Love gets marketed as romance: reservations, roses, sunsets, a photograph that looks like a postcard.
Travel has shown me another side of love.
It is the way you arrive in a place, before you know what the place is going to give you.
In the last issue, I wrote about connection and the moments that stay with you. When you travel, connection can happen fast: you meet a guide, you share a table, you exchange a few words with a stranger, you feel the energy of a place. Love shows up in what you do next. It is the choice to slow down and let the moment land, rather than moving on simply collecting proof you were there.
I notice this in the first ten minutes.
Some people enter a new environment scanning for what is next. Others slow down and let the place speak first — that makes all the difference in how you experience your journey.
Try a small experiment the next time you arrive somewhere new, even if it is close to home.
Give yourself two minutes before you do anything else.
No phone. No photographing. No checking directions.
Stand where you are and register three specific details:
• What is the first sound you hear? • What is the first thing you notice in the light? • What does the air feel like on your skin?
That is arrival. This is the same way I design journeys: space first, then experience.
Photo Op + Action Opportunity: A Moment You Move Toward
Photo Credit: JÉSHOOTS
During an outing, photograph one thing you instinctively move toward.
For me, it is often carved doors or fresh floral arrangements. I always want to feel the softness of the petals. I love the patterns of light made by trees.
After you take the photograph, write a few lines:
• What pulled you in? • What did you notice once you stopped long enough to look? • Where could you bring this same quality of attention into your daily life?
Save the image. Return to it later. Let it remind you of how you arrived.
Journeys Where Love Can Lead the Day
If the last issue spoke to you, these journeys carry that same thread: experiences designed for people who care about how time is spent and which moments stay.
For wildlife lovers → Botswana Untamed: A Journey Into the Wild
March 7–19, 2026 | Group Size: 8
Photo Credit: Great Plains Foundation
The Okavango Delta has a way of bringing you back to simple things: water, light, distance, silence, movement. One morning can hold elephants wading through a channel as the sun rises, with reed beds turning gold at the edges.
If love, this month, means being fully where you are, this journey gives you plenty of chances to practice that.
For those craving a reset on land → Take a Shot at Happiness: New Mexico
April 8–12, 2026 | 5 Days | All-Inclusive | Limited to 10 Guests
Photo Credit: Ted Turner’s Vermejo
Set on Ted Turner’s 550,000-acre reserve, Vermejo offers a sense of distance you can feel right away. You step outside and the horizon is wide, which changes your pace before you have thought about it.
We stay at the historic Bartlett Cottage, once a hunting lodge. Between time outdoors and our guided sessions, the setting gives you room to put your phone down more often and pay closer attention to what is actually in front of you.
For those drawn to a sacred space → Take a Shot at Happiness Nepal
December 8–14, 2026 | 7 Days | All-Inclusive | Limited to 16 Guests
Photo Credit: Dwarika's Collection
Nepal invites a different kind of arrival. Kathmandu brings color, ritual, and history. Dhulikhel brings mountain stillness and sky. Mornings often begin with prayer flags moving in the breeze and Himalayan peaks visible in the distance as the day begins.
This is a week for people who want space to reflect, create, and reconnect with what matters.
You will use a phone camera and a journal in a simple way each day, then let the days unfold with more space than most of us give ourselves at home.
PONANT EXPLORATIONS & Smithsonian Journeys voyages move with a pace that gives you time to take things in. Days at sea include expert-led conversations that add context to what you are seeing, then days ashore offer guided exploration with space to observe daily life as it is being lived.
PONANT is currently offering a $1,000 Shipboard Credit per stateroom or suite on all PONANT EXPLORATIONS & Smithsonian Journeys voyages.
For the three journeys I personally host — Botswana, New Mexico, and Nepal — your experience does not end when you fly home.
Included in each of these trips is my happiness online course, Take a Shot at Happiness: A Happiness Explorer’s Journey (a $997 value). It is there to support you in the weeks that follow, as your photos and notes move from “trip memories” into a living set of prompts you can return to. You will have a clear way to keep working with what you discovered, so the journey continues living on long after you unpack.
Why Travel with Me
I pay attention to how people arrive in a place, and how they leave it. What they notice. What they stop doing once they have space again.
I choose places where you can hear your own thoughts again. Where the day has room for an unplanned moment. Where you can look up and actually take in what is around you. In those settings, your attention becomes unavoidable.
This is travel for people who care about how their time is spent and which moments stay with them.
P.S.: I write this newsletter for people who love travel and who care about how it changes them. Each issue includes a simple practice inspired by my book Take a Shot at Happiness — photography and a few lines of writing — to help you notice what is worth keeping.
Know someone who would enjoy these journeys? Please feel free to forward this along.
If you are reading this because a friend shared it—welcome. I send this newsletter twice a month.
If you are not into once-in-a-lifetime transformational adventures, you can unsubscribe here. To change your email or preferences manage your profile. 600 1st Ave, Ste 330 PMB 92768, Seattle, WA 98104-2246
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Sojourn to Happiness
Sign up for Maria Baltazzi’s Take a Shot at Happiness newsletter for practical ways to bring more happiness and meaning into your life. An award-winning author and happiness explorer, Maria shares science-backed tools to shift unproductive thoughts, stay inspired, and grow in fulfilling ways. Her book, Take a Shot at Happiness, has won multiple awards, including the Independent Press, NYC Big Book, and Nautilus Book Awards. She uniquely integrates camera phone photography and journaling as tools for self-reflection and personal growth. Each issue offers insightful advice, uplifting quotes, and simple ways to enhance your wellbeing. Join a community that values purpose, creativity, and happiness.
