Author, musician, speaker and sailor Chris DiCroce and wife Melody sold their house and almost everything they owned to move onto a sailboat and discovered the greatest triumphs often came from their greatest challenges. 

Tired of the lives they were living, Chris and Melody, along with their dog Jet, took a leap of faith in their attempt to break away and were brought face to face with the reality that things don't always go as planned, and how, sometimes, that's the best plan.

In what was supposed to be a one year experiment is now seven years later. Discover how the dream evolved and how they keep it going today.    
 
www.mondovacilando.com
 
 

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Explore one of Western North Carolina’s most iconic places with Mary Jaeger-Gale, General Manager at Chimney Rock at Chimney Rock State Park. The Park features six hiking trails, an Animal Discovery Den, rock climbing with instructors, monthly guided hikes and more. Special moments you'll cherish await you here. Visit Chimney Rock at Chimney Rock State Park once, and you’ll want to come back for more. An annual pass provides you unlimited visits to the Park for a year, exclusive events and special deals at the Park’s shops and restaurants. And you get discounts at other area attractions, too. Visit chimneyrockpark.com.

Thanks for listening to Speaking of Travel! Visit speakingoftravel.net for travel tips, travel stories, and ways you can become a more savvy traveler.

Continuing the Speaking of Travel + Climate Listening Project Series with Dayna Reggero and special guest, Sara Day Evans, the founding director of Accelerating Appalachia. Accelerating Appalachia is the world’s first nature-based business accelerator, connecting innovative businesses, investors and mentors aligned with people, place and prosperity. Find out how they are creating a new regenerative economy to improve soil, retain water, sequester carbon, and help communities by accelerating nature-based entrepreneurs where mining, logging, textile and tobacco/farming industries are on the decline. Accelerating Appalachia supports a regenerative economy, sustaining good jobs and keeping thousands of sustainable farmers on the land. 

Thanks for listening to Speaking of Travel! Visit speakingoftravel.net for travel tips, travel stories, and ways you can become a more savvy traveler.

Peggy Ratusz and Paula Hanke are on the road delighting audiences with their sensational act, “Love Is a Rose: Celebrating the Music of Torch Singer Linda Ronstadt,” featuring some of her best works. Peggy and Paula have been friends for over a decade and collaborated before, but their newest chapter is truly a project from the heart. “Love Is a Rose: Celebrating the Music of Torch Singer Linda Ronstadt,” is part of an ongoing project, the Women Who Make Music History Concert Series. Find out what led them to develop, produce and launch their brand and why they are simpatico as two women who own their own business and travel together. Although quite alike in many ways, they are different enough to benefit the partnership in just the right ways! A fabulous conversation!

Thanks for listening to Speaking of Travel! Visit speakingoftravel.net for travel tips, travel stories, and ways you can become a more savvy traveler.

The Asheville Art Museum is opening its renovated and expanded building in summer 2019. Big changes are happening during their major expansion and renovation project in the heart of downtown Asheville, NC. When the Museum opens, you’ll see fresh approaches, additions to the Collection, exhibitions, educational programs, and so much more. 

Thanks for listening to Speaking of Travel! Visit speakingoftravel.net for travel tips, travel stories, and ways you can become a more savvy traveler.

Melissa Reardon, editor-in-chief of WNC Magazine, the regional lifestyle publication that captures the wonder of one of the most beautiful places in the world, highlights some of the top ways to experience summer in the mountains and explores fun travel opportunities in Western North Carolina from Lake Toxaway to Boone to Blowing Rock. Melissa also offers up some great ideas to begin planning your fall leaf-peeping vacation.

Thanks for listening to Speaking of Travel! Visit speakingoftravel.net for travel tips, travel stories, and ways you can become a more savvy traveler.

Much of what happens around us or to us happens rather by chance. You may initiate actions, but what follows depends upon many factors. Sometimes situations arise on their own, such as an accident or a chance meeting. Or in the case of Maestro Murry Sidlin when he happened upon a book entitled Music in Terezín: 1941–1945.

And so began his journey to find out how Jewish prisoners at a World War II concentration camp staged 16 performances of Verdi's Requiem. The performances came to symbolize resistance and defiance and demonstrated the prisoners’ courage to confront the worst of mankind with the best of mankind. The remarkable story of how and why a group of overworked and underfed inmates sang the towering “Requiem” is told in the powerful concert-drama, “Defiant Requiem."

Defiant Requiem: Verdi at Terezín was conceived and created by Maestro Murry Sidlin. It combines the magnificent music of Verdi with video testimony from survivors of the original Terezín chorus and footage from the 1944 propaganda film about Theresienstadt. 

"I'm merely a messenger of the people who were there. I'm telling their story. That's all it is. I'm in the service of their souls, their spirits." ~~Maestro Murry Sidlin. 

Thanks for listening to Speaking of Travel! Visit speakingoftravel.net for travel tips, travel stories, and ways you can become a more savvy traveler.

Johnny Morris hiked the entire Appalachian Trail to raise money and awareness for MemoryCare, an Asheville nonprofit founded by his mother, Dr. Margaret Noel, that provides services to caregivers and patients with dementia and other memory impairments. Find out how Johnny carries the experiences and lessons he had on the AT forward into a different lifestyle and how those experiences/ lessons changed or informed the decisions he makes today.

From MemoryCare is Mary Donnelly, a daughter, caregiver, support group leader and now dementia educator and consultant, along with Becky Anderson, a member of the MemoryCare board and a recipient of their caregiver services. 

Discover what makes MemoryCare unique and how their model helps uphold the dignity of people with dementia who are too often neglected by a fractured health care system and helps their caregivers receive real help for how to deal with it.

Thanks for listening to Speaking of Travel! Visit speakingoftravel.net for travel tips, travel stories, and ways you can become a more savvy traveler.

Visiting with Michelle and Dale Isom at the lovely 1915 Historic Federal Courthouse and Post Office in Wilkesboro, NC, home to the Blue Ridge Artisan Center and The Artisan Café. 

Find out how they are expanding cultural horizons for children and communities through educational programs to help preserve traditions from one generation to the next and how they are supporting and promoting local and regional artists, musicians and performing artists through the sharing of resources.

The Artisan Cafe is a local eatery and cafe also located in the 1915 building, serving amazing coffee and local, fresh products. A place to relax.

For hours, exhibits and other news, including information about the 2019 Carolina in the Fall Music & Food Festival, visit blueridgeartisancenter.org. 

Thanks for listening to Speaking of Travel! Visit speakingoftravel.net for travel tips, travel stories, and ways you can become a more savvy traveler.

Speaking of Travel is on location in the heart of North Carolina’s Surry County and the Yadkin Valley wine country. Discover all there is to see and do in and around an area rich in history, recreation and wineries. The Surry County Wine Trail is showcased in a full-color map brochure highlighting 16 wineries in and around the Yadkin Valley, along with five breweries and distilleries. The map simplifies the experience of spending time tasting wines and touring vineyards.

The Yadkin Valley is home to NC's first federally-recognized American Viticultural Area, the Yadkin Valley AVA. The wineries are small, with intimate wine tasting rooms providing more access to the winemakers and owners (often one and the same). 

The wine is amazingly good, the hospitality is truly outstanding and there are miles and miles of trails and rivers to explore! 

Visit yankinvalleync.com for your free wine trail map, a recreational map of the four rivers and to plan your trip to the Yankin Valley. 

Thanks for listening to Speaking of Travel! Visit speakingoftravel.net for travel tips, travel stories, and ways you can become a more savvy traveler.