121. How to Travel With Freedom and Joy

 Welcome to the Connected For Real podcast. I'm Rebbetzin Bat-Chen Grossman, a marriage coach for women in business. And my mission is to bring God's presence into your life, into your marriage and into your business. Let's get started. 

 And we are live. Welcome everyone to the connected for real podcast. I am Rebbetzin Bat-Chen Grossman. I'm a marriage coach for women in business. And what that means is that I am in love with the intersection between your marriage and your business and how you can come alive and start to shine and do your purpose and be in your mission and still keep your top priorities, your husband, your children, your life in alignment and, you know, make them work together so that you can actually have a life.

That is who I am. And today with me is Michelle. And we're going to be talking about freedom and you and who better person to have on my podcast to talk about freedom than Michelle, because she brings all of the traveling and the tourism and photography and mindfulness, and just being able to be free.

And In any situation that you are. And I love that. And that's why we are talking about this today. So we're going to start with Michelle introducing herself and then we'll get right into it. Michelle, introduce yourself. Hey everyone. I'm Michelle Baruch  and I live in Jerusalem. And I've been working in the travel business here since 2009.

So about 15 years I'm a certified private Israeli tour guide. I write itineraries for people coming to Israel. I'm also a tour leader, so I can lead groups to people traveling outside of Israel. I'm married to an Italian gentleman, and we have been to Italy maybe 50 times. So people going to Italy often my friends and they come to me and I help them plan a trip to Italy.

I grew up in America until about the age of 30. We made Aliyah right after September 11th. So Israelis going to America sometimes consult with me. And in general, I just love exploring Europe and the Mediterranean. And some of my favorite places are Spain and Portugal, Greece and Cyprus, Morocco, Egypt, and even big cities like London and Paris.

So I tried to have a  memorable, wonderful experience. And I think I could offer some tips  to people that I'll be traveling. So wherever you'll be going, I can offer maybe some general tips about how to make your trip smoother. And as a hobby, I enjoy photography and making movies.

And my iPhone camera, I have 130, 000 pictures, which is not enough in my opinion. And I've just made a few documentary films. So some of these pictures are from my traveling around the world, but some of them are just in my day to day life. Something I see that's beautiful. And I just take a moment and try to capture it.

And that's something I want to talk about later with everyone as well. So that's me. Yay. This is amazing. So I love that you came prepared with tips because a lot of people think freedom is when I could just stop everything and go away and, find myself in a different location with different people around and just be able to.

Turn everything off, right? Like just be free from all the noise and all the drama. But in reality, a lot of people who are running away from are going to find that they're just as frustrated or just as stuck in a new place. Because they didn't really think about what they're going to do there. They didn't prepare.

So that's something that's really important. I think for people to just realize that physically getting away is not necessarily going to do the trick if you're not prepared.  Right. So what can you tell us about how to prepare better? Well, first, I want to just preface that by saying, you know, I agree with you.

Part it's important to get away. It's important to change location, change scenery, because it helps you to think a little bit better. You're not stuck in whatever it is you're stuck in. By changing environments, sometimes you could see things differently or clearer. But freedom is also a state of mind.

Like we learned from the Bible on Passover, the Jews were freed from slavery and bondage, and they left Mitzrayim, they left Egypt.  But in Hebrew, the word Mitsrayim could also be Mitzarim, which means a very straight and narrow place. And sometimes, many of us in our lives, we get stuck or limited by various things, whether it's a relationship or something physical or something spiritual or some professional issue you're having or financial issue.

And so you know, I believe that thinking maybe a little bit differently can help you to overcome those limitations, whatever they are. So do you want me to keep going or I guess I can,  yeah, this is a great point. You know, like  we are leaving the tightness and the feeling that suffocation or What you were saying that, you know, the narrow, the uncomfortable, and we're giving ourselves permission to try new things and we're giving ourselves permission to think differently when we're in a different place.

And it also changes the way that your brain automatically react, react because you're no longer doing the thing in a rhythm, you're not, you know, sort of blind going through life, but you have to think on your feet when you're in a different place. So it makes sense that you're opening up to new possibilities just by changing the scenery. 

So yeah, let's keep talking about how we practically do that. So basically, when we travel, we change our geographic location. So we experience a new country, a city, a new landscape. We experience new foods, a new culture. New fashions and a new language usually.

So we're like completely immersed in a new place and we need to adapt fast.  And this requires mindfulness on our part, we have to understand what's going on around us. Okay. So what I wanted to talk about regarding mindfulness is , if you haven't heard of the concept, or I looked up the definition in the Oxford dictionary, and it says that mindfulness is, Is two things.

It's the quality or state of being conscious and aware of something. And it's also a mental state that we can achieve by focusing on the present moment and acknowledging accepting things that come out of that, whether their feelings or thoughts or sensations. And it's kind of even therapeutic. So that's why I gave the example of photography.

Now, I've been a photographer for a long time, but even every single one of you in your day to day life, you know, we, we have these smartphones, they're such amazing tools. And when you go on a walk outside and all of a sudden, let's say you see a beautiful star. flower blooming, you know, it's going to be spring soon.

So stop. So stop and say, okay, let me take a picture of that. Let me try to capture  that thing that piqued my interest for whatever reason it was, or a tree, or if you go to the supermarket or you go to the Shuk, to the outdoor market, and you see a beautiful display of fruits and vegetables. Wow. It's so amazing.

Look what Hashem created these beautiful fruits and vegetables. Or whatever it is, even your kids or your grandkids. You know, wow, they look so cute today. I want to take a picture to remember this day where, you know, they were all matching and matching outfits or I don't know what, whatever, whatever.

It was a holiday and we're all together having a picnic, you know, whatever it is. I think it's important because,  some people just say, you know what, I'll take a picture the next time I come to this place or, but it's not the same because that moment in time passed, you know? So I feel that that's part of.

Improving your mindfulness by saying, Okay, I want to appreciate this moment. I take out my camera. I take a quick picture. And it also improves your photographic skills. Because if every day you take one picture of something that meant something to you that day, you have kind of like a chronologue of your of your year or a and it's just very therapeutic.

It improves your mental health. And you know, when you're down, you can open that camera and look at that picture of that flower and say, wow, yeah, I remember that beautiful rose blossoming, how amazing it was. So yeah. So that's my tips on mindfulness. And. And regarding traveling, if you want, before you go into traveling, I really love what you're saying here is no matter where you are in the world, you can tap into freedom by tapping into your consciousness, by tapping into intentionality, by tapping into mindfulness.

You can be right here, right now. Anywhere, right? And when you're able to be in that present moment and just experience whatever you're experiencing, so you're more aware of, hey, that flower made me happy, or the weather is really beautiful, or whatever is happening is happening, like, you're Isn't that exciting?

Right? So being able to sit with that and just let it wash over you and let yourself capture it so that you can almost, absorb that moment. And you could be traveling and seeing something beautiful that you've never seen before, or you could be in your own backyard, And have the same experience.

So the freedom is not location based. The freedom is really internal. It's from within it's your ability to get out of the automatic noise drama, let's just get through the day to just getting present and finding something, whatever that thing is that makes you feel a little differently. 

Exactly. It's just the awareness, awareness of your surroundings or something small that just made you happy, you know, whatever it was yeah, I love it. So let's get into the travel tips now.  Okay, I'm ready. Okay, so part of what I believe makes a trip successful is is a little bit of preparation. You know, there's some people that go crazy. 

But a little bit of preparation in my opinion could go a very long way. Especially if you're going with a big family and you know, there's a lot of like different factors. You know, if you're going by yourself or just you and another person, a friend or your spouse, it's a little different.

But when you're going with a large group, like in your case, you know, eight, six kids, eight kids, I, I, you know, Visible questions. So you got a lot of factors over there. And so the first thing is, you know, if you're traveling, obviously to a different country, so you have to book your plane ticket and draft an itinerary and make a come and plan your accommodations.

And and so the first thing I say to myself is, Where do I want to go? Where is it I want to go? Where have I always dreamt I want to go? Or, you know, this place has interested me lately let's plan a trip there. So so then I check, there's no dates that, you know, there's no like holidays over there where everything is closed, or there's no Jewish holidays that are going to be problematic because I need to be near a synagogue or I'll, I'll need particular things, unless if it's on purpose, like if I go to America, I want to be there on Thanksgiving or I want to be there on July 4th.

I love those holidays, you know, but but so I would go to the websites of  some, ticket places like kayak or Kiwi or Skyscanner Expedia or one of these places and I would check okay going to this location on this particular month or this particular week, what are the prices like? Does it does it fit my budget? should I go a little early? Should I go a little later? Is the weather appropriate? Is it too cold or is it too hot? And then me personally being a religious Jew, the second question I ask myself, which is usually not what most people would ask themselves, but I say, where do I want to be that Shabbat?

Do I want to be home? If I'm going to be in a country, where in that country do I want to be? Do I want to be in a city? Like if I'm going to be in Italy, do I want to be in Rome, where I can be in the ghetto and near a synagogue? Or if I'm going to be in London, do I want to be near Golders Green or Hendon? 

And after I know where I'm going and where am I that Shabbat, then I plan the rest of my itinerary.  And and for this, I, I often like to use a website called TripAdvisor. So I don't know if you guys are familiar, but TripAdvisor has like categories. It has hotels, it has restaurants, and then it has things to do.

So because I eat kosher, the restaurants are not relevant because I can't eat in 99.9% of those restaurants. But the the things to do is a very useful aspect of TripAdvisor because you can go to any city in the world and you could see what other people. Had said is the most interesting thing to do in that city.

Like I was in New York a month ago and I was visiting my mom and I, you know, I haven't been in New York for a long time. So I, I went to TripAdvisor and it said, ah, go to the Edge Observatory, which is this skyscraper of a hundred stories and you have a beautiful view of Manhattan. And that's what we did.

We bought tickets and we went, it was really, really beautiful and we enjoyed it. And so that's something that I suggest as well to look at TripAdvisor, things to do for ideas. And then, as you plan an itinerary you shouldn't  overbook your days. You know, you put like two or three things to make a draft.

Okay, on this day, I think I want to, you know, go to the observatory and then maybe have lunch and then maybe do one other thing. And that's what we did.  We went through this. It's a museum in the afternoon that neither of us had been to, and my mom lived around New York her whole life, and she hasn't been to the, it was called the International Center of Photography, ICP, so we went there, that was interesting, and also to give yourself a a little bit of leeway for spontaneity for, for something unexpected that happened.

Like that particular day, we go to the observatory  and then we go down to the lower levels where they have shops and restaurants. And we didn't expect to find anything kosher there, but we got there and we heard there was an Israeli restaurant in this area. So we went to check it out. It's called it's  a famous Israeli chef. 

And when we walked in, we looked at the menu and they had all sorts of stuff that didn't look particularly kosher, like octopus and this and that. So I asked the lady, I said, do you have any kosher branches of this restaurant? She goes, as a matter of fact, today is the opening day of our Miznon restaurant in Times Square.

So what did we do? We weren't planning this. We jumped in a taxi, went over to Times Square spontaneously so that we could be at the opening day of this restaurant, because I'm sure it's going to get a lot of traction in New York city because he's a famous chef.  So, you know, we gave ourself the flexibility and the time to go with the flow wherever we are.

 And so that's something I recommend as well.  Yeah. Oh, I love it. By the way. So you mentioned me traveling with all my kids. It doesn't happen often.  This may surprise you, but traveling with children, my husband calls it child abuse. It's really no fun for the kids to be on a plane for 12 hours and definitely not when we have to switch planes in the middle and have to wait and whatever, but We've done it before and we usually do it for big events like weddings or something important that we have to go for. 

And and plus the expenses, you know, for eight tickets, it's a lot, it's a big expense. I mean, yeah, yeah. You know, if you have a wedding or something that makes it worth it, then it's worth it. But thank God, thank God we, we got to go twice recently once before COVID like we came back four days before they closed down the country. 

That was, that was a real miracle.  And then the other time we went last year for a wedding, which was really beautiful.  And one of the things that I do, like you're saying, don't overbook, definitely don't overbook when you're with children, because it's just going to be a big disaster. And what we did as I actually was thinking, what is my intention?

Like, how can we Have fun and get to see a lot of different places, but all in the same theme. So we ended up getting a museum pass for all the science, all the science museums all over America. And that way we were basically looking through the list of which museums. are the closest and every time we went and hit a different museum And some of them were completely free with this membership Some of them were only free for the first four people or for the first six people whatever it was But it was so much fun because we actually had a theme to the whole Time we were there, which was like over three weeks.

Every time we went to a different museum, we checked it out and we played with different things and we compared them, like which one was more fun, you know, they both had this building area, which one was more exciting and things like that. It was just very fun to go with the flow and pack up lunch and just end up somewhere.

Right. So we had a plan, but it wasn't solidified. It was more like very flowy. So I found that to be really, really exciting and interesting. And by the way, if you end up doing this, if any of you are listening make sure you get your membership from the country where you're coming from, because then.

You can get to a lot of places near where you are, but if we would have gotten it in New York, then you have to go only to the places that are far away. So, you know, think this through. Think ahead. But it was definitely worth name of this Cartes thing. What's the name of this? So basically a lot of the science museums are part of this chain of science museums.

And Yeah. In any of them, if you have a membership for the year for the whole family, you will get to use that membership in any other place, as long as it's not in the same city. So for example, here in Israel, if I have one for Jerusalem, I don't think I can use it for Haifa, but if I had one from New York, I'd be able to use one in Jerusalem and in Haifa and in a couple other places. 

So you have You have to make sure that your membership comes from farther than where you are going to be staying. So we got ours from Jerusalem. I went and I paid, you know, the full price for the whole family. And I was like, Oh my gosh, this is so expensive. And it ended up being  so not expensive because when you divide it by how many times we went to some of these places history in New York and the one in DC and the Smithsonian.

Yeah, we went, so we didn't go to DC. We went to the one in New York and we went to the one in New Jersey and we went to the one in Queens and the one in Brooklyn. And we just basically  science museum hopped. And then some of them were really fun. Like the one in New Jersey, we also got to go up to the roof and see the whole skyline.

And yeah, so that was, that was really fun. Like that's, in my opinion, that's the best way to travel with kids is come prepared, but don't come structured. You know, because it's crazy, sometimes we ended up there in the winter and then it was, you know, it was freezing, it snowed, whatever it was.

Like there's some times where you just can't, can't do anything, but when you can do things, then you just get in the car and go places so that that's what we did,  it snowed my last day. So I almost didn't make it to the airport back. But I went to this new mall. That's called the American dream mall.

Have you heard of it? It's like in Paramus or Secaucus or something. It's like, it's so big that they have like a ski slope and a water park and Lego land and an aquarium and an ice rink and like every possible thing you want, you know? So, and they have a kosher food court, which is nice. So the whole place is full from me.

It's coming from Brooklyn and New York and wherever. Because they have what to eat there. So they could spend, you know, half a day or a day and do an attraction, walk around and look at overpriced stuff. But, you know,  you know,  you have to think creatively. We, a lot of times split up the olders and the youngers, right?

So you take the older ones to wherever I'll take the younger ones to this museum that's close by or whatever it was like you, we were able to play around with what we had, thanks to the fact that we were flexible.  And and yeah, there was, you know, there were big destinations that we wanted to hit. So we did, every time we went, we, we went with like, One main travel thing.

So one time we went, you know, to Pennsylvania to show them all the different things, and we actually stayed in a hotel and slept over, drove back like really slowly and had fun, you know, fun time throughout the whole experience. So the kids got to get into  a little bit of a road trip experience.

And our big thing is we missed. Niagara Falls because it was winter and it was really not worth it to go in the winter, but my kids really wanted to go to Niagara Falls, but  also I feel like now. I don't have  those, like, it's not tingling to go anywhere. Like I'm feeling really, really nice to just stay put and I don't know if it's the hormones of, you know, expecting  and staying home and whatever, but no, but I more, you know, the situation well.

Yeah. I think also, you know, when  Covid hit. And they closed down the airport  and people were, stranded outside of Israel. And I thought to myself, Oh my gosh, this is what. Can happen people are sitting around Wherever they're sitting in the world saying one day when Moshiach comes I'll just get on a plane and get to Israel no big deal And they never took into account that they might not be able to you know There's not this may not be an option by then and I thought this was a real eye Opener for me, you know, just like a hit To, oh my gosh, like, yes, I want to be, I want to be here now.

I'm not waiting for anything.  And then when the war hit and they closed it down again and everything's just sort of, you know, mishkabobbled, which is a word I just made up you know, went crazy and became a mess.  It made me very grateful to just be, you know, I am. I'm in my, four little corners here.

Like we're all safe. We're all home. Thank God. And a lot of what was coming in from, from France, from America, from different places where like,  you know, the antisemitism and everything is just scary, scary. So it also makes me realize, you know, sometimes it's okay to stay present and to stay local and.

And when I did feel like I wanted to get out a little bit, I actually went to a retreat here that was local in Jerusalem, instead of trying to go far. I just changed my environment by changing the people I'm around and the location, obviously. But, you know, that was really powerful for me, leaning into that.

Traveling, quote unquote, without having to actually get on a plane and go anywhere. Yeah. Corona, Corona really changed the world in so many ways. Like, I mean, the school systems and, and travel as we know it. There was no tourism coming to Israel. So I went to study film and that's how I became a bit of a, of you know, a new filmmaker.

I said there's so many so much beauty around Israel. Let me try to capture some of it. I did a nature series. I did a documentary about a friend, a woman I know who's raising her grandson as her own son. She's 72. You know, unusual things. I remember when Corona broke, I was actually in Egypt in February 2020. 

And at night after traveling, we would go to our hotel room and we would turn on CNN and they would be talking about this virus in China. I'm like, Ma, who cares about a virus in China? Shut that TV off. I'm enjoying Egypt right now. I don't want to hear about China. But who knew that virus in China was gonna, you know, spread around the world and change  everything, you know, change everything, basically.

So, yeah, so when, so when you're about to travel, when you're about to travel,  you have to look inside, you have to look panini, and you have to  draft an itinerary. You know, once you know where you're going, and once you know where you're spending Shabbat if you're religious, then you have to draft an itinerary.

So, you have to say, okay, what do I want to what do I want to do? Do I want to do museums like you did, do I want to do science museums do I want to see nature? So, yeah. Do I, do I like shopping? Do I want a combination of these things? Do I want to do something extra special? Do I want to go see a Broadway play if I'm in New York or in London on the West end?

Or do I want to go to a concert if there happens to be a concert that period, something unusual. And then you start planning accordingly, you start putting in a few things, every day. And and in general, like I'm very old fashioned,  I like to buy a guidebook of the places I'm going to.

And, I, Highlight or I put sticky things, you know, like the old fashioned ways. And I throw that thing in my knapsack. I have it with me, you know, in case I don't have internet where I'm going, I still have my guidebook to say, oh yeah, I need to get there. And also like about museums in general.

especially in Europe, museums are usually closed on Mondays. So if you're going to a particular museum, you need to check which day is it that it's closed. Or if there's a day when a museum is open late, for example, like in Israel, the Israel museum is open late on Tuesday nights. So I sometimes tell my tourists, you know, instead of taking out time from your day in Jerusalem, so go in the evening, you know, or the afternoon, late afternoon, it's open later.

So like little tips like that, that could save you some time from like your daytime hours that you could actually see in the light things where you're in a museum, you're indoors anyway. So maybe you know, you could do it in the evening, for example.

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 Yeah. I love that you're taking into account daytime hours, the sun, you know, your ability to walk around the weather.

 If it starts to rain on you, then shift gears and go indoors. You know, you don't have to be outside. If it's a gorgeous day and you're like, why am I going out inside to be, you know, here for half a day? Let me just go sit outside and be outside and then, you know, come back here later. So that flexibility is, And you know, it's part of that freedom is your ability to choose what you want to do, even in the moment, even when you already committed to something, you know? 

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Being spontaneous, but also going with the flow. So Yeah, another another tip that I like to do is, you know, like, let's say you're staying in a hotel or something. So when you get to a hotel, sometimes there's  all these brochures at like in the front desk area. So I like to take a quick look for three, four minutes.

Is there something that I didn't know about? Or, you know, oh, maybe this ferry trip around Manhattan could be interesting or. Like sometimes also in the airport when you get to a foreign airport, sometimes there's a section with brochures and things. And so that's also just for three minutes while you're waiting for your luggage to come out take a quick look and, you know, pick up this, oh, there's this bus line I didn't know about.

So I don't have to drive from I don't know, from the airport to Hendon, I could just take this national bus line to get there or you know, I have a great story about this. We were, we were in Beit Shean, which is you know a little bit further into the desert from where I live.

And we were staying there at the hotel  with the whole family, like three generations, was it maybe four generations? My grandmother, my grandfather, you know, my parents, us and our kids. And also I think my brother was there with his kids. It was really, really nice. . And my mother was doing exactly that.

She went to the front desk and she's just looking around to all the different flyers and she finds these flyers for little workshops. You know, these different things that you can do for a couple hours and pay per person. And that day happened to be a rainy day and we were like, Oh, what are we going to do?

Just stay indoors all day and waste the day, whatever. No. So she called up each one of these workshops and found out how much they cost per head and tell, told them how many people we are.  and found out information about it. We ended up going to the most amazing workshop, this woman's house or workshop area, you know, whatever, she actually had a workshop where you make your own basket.

Like you weave a basket and everybody weaved a basket and everybody's basket came out different, different colors, different shape, different, you know, and we all got the same materials. That was the craziest thing. And it was so fun. To spend time. It's raining outside buckets, right? We are hearing the rain on the roof of this workshop and we're inside and we're warm and we're having a good time and we're actually doing something right and bonding as a family.

And you're bonding as a family, you know? And you know, and you would never know. You would never know about this workshop, if not for that front desk flyer because. It's not written anywhere. It's not online. It's not anywhere. It's this random person who's running a workshop and decided to put her flyer in the front desk.

And. Nothing is random in the world, right? God is running the world. It was just so fun to be able to do something bonding and, artistic and creative and everybody had their own experience within that experience. And then because it was raining and we had nowhere to go. She let us go outside to her porch that was covered and eat her lunch.

Outside the, you know, the food we brought. So we ended up having a picnic right outside, watching the rain, right. We're watching the rain. We're halfway, like we're outdoors, but we're not actually outdoors.  It was perfect. We got to eat and then we got to take pictures. We started taking pictures with all her flowers cause she had such beautiful garden.

And so we have the most amazing memory from just that one day. And the whole thing started with just looking around, just walking around, looking around, being willing to be open to new ideas that aren't written in stone, you know, of course, if you're a Beit Shean, you should go to this, that, the other, but nobody ever tells you  the theater.

And you know, yeah, there's, yeah, there are the things you should do. And then there's the things that you didn't know about that are really fascinating and a lot of fun. So  it was one of those things. I, this is a perfect example of what you're saying. When you are willing to be open minded to hear about different experiences, like really when you're local in your house and everybody lives in their, little corner, do you really get together and do like a three hour workshop to create a basket?

No, like who has time,  but this was a perfect example. time to do something that maybe otherwise it sounds silly, but it was exactly what we needed.  I'm just curious. Do you still have some of those baskets? Like, did you save some of them? I do. I do.  Because the kids, if you use them for like fruits or this and that, remember, they'll remember.

Yeah.  In my business as a tour guide in Israel, you know, there's been people That it's their first trip to Israel or people that it's their third trip to Israel But I have people that it's been their 10th trip to Israel So they want to do something different every time.  So I find them off the beat track kinds of places that they haven't been to, or they haven't done, or they haven't experienced this and that, or even Israelis that have lived in the States for a long time and they're coming back to visit and I take them on a tour and they're like, wow, we grew up here and we need, we know half these things, you know, so You know,  I have a friend who who was on my podcast, Jody sugar, she is so much fun and she's a photographer and she also has a workshop for, you know, really I think she uses collaging and the meaning of your name and all sorts of different really fun things.

 An entire experience based on the photography that she brings to the table and also your own experience and then people cut and paste and have a really good time. And on top of that, the meaning of your name and just, you know, everybody comes out with some really fun creations.

And this is again, like if you're already in Tzfat, if you're already getting all these different experiences, sometimes a workshop like that could really make a difference. I'm gonna look her up. I'm gonna totally look her up. Yeah, she's really fun. Yeah, so just to recap  Like some of the main points when you're planning a trip is you know Obviously to book your flight and you know check the prices and the dates that there's nothing like no major holiday Everything is closed for three days, you know Christmas or New Year's or whatever it is Where are you gonna spend Shabbat draft an itinerary?

Get some ideas from TripAdvisor, things to do, or buy a guidebook or both. Then based on your itinerary, you can book your accommodations or your Airbnb, you know, depending on where you are in the country that you're going to on those particular days, those particular nights. You know, if there's a special restaurant or you keep kosher or there's some dietary restrictions.

So to look into that, where is the kosher restaurant area? Maybe I need to move my hotel. So I'm closer to there. So for lunch or for dinner, when I'm tired at night, after my day of touring, I could be closer to there. If it's a nice area, that's a consideration. And again, for that extra special thing that, You know, sometimes it's not possible, but sometimes there's  something that you really, really wanted to do.

And so you make sure that you have that day or half a day where you can do that extra special thing, whatever it is that you feel that you really need to do or want to do and try to do it, you know, just don't, don't give up or say, Oh, you know, the next time. Nope.  It's it's for you. It's for your which is your soul.

And for some reason, your soul is telling you, I need to do this. Like,  when I went to Egypt, we did a tour on the Nile, a boat tour. We went to the pyramids and, I needed to do that. I need, I was in Egypt. I needed to see those things. And, you know, They were truly amazing. So I highly recommend those things once in your life.

And obviously budget is a factor as well, you know, in all your travel, to get a ticket or hotels within your budget. And nowadays with these websites, you can check hotels. com, booking. com, and you can see people have given their opinions. So you based on other people's opinions, not like once before where you were  picking out of a guidebook, something random.

I hope it's nice. No, now everything is online at your fingertips. People hardly use travel agents anymore. Everybody plans themselves their trips, you know, so a little planning can go a long, long way to making your trip successful and special and memorable. And smoother, smoother.  Yeah, I love it. I love what you said.

 making priorities for yourself and actually sticking to them because that's something that's really important. And I feel like a lot of times that's what steals your freedom is feeling like, okay, everything else came first. And this thing is sort of, lagging in the background and I don't want to stand up for myself or I don't want to push too hard or whatever.

So I'll just let it be, I'll let it go. And that's actually really bad. It's bad for everyone else. It's bad for you, right? Because you don't get to do the thing that makes you come alive and everyone else ends up paying the price because now you feel icky, right? Like it's not good for you. I suggest doing this also when going to places where there's family, for example, when we go to New York, obviously there's a lot of family and people I want to see.

So I make a list of the people I have to see, you know, and it's non negotiable and we're going to have to go to all of them and we're going to have to spend time with all of them. So I go through and I Try to squish it all in the beginning of our trip like as soon as we get there I want to see you.

I want to play with you I want  my kids to hang out with with your kids, whatever Because then afterwards I have the freedom to say oh look we can do it again But at least I know I did it once right like having that experience   off my shoulders and knowing that it was important and we got it done is something that really works for me You to be able to really feel confident about my trip, you know,  I used to do the opposite when I used to come to Israel to visit before I lived here, I knew that all my relatives were gonna want to see me.

So I would always tell them a week later when I arrived. So I would come the first week and be completely free to go around and see things. And then they would only think I'm coming the week after. So then the week after I would go and do all my family obligated trip. Visits and all that, you know, so but yeah You can play with it at the beginning or at the end because you need you need time for yourself That's why you're traveling, you know, you're traveling to see something new experiencing something new learn something even learn something about yourself That's part of traveling, you know Oh, I didn't know that I really like this or I didn't know that about these types of flowers or you know I don't know and who knows it could actually lead to some business ideas or some You New opportunities that you didn't expect.

You just have to be open to it. You have to be you know, you have to be,  you have to be like a clean, like a vessel you have to receive and be aware and be mindful of what's going around around you, who you're meeting, you know, and. I had a lot of unexpected. You know when I was in D. C. When I went to New York, I went down to D.

C. And we were sitting at a cafe in our hotel and I was having a coffee in the morning and my mom kept saying to me, you know, that person at the next table, she looks so familiar. She looks so familiar. I said, Yeah, she looks very distinguished. She's probably someone, some big wig in Washington. She turned out to be the head of the World Bank, you know, and she kept looking at me, you know, so imagine if we had talked to her.

I have a connection now at the World Bank, you know, who knows, you know, or you just never know who you're going to meet. You know the world has become a smaller, a smaller and smaller place. It's It's like a global village. It's not like the big world that it used to be. Everything  is very , close, closer than it used to be.

Let's put it that way with the internet and the web and everything. Zoom. Yeah. I find that with my podcast, by the way, I went to the airport last time we're waiting in line for the airport and suddenly somebody turns around and says, is that Rebbetzin Bat-Chen Grossman? Oh my gosh. And my kids are shocked. They just look at her like, she's crazy.

Like, you know, my mom and she turns to my kids and says, your mother is famous. I love that. I love that.  I know it's okay to say, you know, Hey, my mom has a value too, other than being a mom, you know, like to recognize that, you know, it was so fun. It was so cute to see, you know, and, and I knew her because I actually met her on one of the zoom calls that I did, but it happens to me sometimes with random people, they come over to me like, I know you, you don't know me, you know,  And I find that to be really fun.

It just solidifies again and again, the idea that we are all so interconnected and we don't know it. And when we start talking and we start, connecting the dots and it's not just that, you know, me from a podcast or that you've seen me on YouTube. It's that, Oh, I know somebody  on your street.

And whatever, like all these different connections. Jewish geography.  So it's really fun. It's really fascinating.  Well, I, I actually, when I was in the States, I saw this really cute greeting card. So I just thought I would, I would tell you what it said because it really spoke to me and I just,  I thought it was great advice.

Okay. Basically it says, it says some advice from a sea turtle. Okay. And this is what it said. It says  swim with the currents.  Be a good navigator, stay calm under pressure, in our case when we're traveling, and spend time at the beach or anywhere near water. You know, that's, that's my passion. I love anything water related and my email is IsraelWaterTours at gmail.

com if anybody wants to reach out to me after. Because I do also a kind of agro and water tour. That's another niche I have within tourism that nobody else really does. So and the late Chief Rabbi of England Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sachs, he says basically a famous quote that to be a Jew is to travel.

So that would be my parting advice to everyone. To travel more and if you can't travel far, so just  Travel in your local town, go to a new place, go to the next town and see something new over there and be aware of your surroundings. And if you enjoy it or you feel something, so take a picture to remember it and just up your awareness in your everyday lives.

And that'll help you break through some of your restrictions and some of your constrictions in life. so much. It's been a pleasure. And, you know, maybe good things will happen as a result, so we just keep plugging along, you know, keep plugging along and, but look at, look at things differently, you know, with a little more optimism, a little more the cup is half full, you know, instead of the cup is half empty.

Yes. Oh, I love what you said about staying local and just  finding out about your own town. So the first thing that came up to me is people who live in the old city and never go down  to the Western wall, it's just like, Oh yeah, it's my backyard, but whatever and, and it happens all the time.

People are like in New York and they never go to Times Square. Cause like, Oh, I bother whatever, things like that, you know, take a pause, take half a day or a day and just go wherever you are, explore. The place where you live. And we actually did this on, I think it was Passover last year. My grandparents came, my parents were here.

Again, we like to do things with the generations around here   and they were all staying at my house. So during the, You know, middle  of the week, we, we took them down to the forest,  the forest that's right here in our own town. Like we didn't even have to get out through the yellow.  What town do you live in?

I live in Kochav Yaakov.  Yeah, it's like 15 minutes northeast of Jerusalem, so it's really close Instead of having to go anywhere because they were like heavy and not feeling good I said, you know what? Let's just take you out and we went we drove down to the edge of the town We took, took the right and parked the car and just walked along the forest and suddenly they came alive.

They became,  you know, from heavy and old and no, we don't want to do anything to, look, look at this.  Wow.  And this and that, you know, the flowers, the trees, the sun, the pictures. And of course we had so much fun. I took pictures of them holding hands, walking on the little path. It was so exciting.

And it's right under your nose, you know, but when do you get a chance to actually go there? Never, because we're so busy. So really it's, it's that ability to explore where you already are. That gives you power to, you know, find that travel within, within your own town.  Yeah, we live, we live in Givat Zev. So here I love to drive five minutes to Kever Shmuela Nevi.

Kever Shmuela Nevi.  fortress of of the prophet Samuel where his grave site is. And there's a crusader fortress and a minaret and a national park and picnic tables. And there's a spring and I've been there and his mother is there too. Hana is there too. It's really beautiful. Yeah. Yeah. The views it's like the second highest point in Jerusalem, and you could see, the whole city from the Mount of Olives.

You can see, you can see even Ramallah from the other side, you know, so it's, it's just stunning. So I take people there all the time. It's not one of the main tourist sites that people go to, but they really love it and really appreciate it. And  so, yes, just appreciate your local some of the local things, even if you've seen them, maybe go back again and take a fresh look at it.

And now after Corona, now after now we're in the middle of a war, maybe, it'll speak to you differently this time, you know, so I love it. So I love it. Thank you so much for being with us. Thank you for being my guest on this podcast.  Please feel free to look me up or send me an email. I was going to ask you, how can people get to work with you? Yeah, you can send an email to my email israelwatertours@gmail.com and I have a few websites. I have my old website, apricot-tours.com for general tours of Israel and for the agro tours.

It's Israel water tours. com. And I have a, what's up, you know, I use what's up. That's the best, the best way to reach me is what's up. So I can put my number in the chat or maybe you could put it or I could just,  we'll put it down in the show notes and you guys can be in touch. This is amazing.

Yeah, please. You know, anybody coming to Israel, if you want to email me a month before, or two months before, and I'll help you plan an itinerary or suggest accommodations, you know, Or if you need a private guide for one day or two days or a few days, whatever it is, if I'm available, I'll be glad to take you around.

And I have a plan and you know, my tourists are very happy with they keep coming back. So thank God, thank God. This is amazing. This has been amazing. You guys make sure you come back again for next week where we have more amazing guests. And don't forget to be connected for real. Thanks so much, Michelle.

 And that's it! Thank you for listening to the very end. I would love if you can leave a review and subscribe to the podcast. Those are things that tell the algorithm this is a good podcast and make sure to suggest it to others. Wouldn't it be amazing if more people became more connected for real?  And now take a moment and think of someone who might benefit from this episode. 

Can you share it with them?  I am Robinson Bat chen Grossman from  connectedforreal. com. Thank you so much for listening and don't forget you can be connected for real.