years
While working at Disneyland as a VIP tour guide for five years, I watched a lot of parkgoers have amazing experiences. However, I also watched visitors regret parts of their trip or wish they’d made different choices or better plans.Here are a few common mistakes I saw parkgoers make when…
When I graduated from college in 2021, all I cared about was moving abroad.As a Spanish and communications student, I was supposed to spend a full year studying abroad in Seville, Spain — something I had looked forward to for years.Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, though, I had to leave…
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Fatema Ali, a job seeker in her 30s who lives in Texas. She previously worked for IBM as a project manager before being laid off in 2024. The following has been edited for length and clarity.In early 2024, I began to…
Nearly two and a half years ago, in January 2024, I crammed my most essential belongings into three suitcases and left behind the only life I have ever known to start a new one halfway across the world, in Paris.Jaded by corporate America and wanting a change of environment, I…
I love to travel, but I rarely take solo trips because it’s hard to be away from my family. I miss my children when we are apart, but the practicalities of packing lunches and shuffling kids to school and soccer practice are a bigger hurdle than homesickness. I like to…
This story is based on an interview with Trisha Martin, 58, a spiritual therapist from St Louis, Missouri. It has been edited for length and clarity.My 87-year-old mom — whom I affectionately call Mommi — had always been the epitome of independence.She didn’t want us to do anything for her…
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Jill Gardner, family president at the Laird Norton Company. It has been edited for length and clarity.When I married my husband, Doug, I also married into his family business. My husband and his cousins are the fifth generation of his family…
Three years ago, my family of three left New Zealand for Kobe, Japan, desperate for a total reset. We were running on empty, exhausted by skyrocketing living costs, limited career growth, and relentless financial stress.We already loved Japan as tourists, but moving here permanently felt like a massive gamble. Instead,…
It’s never fun to be let go from a job, but finding out that you lost a role in what would go on to be a $197 million movie because your mom wouldn’t allow you to get a haircut? That one stings.In Hayden Panettiere’s memoir, “This Is Me: A Reckoning,”…
I found home in a person before I found it in a place. In January 2017, I met my now-husband — a 6-foot-3 Indo-Fijian man with kind eyes and a deep, soothing voice — on Bumble in Canada.At the time, I was a New Yorker living in Toronto temporarily. I…
