Self-Care While Traveling

Zeke and Terri at the Szechenyi Thermal Baths, Budapest, Hungary (April 2026)

I look back on our first big Zeke & Terri Adventures trip in May 2024 and can't believe we explored Italy for eight straight days while producing a full-length YouTube video every single night.

We were up by five or six in the morning, out exploring until late afternoon, grabbed a quick nap, went to dinner, and then spent the evening editing and publishing before finally collapsing around midnight.

That was only two years ago. I have no idea where that energy went.

To be fair, that pace only lasted until our external hard drive died just before Verona. We shifted from daily videos to one video per city, but even so, it's hard to imagine us sustaining that schedule now.

By the time we reached Budapest on our most recent trip, we realized something had to change. We were still fighting jet lag, we were tired, and we weren't enjoying ourselves as much as we wanted to.

That morning we had spent three hours at the Széchenyi Thermal Baths, moving between hot saunas, cold plunges, and the outdoor pools. Other than taking a few photos, we left the cameras in our lockers and simply enjoyed being there.

It was exactly what we needed.

Later that day we looked at our carefully planned itinerary, shrugged, and decided to let Budapest unfold however it wanted to. We slowed down, followed our curiosity instead of our schedule, and discovered that we still managed to do almost everything on our list. Better yet, we left with a few reasons to come back.

One advantage of traveling as much as we do is that we're no longer driven by the fear of missing out. If we don't see something this trip, chances are we'll have another opportunity.

The flip side is that we're not on vacation when we travel.

This is our business. We're filming videos, writing Postcards from the Road, taking photos, managing social media, and trying to tell stories about travel and navigating modern midlife.

One advantage of traveling as much as we do is that we're no longer driven by the fear of missing out. If we don't see something this trip, chances are we'll have another opportunity.

The flip side is that we're not on vacation when we travel.

This is our business. We're filming videos, writing Postcards from the Road, taking photos, managing social media, and trying to tell stories about travel and navigating modern midlife.

If we're going to keep doing this for years to come, we have to take care of ourselves while we're doing it.

That means building more breathing room into our itineraries. More afternoons at thermal baths and saunas. More days to catch up on sleep, organize photos and video, answer emails, do laundry, and simply exist somewhere without feeling like every minute has to produce something.

Maybe we'll even make it to the gym.

❤️ Terri