Bucket Lists, Big Trips, and the Announcement We’ve Been Keeping Secret!
Travel is not a background detail in Mariah and Monique's lives. It is woven into who they are, how they grow, and what they keep coming back to in conversation. In this episode, they turn the mic on themselves and share the destinations that have left the deepest marks on them, from ancient ruins in Turkey to glacier lakes in Iceland to the sun-drenched hillside villages of Tuscany. There is also a big announcement at the end that loyal listeners will not want to miss.
Episode Highlights
Turkey: Old World Architecture, Living History, and a Country Too Few Americans Put on Their List
Bali: Beauty, Challenge, and the Transformation That Comes from Both
Thailand: Kindness, $4 Meals, and a Chance Encounter with Hmong Heritage
Tuscany: Where the Soil Gets Into Your Soul
Iceland: Another Planet, Entirely Accessible
Mexico City: The Destination That Changed Both of Their Minds
The Big Announcement: A Heart and Soul Group Trip Is Coming in Fall 2027
Turkey: Old World Architecture, Living History, and a Country Too Few Americans Put on Their List
Monique opens with Turkey, a destination she says not enough people consider, particularly Americans, and one that immediately rewired her sense of what travel could feel like. The ancient city of Ephesus, where you can stand in a partially reconstructed colosseum and read in the New Testament about what happened there, offered the rare sensation of walking inside a history book. Istanbul added another layer entirely: a city where the Blue Mosque and secular everyday life exist side by side, where the call to prayer sounds five times a day, and where the food, the people, and the landscape feel genuinely unlike anywhere else. Monique's verdict is unequivocal: it belongs on more bucket lists, and a cruise stop makes it completely accessible for first-timers who want to ease in.
Bali: Beauty, Challenge, and the Transformation That Comes from Both
Mariah's first pick is Bali, a trip that began with her husband raising a paddle at a charity auction and ended with her having a fundamentally different relationship with adventure. The island is stunning, but it is also genuinely challenging: traffic that turns a five-mile journey into two hours, infrastructure strained by an overdevelopment boom, and an environmental reality that she sat with honestly rather than overlooking. What made the trip extraordinary was their driver, a local who narrated the entire island through the window of their van with the kind of unscripted cultural depth no tour guide script could replicate. She swam with a manta ray, moved through the Balinese countryside, and came home with the conviction that the trips requiring something from you are the ones that actually change you.
Thailand: Kindness, $4 Meals, and a Chance Encounter with Hmong Heritage
Monique's second highlight is Thailand, where she spent two weeks across four cities and found what she describes as the kindest people she has ever encountered anywhere in the world. The food was extraordinary and remarkably affordable, the temples and shrines were everywhere and deeply moving, and the landscape ranged from searing island heat to the lush hill country near the borders of Cambodia and Laos. That border region is where she stumbled into a Hmong community, a moment that took on unexpected personal weight given that her daughter-in-law's family traces their roots to that exact cultural group. She also highlights the role AI tools like ChatGPT have played in her recent trip planning, building custom itineraries based on pace, interests, and travel companions in a way that has changed how she prepares for a trip.
Tuscany: Where the Soil Gets Into Your Soul
Mariah has been to multiple regions of Italy over the years, but her most recent visit to Florence and the village of Cortona in Tuscany has moved Italy firmly into her personal top tier. The people in Tuscany were warmer and more physically welcoming than anywhere else she has been in the country. She and her mother planned the trip largely using ChatGPT to build an itinerary and Instagram to map specific restaurants and shops onto Google Maps in real time, a combination that led them to places that were genuinely memorable rather than just algorithmically popular. The trip produced one of the episode's most touching moments: riding through the Tuscan countryside with their driver, her mother spontaneously suggesting they get matching tattoos, and both of them walking into a local shop to get "tutto bene," the Italian phrase their driver Enzo used constantly, inked in each other's handwriting. A cooking class inside an Italian family's home on a Sunday rounded out a trip that Mariah says already has her planning her return.
Mexico City: The Destination That Changed Both of Their Minds
The hosts close with a shared highlight: a group trip to Mexico City that neither had originally put on their radar, brought to them by a mastermind member whose enthusiasm was simply too contagious to say no to. Mexico City is not Cancun. It is a massive, cosmopolitan, deeply historical city of 20 million people sitting on a highland plateau surrounded by mountains. The food was extraordinary, the jacaranda trees were in bloom and painting entire streets purple, the Anthropology Museum was staggering, and the pyramids outside the city are larger than anything in Egypt. They rented an Airbnb with a chef who made breakfast every morning, hired a driver through their host, and experienced the kind of bonding that only happens when a group of women figures out how to navigate something genuinely unfamiliar together.
The Big Announcement: A Heart and Soul Group Trip Is Coming in Fall 2027
Mariah and Monique are opening up a curated group travel experience to Heart and Soul listeners for the first time. Past trips have been exclusively for mastermind members, but they are ready to bring the heart and soul way of traveling to a wider group of women. The destination will be one of the countries mentioned in this episode, trip length will be roughly 7 to 10 days, and spaces will be intentionally limited. If you feel called to travel with them, they want to hear from you now so they can begin building their list. Reach out through their social media or email in the show notes and tell them you're interested.
All Heart & Soul's Details:
Website: www.heartandsoulmastermind.com
Join the mastermind program: www.heartandsoulmastermind.com/heartsoul
Say hi to Mariah on Instagram: @mariahmckechnie
Say hi to Monique on Instagram: @moniqueforcier
Leave a review on the Apple Podcast app and the Spotify app: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
