Take a Virtual Vacation: Tuscany

Spend months in the summer of 2019 meeting with Graseilah, your tour guide partner, designing a dreamy ten-day writing retreat at a Villa in Tuscany, a place you’ve never been. Drool over pictures of the Villa you’ll be staying in: the gorgeous swimming pool, the beautifully set outdoor table, an albino peacock strolling through the […]

It’s a weird time to be going on vacation, especially an international trip to Europe. Of course, leading a trip and facilitating a creative retreat experience for others isn’t the same as taking a private vacation. But having led these trips for ten years now, there’s an unfolding in the lead-up to each new adventure

It’s 4:00 PM and I just changed my outgoing voicemail message for the first time in three years. Because that’s how long it’s been since I flew abroad. When I arrive in Tuscany to lead my Write, Travel, Transform retreat, I’ll be buying an Italian SIM card and won’t be able to get calls on

An uneventful flight in cattle class. Flying internationally is one of the places my childhood training in dissociation comes in handy. I can sit in one of those squished seats overnight and nap and watch three movies: the new West Side Story, a documentary about a big wave surfer, and a father-son saga set in

Despite a loud party going on outside our hotel window last night, .5 mg Ativan and my c-pap machine helped me sleep through the night. I woke up at 5:00 AM, which is pretty much when I’ve been waking up in Santa Cruz. I got up, checked the weather—60 degrees and heading up to 88—and

I’m a phone addict. There’s no doubt about it. My laptop and my phone are extensions of my being and my fingers. My work life is entwined with them. My teaching is entwined with them. My home life is entwined with them. I write on them, communicate on them, blog on them, post on them,

In January, when I returned from my first pandemic vacation, visiting our son and daughter-in-law and grandkids in Mexico (where I had indulged in lots of beer and guacamole), I stepped onto a scale for the first time in two years and weighed in at 178 pounds, which is pretty much the top of the

If you walk around Florence, you see leather goods everywhere. From the cheapest tacky tourist shops to the highest end stores, brilliant leather is on display. It comes in the most luscious colors: butter yellow, creamy orange, brilliant reds, emerald green, glowing teal—in amazing combinations. I just wanted to touch it all, and at times

Before we came to Italy, Karyn and I didn’t give any thought as to what we wanted to see or do in Florence in the three full days we had before our travelers arrived, aside from getting over our jetlag and marveling over the fact that we had actually made it to Italy during a

This is the best swab I ever stuck up my nose. It is the one I’ve dreaded for months, the one I’ve taken extreme measures to prepare for. For instance, last month I visited my son and daughter-in-law in Medford, Massachusetts for a long weekend after teaching at the Rowe Center in northwestern Massachusetts. Eli

OMG. Did I just die and go to heaven? Here we are—finally— three years later. The dream became a reality. It’s far more stunning in person than any pictures can show. If you don’t want to wait for the email digest version of my virtual vacation posts, you can follow me directly on social media:

Here’s how to use a bidet in Italy. If you don’t want to wait for the email digest version of my virtual vacation posts, you can follow me directly on social media: IG: laurasaridavis FB: thewritersjourney

Yesterday, we had an extensive tour of the three olive oil mills at the farmhouse, one of which dates back to the 16th century. Our guide, Giacomo, the farm manager, is from the Bodini Gattai family that has owned and run this working farm for generations. Giacomo began his tour by showing us the tiny

Between the hills of Chianti and Valdelsa, a few kilometers from Florence, we went today to visit a family whose business is to harvest and create delicious products from truffles, a wild mushroom that thrives in the region. We began our visit by going out in the woods for a truffle hunt with Giacomo—not the

You might think that this whole trip is filled with long leisurely conversations over unbelievable food (check, yes, that’s true), senses drinking in verdant peaceful surroundings (yes, true), shared intimacies between new friends (yes true), and the pleasure of being surrounded by the sensuality of Italian being spoken around us (yes, true), but this Write,