About
I've spent fifteen years reading what's beneath the surface.
I've spent over fifteen years as a practitioner in schools and clinics, trained to read what's beneath the surface and to build trust quickly, often in just a few sessions.
I've also spent a lifetime being the person friends ask for a recommendation. Where to eat, where to stay, what's worth the detour. My choices tend to work out, and people have always copied them. For a long time I didn't think of that as a skill. It's part research and part intuition and a deliberate habit of going against the grain.
Then I went to Portugal. We sat at a waterfront café for two hours and talked to the owner. We got deliberately lost in Lisbon and found a bakery that wasn't on any map. Those moments changed how I thought about travel, and they weren't in any guidebook.
Who it's for
You're not waiting for life to start.
I work with couples in their “now, it's ours” chapter. You've spent decades organized around work, kids, and everyone else's needs. The diary has finally cleared, and you're stepping into something that belongs to the two of you.
You're not waiting for life to start. You're already booking trips and saying yes. But you've come home from some of them feeling you saw places without being in them, and you've stopped trusting the packages and the reviews to get you what you're looking for. Most travel advice sells either logistics or inspiration. Meandr sells neither.
What I offer
No star ratings. On purpose.
There are no star ratings here, no top-ten lists and nothing “most popular.” That's deliberate. The crowd's average score is exactly what leads people to the places that feel hollow.
What I offer is a method for trusting your own read of a place again, built from the same discernment I use to find real, unhurried experiences. The vetting audit is where that starts: a practical tool you can use on your very next booking.
The practice
Not from the outside.
Over fifteen years in clinical and educational counseling. Training in reading people, building rapport fast and moving them towards what they actually want. A curatorial instinct that research, intuition and real conversations with locals have sharpened over years of travel. I'm not guiding you from the outside. I'm in this same transition myself, with my own partner, working out what we enjoy outside the roles we've played for decades. Last month I picked blackberries at a local farm with my husband and daughter, and it's still the thing I'd choose over any itinerary.
The promise
Unhurried. Unscripted. Yours.
Meandr is the method for trusting your own read of a place again — so the trip you finally have time for is the one you actually wanted. Quiet confidence, sensory not hyped, showing rather than telling.
Here's to the long way 'round,
— Erica