Happy Thursday from San Diego!

The Stampede is coming. The Calgary Stampede that is.

I’m not sure how closely you follow along, but last summer I was invited by the tourism board of Alberta, Canada to experience their biggest annual event.

The Calgary Stampede is part music festival, part rodeo, part state fair, and part hedonistic spring break – Often referred to as “COWchella,” or as they call it “The Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth” – bit of a bold statement.

Well, after we filmed everything last July, they asked if I could hold off on publishing content until now to align with promotion of this year’s event.

Side note, I’m excited to write these newsletters because I can give you guys the real scoop on sponsors that I can’t share publicly!

Anyway, we have two episodes coming out over the next two Saturdays that we can’t wait to share, so I’ll be putting the final touches on those this week.

COOL THING IN TRAVEL

The most-watched live natural event in HISTORY is coming next week – the 2024 Solar Eclipse.

On Monday, April 8th, several cities throughout Mexico, Canada, and the US, will experience brief moments of dawn-or-dusk-like darkness right in the middle of the day.

It’s said that some 44 million people will be in the path of the blackout!

​According to NASA, there won’t be another total solar eclipse visible from the US until 2044; making it a must-see event (if you’re in the right spot) - a total eclipse is only visible from any one place about once every 400 years.

The last total solar eclipse visible from the United States happened in 2017 and followed a track from Oregon towards South Carolina. This year, the solar eclipse’s path will start in Texas and move northeast toward Maine.

If you look at the Solar Eclipse path map below, you’ll notice that it’ll pass right over my hometown of Rochester, New York.

This will be the biggest event in our town (besides our amazing Apple Festival) in a long time – my mom has been talking about it for months.

If you really want to see it, call my mom - she said you can watch it in her backyard!

RESOURCE OF THE WEEK

As I previewed last week, I just published a brand-new YouTube episode called Life of a Street Taco Vendor. It was a heartfelt story about a 30-year-old family Carnitas business in the streets of East LA. I hope you guys had a chance to watch it!

Within that episode I mention a new personal goal of rejuvenating my Spanish. Long story short, I haven’t kept up with it as much as I’d like over the last few years and it’s frustrating.

So, I’m going to try the Lingoda Language Sprint Challenge – initially, they were just a brand partnership, but I really like their style – an emphasis on speaking.
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Don't get me wrong, Duolingo's decent for playing around with a new language. But let's face it, those basic levels are all about swiping and memorizing, not actually learning how to speak fluently.

In my experience, you must SPEAK. You have to fumble your words, mess up, and get out of your comfort zone to become fluent.

Have you ever tried learning a second language? Send me a response to this email sharing how you did it. I’d love to hear!

Anyway, I’m just giving you a look into my personal development goals, which in turn will help me tell more “Day in the Life” stories of the Latin community – my first travel crush.

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That’s all for this week. See you guys on Saturday over on YouTube!

Cheers to new horizons,

Gareth

P.S. Thanks to your feedback last week, I have updated My Gear page. As always, I appreciate the support!