INTERVIEW WITH CHRISTINE & SARAH MACLEAN

CONTENT CREATORS @WELLNESSTRAVELLED

What does wellness mean to you?

First and foremost, for us wellness is a state of mind. We so often focus on the physical when it comes to our well-being but we know how important our mental health is, to feel “well”. We feel our best when we feel at peace. In our line of work (travel-based content creation) it’s easy for us to get stressed, feel time crunched, and out of rhythm with a routine. So, we use mediation, calming music, and journaling as a means to maintain our mental wellness on the road and at home.

Wellness for us, is also nurturing our physical body. In order to do that, we like to work out, do yoga, spend time in nature, visit a spa, travel to wellness resorts for holidays, and eat healthy. Again, this can be tough when you’re on the road so we try to pack our own food, yoga mats, and exercise outfits when we’re traveling for work. We also love to work with wellness based resorts, hotels, and rentals so that we can use the wellness facilities that we’re promoting. A nice perk to our business!

At the end of the day, wellness is all about balance. We aren’t perfect when it comes to prioritizing our wellness, as life can sometimes get in the way. But, we always try to strike a balance whenever we’re at home and on the road.

How did you get into wellness and travel?

Years ago, we were both working very busy corporate jobs. Christine worked a stressful job in advertising and Sarah was a travel agent. Whenever we had time off, we would travel to destinations that would allow us to “reset” our body and mind. We loved going to all-inclusive destinations because they often have a ton of physical activities, yoga, and spas. Plus, we found the most relaxation on a beach. We also love to travel to destinations that allowed for ample time in nature, like Costa Rica and Belize.

For us, being in nature helps us maintain our wellness and there are many studies that show the health benefits of spending time in nature. We started sharing our wellness travels on Instagram as a hobby, and one day it really started to take off. During the pandemic there was a huge shift in our 9-5 jobs, and it gave us more time to dedicate to our Instagram and blog (wellnesstravelled.com). We even started posting on TikTok and launched our own ebooks (wellnesstravelledshop.com). The more we shared, the faster our following - and brand deals - grew. Now in 2023 we have quit our jobs and run @wellnesstravelled as a full time business. It’s an exciting new chapter for us, and we are excited for what the future has to hold.

Focusing on wellness this month, can you tell us about some of your best experiences you have had and where they were?

1. BlueSpirit Yoga retreat in Costa Rica. BlueSpirit is set up solely for retreats and we were fortunate to do a yoga retreat there right before the pandemic happened. It was one of our top wellness experiences to date. BlueSpirit is located in Nosara, which is a Blue Zone. Blue Zones are were the most amount of centenarians live. While we were there, we had daily local plant-based foods (with fish twice in the week), daily yoga, and daily meditation. Christine also had a spiritual massage and was able to focus on her emotional well-being while there. We left the retreat feeling like a whole new person! We would highly recommend doing a retreat at BlueSpirit!

2. Home Stay with NextStep Tours, Doi Inthanon Mountain, Northern Thailand. While we love staying at resorts and hotels, sometimes getting off the beaten path will give you a unique experience that can only be found with a local home stay. We spent New Years in 2018 with a tour guide and family from the Karen Villages in Northern Thailand. We hiked the mountains, learned about how they live off the land, and cooked a big meal together. It was a cultural experience that we would recommend to anyone visiting Thailand.

3. The BodyHoliday Saint Lucia. The all-inclusive resort focuses on your body, mind and spirit. We call it “summer camp for adults”. It’s an incredible concept that lets your vacation centre on wellness with dozens of daily activities, daily spa service, and daily yoga and mediation. We love the Wellness Bar that serves smoothies, juices, and turmeric shots all day long. We also appreciated that it was “strict” so not-so-healthy food and drinks were also available for those who wanted some balance on their vacation.

What is your favourite and least favourite part of your job?

Our favourite part of our job is working for ourselves. When you work for yourself, it feels like you have limitless potential and all the freedom to do so. After working for so many years in an office, Christine specifically was craving freedom. Freedom to not have to ask someone else for time off for a vacation, for example. Now we can work from wherever, make our own hours, and take on only the projects and brands that align with us.

Of course, the flip side is that you always have to be looking into the future to ensure we’re securing business to maintain a steady income. Because of this we sometimes take on too much work and our hours become more irregular. We love to travel but we do miss home, our partners, friends, family and our dogs being on the road so much.

There is always a trade off but we are happy with our decision to run our own content business as we see lots of ways to find more passive income in the future to find a better balance between travel and home life.

What wellness destinations are on your bucket list and why?

Bali - People are always shocked when we say we haven’t been to Bali. It’s a wellness mecca so it’s been high our our bucket list for quite some time. However, being that it’s 1/2 way around the world from Canada it takes a lot of time and planning but we think 2024 might be our year to finally visit Bali.

Tell us why you love what you do.

We love what we do because we get to be creative for a living! We also get to create content about topics and brands we love from travel to wellness to sustainability. We also love that we’ve been able to create a small content creator community online. We love connecting with others in the same industry and helping each other out. We also love working for ourselves, and the freedom that comes with it.

What does your daily work routine look like?

Most often, our work day starts at 9am. Before that we have our morning routines and try not to disrupt that with work. We have a morning meeting at 9:30 and then at 10 we loop in our brand manager. We then work on our own (anything from creating content to emailing). We connect throughout the day and usually have 2-3 meetings with clients per week that happen on video chat.

When we’re shooting, that routine varies. We often start at 8am or earlier. Our shoots can last anywhere from 8-12 hours! On these long days we are off our computers and focus on the shoot, with breaks for food and checking in on emails on our phones.

How do you handle working together as siblings?

It’s very unique to be business partners with a sibling. You often don’t have the same filter you would with a co-worker you’re not related to. On the flip side we can be totally honest with each other, which helps us to often find solutions to problems quicker.

We also try to ensure that outside of work we maintain a “sister relationship” where we talk about life, and not just work. Our relationship as sisters is very important to us so if we ever disagree, we always try to rectify the situation and move on - which in our case usually means saying “I’m sorry, I love you, lets hug it out!”.

Do you have any exciting trips coming up and could you tell us more?

We just got back from Punta Cana, Dominican Republic where we stayed at the Coral Level Iberostar Selection Bavaro. They recently renovated their spa, which was stunning. The massage therapists were incredible as well. The food was amazing, they serve sustainable seafood and had a lot of healthy food options at the buffet from salads to green juices. We also utilized their state-of-the-art gym; we loved the spin class and bootcamp. The beach yoga everyday at 10am was a highlight.

We don’t have any other international destinations planned at the moment but we’re looking forward to a local Ontario destination called Ste. Anne’s Spa. It’s an all-inclusive overnight spa destination surrounded by farms and forests. It’s a local hotspot and we’re so excited because we will be taking our entire family with us! We are looking forward to spoiling our parents and siblings.

Your top wellness recommendations and why

1.Focus on your mental health. Whether its meditation, journalling, or talking to a therapist, your mental health is directly related to your physical health.

2.You don’t need to go to expensive spas or retreats to “achieve wellness”. There are so many simple things like incorporating mediation, cold plunges, or a smoothie to your morning routine that will have a lasting impact on your health. Spend some time in nature by going on a local hike. Wellness vacations are an amazing way to reset but the real magic happens in our daily routines.