Ever the fabulous storyteller, this week we invite onto the podcast - Darius's Mum, Wilma! We like to keep it in the family over here at the Lovelly Travels Podcast and so this week is all about where Darius got his travel inspiration, his intrepid mother.

Wilma shares where her love for travel came from and early adventures as a child. This includes tales about getting stranded in Paris, finishing her apprenticeship in New York and finally being able to live out her dream by getting a job with an international freight forwarder and leaving Germany!

She also shares about learning Farsi and travelling to Iran and immersing herself into the culture where while working and living in the middle east as a young woman.

She even throws in a couple of stories at the end about getting stuck in the desert and a Turkish prison.

Enjoy this beautiful conversation between Lovelly Travels Co-host Darius and his mother Wilma.

Oh Canada! Oh Canada!

It is a HUGE country with lots of rugged terrain to explore. Emma had the fortune of spending a few months there in 2007 when working at the ski resort Big White in British Columbia. She'a also been back to visit again, but it dawned on her during this episode just how much more there is to explore!

We are joined this week by ruggedly handsome Touring / Recording artist, Charlie A'Court! Although this title was bestowed by the artist himself, we can concur.

Emma and Charlie met in 2012 when Charlie was on tour in Australia, performing some of his amazing music in a private lounge room concert. Soon after the pair worked together, Emma providing her social media and digital expertise to promote Charlie's tour, and the friendship was firmly formed.

Join us as we chat about travelling for work, the touring life of a musician and of course we get to the incredible country that is Charlie's homeland, Canada! Especially focussing on the East Coast where Charlie is based and Emma got to visit in 2014.

Let's go explore Canadia!

Have you ever had a disaster on of your trips?

It could be missing a flight, or losing your luggage or even a volcano going off and basically shutting down Europe! Big or small, a change in travel plans can send you into a tailspin.

So we asked our listeners to share in the Lovelly Travels Community about their travel disaster experiences and relived some of our own.

We do believe travel disasters are in the eye of the beholder - so some of these may seem like nothing to you, but to someone else, it could be MASSIVE!

We're sure this episode will have you nodding, laughing and maybe even crying along with us.

In April 2020, I honestly did not think that we would still be here in a world that is impacted by a pandemic. But here we are!

At the time, I decided to interview people from around the world about how COVID-19 was affecting them and what the lockdown and situation really looked like, not just what the media was telling us. Our lovely guest Géraldine Vetterl from episode 53 on France, gave us an update of what was happening there in March 2021.

So, we decided to dig out this conversation from almost a year ago and see what we had predicted in our little time capsule of a podcast, and how it compares to what's happening in the world now.

This is the first of our COVID CONVOS series and I look forward to sharing more then and nows from this truly fascinating and surreal time in the world.

Please do also write to us if you'd like to share what things are like in your country - we'd love to share as many perspectives as possible, email info@lovellytravels.com

Palais vous francais?

It's one of the most popular tourist destinations with one of the most loved cities in all the world, Paris! So this week, we are off to France.

Joined by French local, Geraldine Vetterl, we explore the great love for this famous country and what makes it so alluring and desirable. Geraldine shares the diversity of her homeland and why you should take more time to explore, outside of the famous hot spots.

Emma shares some of her experiences from her travels, all the way back in 2006 and 2007! Just like her, you'll be wanting to book a trip to experience all that this fine nation has to offer.

Holly Galbraith is a true champion for women and the tourism industry. Meeting through their shared passion of social media, and in a super fun and unusual setting, Emma and Holly both love promoting travel.

Holly is one of the founders of Women in Tourism (Australia) and she helps connect women all across the country. She shares with us the difference between travel and tourism and helps to explore why the tourism industry is so important, more now than ever.

This was a fabulous discussion about the power of marketing, and social media, in the tourism space and how travel will look moving forward.

Ciao Bella!

This has been a long-awaited episode with our fans! This week we travel to Italy.
Darius shares about Mt Etna and some fun facts from Italy about their volcanoes.

Emma romantically reminisces about her first and only visit to Italy and why she can now see the allure making this one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world.

And of course, you cannot speak about Italy without mentioning the food. Get ready to get hungry, again!!

From Positano to Sicily, Tuscany to Rome. We explore this stunning country and daydream about the next time we can visit.

We are up to episode 50! We cannot believe it's been almost a year since we started the podcast and in such a crazy time for travel. We felt it was a bit of a milestone and time to check in on what's happening in the world.

Darius and Emma share their travel plans for 2021. Emma gives us an update on new mum life with her little adventurer, Finn (age 2 months at time of recording). They also both share about what's happening in their respective countries, Australia and Germany, with the world still being heavily impacted by COVID-19.

Plenty more adventures to come and despite the limitations, travel lives on! If not at the very least through our memories and stories. So come along again and travel vicariously with us!

It’s safe to say that Emma got her travel habits from her family! Jet setting from the age of 2 with her English parents, she’s barely slowed down since.

But Brian Lovell, Emma’s Dad, has quite a few travels under his belt too! Not only traveling with the family, he also spent many years traveling to various countries each year for work conferences.

Emma and her Dad trade stories, reminisce about some of their adventures (including a hilarious travel fail in Borneo) and share experiences from the 18+ countries they’ve been to together!

Brian also shares about his big adventure of emigrating to Australia from the UK when he was in his early 20s, coming for 1 year and still here 40 years later!

In November 2020, through a series of fortunate events, Emma ended up on an incredible writers retreat. Hosted by Writer & Writing Coach, Kerstin Pilz, the Write Your Journey retreat was an incredibly invigorating, relaxing and moving experience for Emma and now she's hooked.

Hear more about Kerstin's incredible journey, her love for travel and her wonderful writing retreats. She truly believes in the power of writing for healing and encourages us all to share our story.