Hello friends, family, and fans,

A lot of you requested more information about my trip, so I've decided to use this space to become your travel guide for the week and share a bit about Sicily and what made us choose it as our destination.

Sicily is a big island with smaller islands around it, and usually when I told people I was going there for the summer, they would ask me: "Where in Sicily?". It's not a place that you normally explore in one trip. So I answered: "Everywhere." Because obviously we decided to explore everything in one trip.

Did I know some of that before? Yes. Was it the reason why we chose it? Not entirely. My friends were coming from rainy São Paulo and wanted the European summer as well. Also, as an island, Sicily not only offers amazing beaches, but it is also home to several active volcanoes, including one of the most active and tallest volcanoes in Europe.

So, Sicily is one of the few places where you can find paradisiacal beaches, incredible cultural heritage sites, big cities to explore, and some adventure tours like hiking volcanoes and parasailing. We wanted a one-size-fits-all kind of place, and Sicily gave us that. 

One nice thing about this trip is that it was the first one where I organized the whole itinerary by myself. With the help of some Sicilian friends, a lot of reading, and some use of AI, we had several itinerary options to choose from—and I don't know what my friends would say, but in my humble opinion, I did a really good job. As I said in the last edition, the trip was everything. And more than that, the perfect place for a long-awaited reunion with three of my best friends.

• Highlights: Favignana (a small island close to Sicily); Vulcano (a small island part of the Aeolian Islands); Palermo and its amazing nightlife; some of the best sunsets of my life; and Taormina (the place where they filmed White Lotus season two).

• Lowlights: Make sure to check if the Greek temples are not closed for private events when you're planning to go there. Also, if you're on a boat day, it's raining, and you see everyone else coming back to shore—probably you should as well.

Planning is never enough. But my two cents on it are:

1. Plan knowing that something will go wrong. In a trip with thousands of Airbnbs, different highways, and so many little things that cannot go wrong—probably one of them will. And that's okay—it's all part of the game. It's important to plan but not take the plan too seriously—I guess that works for major life advice too.

2. Go with the right group of people. Trips are stressful. You are all out of your comfort zone. You are all sleeping less than you should, partying more than you could, and small things can throw someone off. Being with the right group of people, who can make lemonade out of all the lemons that might happen (whether losing a key, a rainy day, a train you missed, a fine ticket...) is super important. At the end of the day, the quality of the people you're around will count way more than the quality of the place itself— I guess that also works for life advice as well.

There you have it, next’s years trip and two awesome life advices - and I promise to charge only for one of those.

From your favorite travel agent,

With love,

Micael.