Everything You Actually Need for Summer Travel 🧳✈️

Sunday Sanctuary #28 - how to beat the post-travel bloat and jet lag, how to stay consistent with travel, how it's impacting your hormones and what to bring in your carry on

Happy Sunday Beauties,

Lately, I’ve just been feeling so unmotivated 😑

Not sure why, but I’m on a struggle bus my girls

I’m sleepy

I’m slacking on the ‘gram

My brain fog is at a peak

but rather than trying to PUSH myself harder and discipline my through it

I’m taking it a sign that my body needs some recuperation and rest

To meet myself with a little more kindness and gentleness ✨

We’re so used to seeing our body’s signals to slow down as weakness—something to push through, to conquer, to prove we’re strong enough. It’s like viewing resting as an indicator of falling behind or failing. But what if we actually used that slowness to stop and ask, “Why am I so tired?” What if it’s not a flaw to fix, but a message: that you’re allowed to pause. That you deserve to rest.

So that’s my current M.O.

And it’s the perfecttttt time to be slowing down too cause over these next few weeks, I’ve got some big travel coming up

NYC → Paris → Sweden → London → Switzerland

We’ve got some time off of work, some updates for our wedding, and lots of time with family and friends 🫰🏼

and a whoolllllleeeeee lotta packing to do

And while I’m thinking about my trip, one thing I’m truly grateful for is how easeful vacations feel now - no more dramatic shifts in my body, no feeling thrown off my routine, and no more coming home depleted from too many drinks, indulgent meals, and exhausting travel days.

So I’m sharing the full breakdown here—how I went from vacations that left me drained to ones that leave me genuinely rejuvenated.

Here’s what you can expect in today’s Sunday Sanctuary:

🕊️ Personal Musings: My unfiltered take on summer travel: from navigating vacation mode without ditching your rhythms, to what I actually do when I’ve had one too many gelatos (hint: no guilt, just gentle resets).

☕️ Understanding: Think travel FAQ: Why you feel puffy after a flight (it’s not just the plane snacks); how to actually outsmart jet lag; why is your period late post flight and what to do to really help your digestion, sleep, and hormones

🕯️ Recommending: Our fav tools for your trips - from hypochlorous acid spray to magnesium citrate to stay regular.

🙏🏼 The Action Step: bring your own meal to your flight and pack your carry-on bag ahead of time (you know, the one you keep putting off)

I remember when vacations and trips would actually leave me *more drained* than my day to day

Trips would inevitably mean:

• Eating dinners late

• Drinking alcohol

• Going to bed way past my bedtime

• Sleeping in

• Overeating the next day

and so by the time I was wrapping up, I’d feel like I was craving my home and my routine. Like I needed a “cleanse” from what was meant to be a relaxing trip.

It truly made no sense.

And so I was due for a reckoning.

Because this cycle showed me that I wasn’t actually using vacations as a repletion. I was using it as an excuse to fill some sort of void that I was missing in my day to day.

When your M–F or 9–5 is filled with nothing but mundane tasks, rigidity, and deprivation, it’s no wonder that vacations, weekends, or time off become a search for excitement, spontaneity, flexibility, and abundance.

The result? Throwing your body into a constant yo-yo between extremes.

Something had to shift—at least for me.

And the shift didn’t start with what I did on vacation. It started with how I lived my everyday life.

The more I carved out space for joy, fun, rest, and balance in my daily routine, the less deprived I felt and the less desperate I became to cram all of that into a weekend.

Weekends became a natural extension of my weekdays. And eventually, vacations became a beautiful expansion of both.

Because when you build a life that actually feels good, you stop needing to escape it.

So now? My day to day life looks more like this:

• Morning meditations + matchas (for the soul)

• Weekly date nights with my fiance

• Long walks outside nearly every day

• One social dinner x week with girlfriends

• Dancing around my living room, baking new foods, playing with my dog

all while maintaining my actual work.

And why? so that my vacations look more like this:

• An opportunity to truly rest (8 hours x night +) while still maintaining a regular wake up time

• A time away from work that allows me to invest in other activities I love (yoga, exploration, hikes, reading, etc)

• Lotsssss of delicious and new foods that still honor my way of eating and my body

• A choice to spend quality time with loved ones with presence

Which means I come home actually feeling good and like I filled my cup back up.

So here are some of the actual guideline I bring with me when I’m on vacation to maintain my routine 👇🏼

1. Maintain a regular wake up time: it doesn’t need to be as early as you wake up back home, but pick a general time you want to get up. This helps support your circadian rhythm so that your body can feel energized

2. Keep up with hydration: 2 L water x day + some electrolytes. I used to travel and it would throw off my digestion a ton. Now, I stay on top of water a a top priority, and things are so much smoother

3. Stay committed to your food philosophy: this can be a hard one to grasp. But I’m a big believer that we should have a philosophy behind how and why we nourish ourselves the way that we do. Mine? That food is always a form of self respect and care. Which means I don’t abandon that value based on whether I’m working or not or where I am in the world. Does this mean I don’t try the delicious pasta? no. But does it mean I do make intentional choices and don’t necessarily go for seconds or try every dessert just cause “it’s vacation” - 100%. This was a huge shift in mindset that help me maintain a level of connection to myself and my body when traveling.