Dawn The Tour Guide

Dawn The Tour Guide A passionate, professional tour guide working to broaden the understanding of the human experience through engaging tours and thoughtful storytelling.
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I've known this adventure was coming for months, but somehow the arrival of the official scarf and name badge has sudden...
08/28/2026

I've known this adventure was coming for months, but somehow the arrival of the official scarf and name badge has suddenly made it feel very real!

California is my foundation. The land of my grandparents, my parents, and my childhood. I was married there. My son was born there. The framework for who I am was built there.

Now, just three weeks from today, I'll get to experience California in an entirely new way: leading my first tour specifically for adult travelers and my first trip with Trafalgar.

We'll explore San Francisco, wine country, Lake Tahoe, Yosemite, Monterey, and the roads between.

Familiar territory. Brand-new adventure.

Hope you'll follow along. I'm excited! ❤️🌉🍷🏔️🌲

08/23/2026

Somehow I squeezed the two-hour Xcaret México Espectacular into just under five minutes. I know that's still a long video, but if you love visual storytelling, vivid costumes, emotional music and dance, cultural history, or Mexico itself, it's worth the watch.

The show begins before Mexico was Mexico, with the Maya world, including the ritual ballgame and stories we'd learned about just days earlier at Chichén Itzá. Then come the Spanish conquistadors, the arrival of Catholicism, and the complicated collision and blending of cultures that followed.

From there, history gives way to a celebration of Mexico itself: regional music and dance, incredible costumes, charros showing off their horsemanship and lasso skills, mariachi, and the Voladores—the ancient flying ritual recognized by UNESCO as Intangible Cultural Heritage.

Then the finale.

Hundreds of performers fill the arena, the music swells, the colors get brighter, parrots fly overhead, and streamers explode. I was completely overwhelmed by the beauty of it, and I actually cried. It felt like an enormous, joyful celebration of a complicated, colorful country and the people and traditions that have shaped it.

Two hours of history and culture in under five minutes can't possibly do it justice.

But here's a glimpse. 🇲🇽

5:58 a.m. My last photo from Mexico.Caught in that quiet little space between vacation and going home. Hotel Xcaret Arte
08/22/2026

5:58 a.m. My last photo from Mexico.

Caught in that quiet little space between vacation and going home.

Hotel Xcaret Arte

A beautiful last night in Mexico. So much appreciation and love to my mom & dad for bringing us all together for this in...
08/22/2026

A beautiful last night in Mexico. So much appreciation and love to my mom & dad for bringing us all together for this incredible family getaway. ❤️

The Xcaret México Espectacular is two hours of 300 performers telling more than 500 years of Mexican history, music, dan...
08/21/2026

The Xcaret México Espectacular is two hours of 300 performers telling more than 500 years of Mexican history, music, dance, and culture. It was, indeed, spectacular.

This moment, captured in the finale, was just moments before the parrots took flight, the streamers exploded, and the crowd went wild.

An amazing telling of Mexico's complicated, colorful story.

Today didn't include one of the 7 wonders of the world, but it WAS wonderful! The Riviera Maya is taking good care of us...
08/20/2026

Today didn't include one of the 7 wonders of the world, but it WAS wonderful! The Riviera Maya is taking good care of us.

Today we got to visit one of the Seven Wonders of the World. 🇲🇽Chichén Itzá was once one of the great cities of the Maya...
08/19/2026

Today we got to visit one of the Seven Wonders of the World. 🇲🇽

Chichén Itzá was once one of the great cities of the Maya world. A powerful center of politics, religion, trade, and culture that reached its height roughly 1,000 years ago.

Its most recognizable structure is El Castillo, the Temple of Kukulcán. The stepped pyramid reflects the Maya's remarkable understanding of mathematics and astronomy, famously using sunlight and shadow to create the image of a serpent descending its staircase around the equinoxes.

But Chichén Itzá is much more than one spectacular pyramid.

There's an enormous ball court where the Maya played a ritual game, temples and columns, an astronomical observatory, and the Sacred Cenote, where archaeologists have discovered offerings of jade, gold, pottery—and evidence of human sacrifice.

What I kept reminding myself as I walked around today was that these aren't simply impressive ruins. This was a city. People lived here, worshipped here, traded here, played here, governed here, and looked up at the same Yucatán sky more than a thousand years ago.

Pretty extraordinary to get to stand where they stood.

Two Wonders down. Five to go. ❤️🇲🇽

Afternoon rain storm.Nap in a back porch hammock.Not one bug bite. Yet.
08/17/2026

Afternoon rain storm.
Nap in a back porch hammock.
Not one bug bite. Yet.

We'll be in Mexico if you need us.✈️🇲🇽🌴🐠🍹On second thought, don't need us.
08/17/2026

We'll be in Mexico if you need us.
✈️🇲🇽🌴🐠🍹
On second thought, don't need us.

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