Cathy 
Jet lag gets blamed on the flight itself, but the real cause sits somewhere else entirely. Your body runs on an internal clock called the circadian rhythm, tuned over years to a specific pattern of light, darkness, meals, and sleep.
I always tell clients that research only gets you so far, and this trip has reminded me exactly why. So far I have visited Stockholm and Warnemunde, with Copenhagen and Oslo still ahead of me, and both stops have already given me stories I will be telling clients for years.
Everyone wants to travel in July. School is out, the weather feels safe, and summer has always been the obvious choice.
It is also, quietly, the worst time to visit most of Europe’s best-known destinations.
Shoulder season sits in the gap between peak summer and the off season, roughly April through early June and September through October. It is the window my most seasoned travelers request again and again, and once you understand why, you will probably ask for it too.
Clients see the finished product. The itinerary document, the confirmed reservations, the trip that unfolds exactly as planned.
What they do not see is everything that happens before that document ever reaches their inbox. So today, I am pulling back the curtain on my actual process, from the first email to the moment you land.
Sarah reached out with a simple message. She and her husband wanted to celebrate their anniversary in Italy, but they had never traveled internationally together and had no idea where to start.
Over the next several months, Sarah asked me almost every question I hear on a regular basis. Her trip ended up being a two week journey through Rome, Florence, and the Amalfi Coast, and by the end, she told me she could not imagine having planned it alone.
A great golf trip is not just about the course. It is about the tee time that does not feel rushed, the caddie who knows the greens better than the yardage book, and the dinner reservation waiting after the round. I have planned golf trips to Scotland, Ireland, and some of the finest resorts in the US, and the best ones always have one thing in common. Every detail outside the golf was handled just as carefully as the golf itself.
Picture the arrivals hall in Rome, early morning, light pouring through the glass. A traveler steps up to a kiosk instead of a booth. No stamp, no ink pad, no rush of relief when a page fills up. Just a camera, a quick scan, and a small blinking light.
There are approximately ten thousand travel hack lists on the internet.
Most of them are about packing a Ziploc bag or downloading an app to find cheap flights. This is not that list.
Yellowstone is different from every other set-jetting destination I have written about.
There is no European cobblestone. No Greek island ferry. No stately home with a gift shop.
There is just Montana. Big, wide, breathtaking Montana — where the sky actually looks like that, the mountains actually look like that, and the sense of space is something you cannot manufacture on a soundstage.
The honey-colored Georgian streets. The sweeping crescents. The colonnades and cobblestones and grand assembly rooms.
Bath was not chosen as a Bridgerton filming location by accident. It looks exactly like Regency England because it is Regency England. Almost nothing needed to change.
Since the show first dropped on Christmas Day 2020, it has reached over 82 million households. Season four landed in early 2026 and reignited the obsession entirely. Bridgerton is now Netflix’s most-streamed original series — ever.
And the places you fell in love with on screen? Nearly all of them are real. Nearly all of them are open. Here is where to find them.