and that then I would go to the next place and then the next place.

Instead, my travels are very organic.

So when I was in Thailand, for example, I didn't know where I was going next.

I didn't have to go.

And it evolved.

Like I met some people who had been to Bali and they said, oh, you really need to go to Bali, like and go here, here, and here.

And so over time, people kept talking about Bali, and that's kind of what influenced my decision because I said, What are these people talking about?

Why are they so excited about Bali?

I want to see for myself what the big deal is.

That's literally how a lot of my travel happens, just organically, because I've had some conversations with people, or someone told me something really interesting about a location, then I'm like, I want to see for myself.

So it's very, very organic.

SPEAKER_01: That's awesome.

Now, do you feel as though you living in all of these different destinations?

Do you feel as though that has really assisted you with your profession as a travel advisor?

SPEAKER_02: It has.

And to be honest, that evolved as well because when I first left the United States, it was a very personal decision that I made.

Like my friends were like, You're crazy.

I don't know what you're doing.

You're leaving safety and security of living in one of the best places in the world, the San Francisco Bay Area, for a life of like question mark, you know?

But I had to do what was good for me.

And so I think what happened is the evolution of my travel business kind of followed my physical travels.

So at first I was just traveling just for me, you know, it was all personal travel.

I want to have this cool, you know, transformative experience.

Let's go off and do that.

And then as I started working more deeply with my clientele, I started realizing, hey, here's a really great opportunity to be of service to my clients.

So I started then doing local explorations on their behalf.

And so, like, it all started with one client saying, Oh, what are the hotels like there?

You know, and I happened to be in Bali.

What are the hotels like there?

And I was like, Well, that's a really good question.

I should go check out the hotel.

So I called up the sales manager at the local five-star property and said, I'm a travel advisor.

My client wants to know about this property.

Can I come do a tour?

And that was actually how it got started.

So I went, I did a tour, I told the client about it, and they ended up booking a trip because they really liked the feedback.

So I thought, wow, I could do this in every location that I'm in.

I could start checking out the hotels, I could start checking out the experiences, and then I could, I'm in a you know, really good position to tell people what it's like on the ground versus, you know, trusting that things are gonna work out sight unseen.

So now I have all this really great personal information about a destination that I can share directly with my clients.

So it's been incredible how that evolved.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's pretty, that's pretty awesome.

Now, now do you also?

I wanted to ask him for it's kind of a tricky question, but has there been one destination that stood out from the rest as a favorite?

SPEAKER_02: Oh, that's not fair.

SPEAKER_01: Don't worry, Thailand and Switzerland, they're not listening.

You can you can choose anywhere.

It's okay.

SPEAKER_02: That's like a Sophie's choice.

Like, which one of your babies is your favorite?

SPEAKER_01: Every mother has a favorite, whether they want to admit it or not.

So just fess up, T.

What was your favorite?

SPEAKER_02: Well, I know a lot of people probably expect me to say Thailand and Bali, but the truth is my absolute favorite destination in the entire world is Ireland.

SPEAKER_01: Wow, okay.

I never would have guessed that for you.

That shocks me.

It shocks a lot of us.

Explain why.

Why it why Ireland?

SPEAKER_02: Well, do you remember how I talked about how transformational travel is my superpower?

Like, this is what I bring to the table for my clients.

SPEAKER_01: Of course.

SPEAKER_02: Ireland has Ireland has that and everything you could could imagine and can't imagine.

Ireland is a magical place, it's a magical destination.

You can feel it the minute you step off the plane.

The people are different, the culture is different, it's incredibly green, people are super friendly, very welcoming.

But when you start hiking and putting your feet on the ground, like you feel differently.

You're like, whoa, just been supercharged.

What's going on here?

Ireland just has that power to change how you feel almost instantly.

And I haven't traveled to a place that does that as well as Ireland.

SPEAKER_01: That's pretty awesome.

I mean, and just from sitting here thinking, I mean, you know, I think so many times we think, you know, oh, it would have to be the most exotic place you'd ever, you know, traveled to would be be top of the list, but that's not necessarily the case.

And um, I mean, I know from clients who I have sent to Ireland, they've had an amazing time, but but it means something even more, I think, to hear it from you who have truly experienced so many of these destinations to then come back to for you personally was Ireland is pretty awesome.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, I think you're right.

It is it is a bit unexpected, but there's a reason why, you know, so many millions of Americans travel to Ireland every year, not only because of heritage trips, but because it's like Hawaii.

It's a place that you can travel to multiple times and have completely different experiences because it's so diverse there.

You know, you can go to the southeast and have a really cool experience learning the history of the region, or you can go all the way west to the west coast of Ireland, which is called the Atlantic, that's the uh Atlantic Ocean side.

And that is all about adventure and you know, the Ring of Carey and really getting out there and hiking and doing physical things, or you could go to Northern Ireland, which is the the English side of things, and that's where you can experience geological formations like Giants Causeway.

It's the place where they have the dark hedges, you know, those that famous image of the trees meeting in the middle.

I think that was Game of Thrones.

That's in Northern Ireland, and of course, there's Game of Thrones tourism up there because that was one of the main locations for filming Game of Thrones, it was Northern Ireland.

So there's I mean, there's just so much, and that's just you know, highlights.

There's so much more to Ireland that you can do and experience, and so you can see why people return year after year.

And it's it's actually my top-selling destination.

SPEAKER_01: That's that's awesome.

That's awesome.

And and it's no surprise since it's your favorite, so that's pretty cool.

That's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_02: Exactly.

So if you're ever wondering like why people specialize in things, like that's why, because if you have something that makes your heart sing, that's what you're gonna focus on, and that's why people want to work with you because they can see that that there's passion there, and that there's, you know, not just understanding and knowledge, but you know, real passion, heart, you know, in what you do.

SPEAKER_01: Okay.

So we've kind of skimmed around some of the stuff.

Now, now we got to get to the thing.

So you being the digital nomad that you are with no home, that totally flipped my lid as it was.

But then there was something else.

Something else that uh it was while you were in Hawaii that I learned about you.

And again, I'm like, it was one of those things I was kind of embarrassed to even ask about because I'm like, I don't even understand what I'm getting myself into with this question.

But T, would you like to explain to people what forest bathing is?

SPEAKER_02: Yes, I am happy to try to break that down.

So in addition to culinary travel, transformational travel, I also focus on wellness travel.

And wellness travel is one of those industries that's really exploded over the last 20 years.

And you know, it's like responsible for like a billion dollars and more of um travel dollars.

And so wellness travel is something that I realize I've been doing all this time and didn't even know it.

So wellness travel involves many different components.

You know, it could be a spa experience, it can be a retreat experience, it can be a meditation experience, it can be uh working one-on-one with people who can help you change your diet.

So, diet and nutrition, it could be like a boot camp.

Wellness travel really does have a you know diverse number of activities that you can do.

And one of the ones that I like to focus on in my personal travel is sort of like working on the mind-body connection.

And so one of the things I love, love, love doing when I'm in nature is something called forest bathing.

So when I was in Hawaii uh for the month of April, I was literally in an Airbnb in the middle of nowhere.

Like there were no neighbors, there were no, I guess you'd call them street lamps.

So it was complete darkness.

And so sometimes in the morning, it was so quiet and peaceful that I would take my coffee out to the Lanai and I would sit down and I would just let the forest heal me, you know, just give me the energy.

I could feel the energy from the trees because I was literally in a forest.

I was surrounded by trees, all different types of trees.

And sometimes they would wave at me, even though there was no breeze.

Sometimes I could feel them leaning into me.

Like it was just this feeling of communion with the trees.

Now I know that sounds a little woo-woo.

SPEAKER_01: Just a little, just a little.

SPEAKER_02: But an amazing thing happens to you when you get away from the hustle and bustle of regular life.

So, like when you're not in a city, when you're not around cars, when you are sitting still and there's complete silence, and all you can hear is the sound of the blood rushing through your head, you have the ability to feel energy.

And, you know, I learned this a long time ago, probably when I was in Bali, which is a very another very spiritual place.

But it just so happened, you know, Hawaii is also a very spiritual place.

So when I, you know, sat still and just listened, you know, opened up all of my senses, I could feel the energy.

And it was really amazing.

And so when I when I talk about wellness travel to my clients and I talk about, you know, the types of experiences I've had and the types of experiences my clients have, like people finally get it.

They're like, oh, it's not just going and getting a massage.

And so I highly recommend, you know, wherever you are in the world, going out into nature, whether it's your backyard, because that's nature, or to the local park or someplace where you can be surrounded by trees and try it yourself.

Just, you know, sit still, you know, maybe you can cross your legs or you can lay down on the ground, whatever.

But your body has to be touching the ground in some way to get the best benefits.

But you know, if you don't have direct access to, you know, the earth, you can sit on a chair or whatever.

But just sit there, focus on your breathing, and close your eyes and just feel with your senses what energies are around you, like what nature is trying to kind of tell you.

And let us know, like let Kevin know what kind of experience you have after trying that exercise.

And I think after that, you guys might be believers.

SPEAKER_01: Would you say it it's almost a type of meditation in a sense?

SPEAKER_02: Absolutely, it is a deeper meditation.

You know, a lot of people, you know, they think of meditation as like sitting in the lotus position going on for a couple hours and hours.

But you can meditate anywhere.

I don't know that people know that.

You can meditate anywhere, you can meditate at any time.

Meditation is literally just communing with yourself.

You know, and blocking out all of the external distractions.

You know, that's the beauty of meditation, is it can be done anywhere.

It can be done under any circumstances.

Sometimes when I wake up in the morning, I don't even get out of my bed.

I just I just you know start meditating right on the in the lay-flat position.

I'm a lazy meditator.

SPEAKER_01: And and I'll and I'll be and and I'll be I'll be honest to you.

When when you've told me about the whole forest bathing thing before, I, you know, I kind of got what you were going with it, but it wasn't until just now when you were when you were really talking about it, and I thought, I understood it in the terms of like meditation and thinking how I know how powerful that can be when you're just sitting quietly in a room.

And so I'm sitting there thinking, how much more powerful to be in the middle of the woods, to be in your backyard, to be in nature, and to just let yourself be completely silent and just take in everything around you.

You know, it it really kind of made it, it made sense to me finally, uh, of a real like powerful impact that it has.

So I think that's really pretty awesome.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I'm excited to hear how your listeners experience that because I really want people to try it.

I want you to try it.

And don't put any pressure on yourself.

You know, just if even if you only have 10 minutes, it's worth it to try it for five or ten minutes.

It doesn't have to be a long period of time.

You don't have to sit there like Buddha and meditate for like years and years and an hour.

You know, just find a quiet space, sit still, and try to just empty your mind.

And if your mind keeps like focusing on something like, oh my gosh, I really need to do some laundry today.

Just say, oh yeah, I need to do laundry and let that idea go.

Because you've already acknowledged it.

You know you need to do laundry, so let it go.

Don't beat yourself up.

And just see what experience you have.

And then what you'll notice is that you're able to do it, and then you're like, oh, that's so cool.

I want to try it again tomorrow, you know?

And so it kind of the excitement for it builds once you start to see the the advantages of it, like how it will actually change your life.

So let us know how it goes.

SPEAKER_01: So do you do this on like a regular basis, on a daily basis?

Is this something where you like to get outside no matter where you are in partaking the forest bathing, or is this something that you just do every once in a while?

SPEAKER_02: Well, forest bathing is, I think, a higher level of meditation.

Like it's really focused.

I meditate twice a day, which is now before you think I'm some like yogi or whatever, I have no formal training.

I haven't called yoga school or anything like a meditation school.

I just have learned over the year, what over the years what works for me.

So I meditate for like five or ten minutes in the morning.

Like I'm not sitting in the lotus position.

I literally am laying in my bed with my eyes closed, just sort of being still and being quiet.

And that does it for me.

Some people have to get out of their bed.

I don't have to do that because I'm lazy.

I'm just like, I'm I'm awake, but I don't feel like moving, so I'm just gonna meditate right here.

But in the evening, I am sitting somewhere quiet and I'm, you know, reflecting on the day, and then I just let it go.

Whatever happened during the day, I just let it go.

That's my reason for meditating in the evening.

And I meditate in the morning to set the day.

Like I say what kind of day I'm gonna have in the morning during my meditation.

And so that sets the day for me, and it's really a great way to start the day.

But forest bathing is something that I do when I have the opportunity to be in nature like that.

So, like I was in Hawaii, for example, in the middle of nature, it was just kind of natural to do that.

And the same thing is like when I was in Ireland, I was surrounded by nature, so it was natural to do that, but I can't do forest bathing every day because I'm not in a forest on a daily basis.

Uh, those were really unique situations.

And here I'm currently uh sheltering in place in Miami, and I'm in a yacht club, and so I'm near the water, which is great because I can actually go out where the boats are and meditate near the water, which is another powerful element, you know, earth, fire, air, and water.

So you can meditate on the water, like if you're on a lake or you have a body of water.

So instead of forest bathing, I guess you could say that I'm like lake bathing or something.

SPEAKER_01: She's she's she's she's bathing on the intercoastal.

SPEAKER_02: Exactly.

I don't even know what that's called.

SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes.

We don't want anybody, if anybody's just kind of scanned through this, no, T is not actually bathing in the intercoastal waterway in the way that you may think.

So don't worry.

It's not that kind of podcast.

SPEAKER_02: I love it.

I love it.

But uh, but that's that's see, all of these things that we're talking about just illustrates how my like how these opportunities are even possible because of my lifestyle.

I wouldn't be able to do all of these really cool things if I didn't have, you know, this digital nomad lifestyle.

SPEAKER_01: Now, T, now talk to me about because I think when people everybody still think, you know, when they think of travel agents and travel agencies, you know, people, it's it's still a little bit hard for a lot of people to understand that that we're operating in a large, you know, the majority of travel agents now are home-based.

But can you kind of ease people's minds when they they may be wondering, okay, that's great that she, you know, owns her own travel agency, but how is that really possible when she's on the road all the time and stuff?

Can you can we explain?

I mean, I know obviously how it's possible, but how can you run your own business when you don't even have a storefront agency?

SPEAKER_02: That's a really great question.

And it speaks to the how travel age, like the idea of a travel agent has evolved over the last 40, 50 years, you know?

So in the beginning, and I'm just gonna give everybody a history because I'm a history geek, I love history, and I love to see how things change over time.

So I'm gonna beg your indulgence while I do this quick history lesson.

So in the beginning, in the beginning, um, travel agents, and they were called travel agents, these were order takers, right?

Because the average American could not buy a plane ticket without a travel agent.

I know it's hard to imagine, but you could not buy a plane ticket by going directly to the airline.

I mean, you could, but it, I mean, I don't even think they had telephone operators back then.

You had to buy a ticket through a travel agent.

So they were necessary.

If you wanted to travel from point A to point B on a plane, you had to call a travel agent.

And so you would go down to downtown and go to a storefront and sit in front of someone and they would look up flights for you.

Like that's how they did it.

You didn't call people on the phone back then.

You went to a physical location and sat down and they literally did the search in front of you.

That's how travel agents served people.

But with the advent of online travel agents, and that's OTAs, like Orbits, Expedia, this was all coming around during the first dot-com boom in uh 2000.

So I think like Y2K era.

Programmers came up with a way to allow consumers to book their own travel, specifically booking flights.

That was the big thing.

Like they were saying you no longer have to go sit down in an office and have someone book a flight for you.

You can now do it yourself.

And they were doing all the work on the back end.

That absolutely devastated the travel agent business because no longer did you need to go down and do that so you could do it on your own.

So then travel agencies started going out of business and people then started booking their own travel.

It went from airplane tickets to hotels and then to experiences.

So, you know, enter 2020, why do you need travel agents?

Well, if you've been living under a rock and you missed the whole pandemic, something really interesting happened during that pandemic.

People who had booked their own travel could not get in touch with those OTAs because they were overloaded.

Orbitz wasn't answering the phone, Expedia wasn't answering the phone, Travelocity wasn't answering the phone, and all of a sudden people had tickets that they needed to either cancel or change or whatever, and they couldn't get assistance.

Well, if you had booked your travel through a travel advisor, and we are now called travel advisors because we do far more than just booking, booking, booking.

We are curators of travel.

And one of the huge benefits is that when you work with a travel advisor, you have basically the ultimate and travel assistant working with you, literally walking you through every process, holding your hand, but more importantly, troubleshooting on your behalf when something goes sideways.

And I think a lot of people started to see how travel went way sideways in park, starting or mid-February, actually, is when travel started to go sideways.

Those who were working with a travel advisor called their travel advisor and said, Oh MG, what the heck is happening in the world?

Get me out of this, you know.

And their travel advisor then went to work unraveling their travel plans.

And so you could see the immediate benefit of having an advocate working on your behalf, interacting with all of the suppliers, the airlines, the transfer companies, the hotels, all of the experiences.

Your travel advisor was the one working to unravel all of that travel that you guys had planned.

And so a lot of people found like the do-it-yourself folks, they found themselves in a bind because they couldn't do any of that.

And, you know, when they tried, they were sitting on hold for hours, literally hours and hours, or they were being told, nope, no refund.

Sorry.

And that's, you know, I hate to say it, like during this crisis, this is when we the spotlight was on us because we got to show our medal.

Like this is why we do what we do because we're professionals.

We know exactly what needs to happen.

And more importantly, we will move heaven and earth to make things right for you.

At least I did for my clients.

And I will say, you know, I'm gonna toot my own horn here, but I successfully unraveled all of my clients' trips.

I got all my clients' refunds, not credits, refunds for their flights.

I was able to unravel all their hotels with no penalties.

Anyone who wanted to postpone, we postponed.

And so, except for there's one exception, I have a college student right now in Amsterdam trying to get home by the end of July.

So that is my last sort of like pandemic crisis piece of travel that I'm working on.

But again, I'm doing all the work.

He's living his best life in Amsterdam as a as a 20-year-old college student.

Whereas I'm the one, you know, on the phone for hours, you know, trying to get him a good flight.

So, you know, that is a really great illustration and a somewhat long explanation of why people should use travel advisors.

SPEAKER_01: That's right, that's right.

And I think the other thing that I think has has definitely evolved through the years is that we're not all even just strictly travel advisors because each of us have our own unique specialty, our own unique gift that we bring to the table.

And I think that's one thing.

And I mean, as you've seen, you know, through the podcast today, you know, you see what T specializes in.

It's completely different than somebody else.

You know, and I think that's what's another thing that's really unique about our industry is we don't really see each other as competitors.

We're more colleagues, we're we're teammates.

That's why I always say, you know, yeah, I may be, you know, the only one running the show at, you know, at my travel agency, but that doesn't mean that I don't have a whole entire team of fellow quote unquote colleagues that I can count on to bounce ideas off of and you know, to go to and you know, in case that I, you know, need something that they specialize in.

SPEAKER_02: That's right.

That is a beautiful thing in this industry.

And those of us who have benefited from the skill set, advice, and wisdom of other travel advisors know what's up, right?

We know that we couldn't do what we do, service our clients, and be advocates for our clients without the help of our fellow travel advisor.

Now, if you come, I'm just gonna give everybody a tip here.

If you come across a travel advisor who is like, no, I'm the I'm the bomb, like I'm I'm like Wonder Woman or whatever, run because they're lying.

There is no way that you can be brilliant by yourself in this industry.

You this industry revolves around relationships, relationships with our clients, relationships with our colleagues, relationships with our suppliers, and relationships with our mentors.

And that's a large group of people working on behalf ultimately to service our clients.

And I'm proud to say that I work with many, many people to help me pull off a client trip.

Like that's the secret sauce, actually.

And I have no qualms about telling my clients how many people helped, you know, worked on their trip and helped them have an amazing vacation.

That's why they come to me because they know I have those connections.

And that's what we what we do.

It's it's not only our expertise, but it's how well connected we are.

And so, you know, it's no issue for me.

I don't have such an inflated ego that I'm, you know, can't pick up the phone and talk to a fellow agent and say, hey, you've been to the Maldives before.

You know, what's the deal there?

My client wants X, Y, and Z.

What do you think?

You know, and then we collaborate.

So there's a lot of beautiful relationships in this industry.

And of course, these these special relationships end up benefiting our clients and anybody who tells you differently.

SPEAKER_01: So true, so true.

Well, well, T, is there anything else that you would would like to share with with those listening today before we wrap things up?

SPEAKER_02: Well, first off, thank you for having me on your podcast, Kevin.

It has been an absolute joy to talk about travel with someone who loves it as much as I do and who who loves planning it as much as I do.

So thank you for that.

SPEAKER_01: Well, you're certainly welcome.

Certainly welcome.

SPEAKER_02: So I think what I want to end with is I want people to understand that the power of travel, like how travel has the ability to change your life.

And I think this pandemic, this crisis that we're going through right now is a really great illustration of how powerful it is.

Like just think about how you feel right now, like stuck at home, not able to go anywhere.

You feel penned up.

And how different that is when you have the freedom to go out and about, to go to another place, to experience another culture.

So I'm hoping that when this pandemic is over, when it's safe to travel again, that people will once again believe in the power of transformative travel, knowing that when you step foot in another country, in another culture, that you will be changed by the experience.

And then, of course, the people that you meet are going to be transformed by it as well.

And so I know after, you know, this pandemic is over and it's safe to travel again, we'll probably be focused on domestic travel, a lot of domestic destinations, uh, like, you know, national parks, the US, major cities.

But, you know, don't forget about getting out there and seeing the rest of the world.

Because, you know, that's how you will actually connect on a deeper level to your fellow human being, is by looking into the eyes of someone who may look different from you, but who may have the same goals in life as you.

And you won't know that until you get out there and experience it for yourself.

So keep on traveling, everybody.

SPEAKER_01: Awesome.

Well, T, thank you again so much for coming on the podcast today.

And for everybody listening, I will leave T's contact information in the show notes for T McNeil and uh with McNeil Luxury Travel.

So, T, thank you again.

And um, for everybody listening, thank you.

And I hope you tune in next time.

SPEAKER_00: And that's the lowdown on life and travel.

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