Grit & Grace Adventures

08/26/2026

We have lost another truly great woman. 🤍

Dolly Parton showed us that we could be deeply rooted and endlessly curious. That we could love the lives we have built and still wonder what else might be waiting for us beyond the familiar.

Her song “Travelin’ Thru” has had me thinking about all the versions of ourselves we meet along the way, and why we should stop waiting for the perfect time, or the perfect travel companion, to take the trip.

None of us knows how much road we have left.

So, while we are still travelin’ through, let’s make sure we are paying attention. Let’s make sure we take the trip.

I wrote a little more about Dolly, travel after 50 and the courage to see what else is out there. You can read it here:

👇🏼

A tribute to Dolly Parton and her wisdom on life, identity and travel after 50, reminding women to stop waiting and finally take the trip.

08/26/2026

Travel after 50 is not about escaping your life. It is about remembering how much life is still waiting for you.

We have lost another truly great woman. Dolly Parton was a hero, an inspiration and a reminder that we never have to be only one thing.

We can be deeply rooted and endlessly curious. We can love home and still want to see the world. We can be grateful for the lives we have built and still wonder what else is out there.

Dolly wrote a song called “Travelin’ Thru,” and perhaps that is what all of us are doing.

Travelin’ through careers, motherhood, grief, reinvention, empty nests and new beginnings.
This is why women’s travel matters so deeply to me.

Travelling with a small group of women gives us the chance to step outside the familiar, make new friendships and discover that we are more adventurous, capable and adaptable than we remembered.

You do not need a partner or friend who wants to go.

Most women join our adventures solo. They do not stay strangers for long.

None of us knows how much road we have left.

So, while we are still travelin’ through, let’s make sure we take the trip.

Thank you for the music, wisdom, laughter and rhinestones, Dolly. 🤍
Dolly Parton
DollyParton

08/23/2026

You can’t add more days to your life, but you can add more life to your days. ✨

Take the trip. See the places you have dreamed about. Immerse yourself in new cultures. Make friendships with women who were once strangers. Come home with stories you will tell for years.

Grit & Grace Adventures creates boutique, women only small group travel experiences for women who are ready to see more of the world and feel fully alive while doing it.

Where would you go if you stopped waiting for someday?

08/21/2026

What’s the one book that changed your life?

Mine? My passport. ✈️🌍

Travel has taught me more about courage, connection, perspective and myself than anything I’ve ever read.

From the African bush to tiny villages, jungles, mountains and places I never imagined I’d find myself, every journey has left something behind.

Maybe that’s why I believe so deeply in travel for women, especially in this chapter of life.

Because adventure travel isn’t just about seeing somewhere new.

Sometimes it’s about meeting a version of yourself you haven’t met yet.

The one book that changed my life?

My passport.

What’s yours? And yes, an actual book counts. 😂

08/21/2026

Women’s small group adventure travel isn’t about escaping your life. Sometimes it’s about remembering just how much life is still out there waiting for you.

My grandfather used to say, “That Penny, she’s a wild one.”

Turns out, he was right.

But I think I understand “wild” differently now.

Wild can be booking the trip even when you don’t have someone to go with.

It can be getting on the plane alone.

Sleeping close enough to hear lions at night. Wandering through the medinas of Morocco. Watching the sun rise over a place you’ve never seen before. Sitting around a table with women who were strangers a week ago and laughing like you’ve known each other for years.

Wild can be being 40, 50, 60 or beyond and realizing you are nowhere near done discovering the world, or yourself.

That’s why I created Grit & Grace Adventures.

Small group travel for women who want more than a vacation. Beautiful places, meaningful cultural experiences, a little adventure, a lot of laughter and the freedom to come on your own without ever feeling like you’re travelling alone.

You don’t need a travel partner.

You don’t need to be fearless.

You might just need to find your wild.

Grandpa knew. ❤️

08/12/2026

Today is World Elephant Day 🐘

And there may be no place on earth that makes you understand the magnitude of these animals quite like Botswana.

Not one elephant in the distance.
Herds.
Families moving together through the bush. Babies tucked between enormous legs. Elephants crossing the water in front of you. The low rumble of communication you can sometimes feel more than hear.

I’ve spent a lot of time in this part of Africa, and somehow, I never get used to them.

You can watch every African wildlife documentary. You can know how big they are. You can know how intelligent, social and deeply connected elephant families are.

And then you meet them in the wild.

It is completely different.

In 2027, I’m taking another small group of women back to Zimbabwe and Botswana for a boutique women’s African safari through some of the wildest and most extraordinary places I know.

Victoria Falls.
Hwange National Park.
Chobe.
The Okavango Delta.

Game drives, river safaris, wild places, small camps, incredible people and the kind of wildlife encounters that remind you just how big the world still is.

And elephants.

So. Many. Elephants. 🐘

If an African safari in Botswana and Zimbabwe has been sitting quietly on your bucket list, maybe this is your year.

Zimbabwe + Botswana Boutique Women’s Safari | 2027

Small group. Women only. Deep into the wild.

Come to Africa with me. 🤎

08/02/2026

I recently bought an upright Dyson and genuinely yelled at someone to come look at the suction power.

This is what I have become.

The same woman who has slept in a canvas tent while lions called in the darkness. Who has watched elephants appear out of nowhere. Who has felt that electrical current that runs through your body when you realize you are very, very far outside your normal life.

And yet. The Dyson.

I wrote a new blog post about this. About feeling flat. About awe. About what happens when we stop being astonished by things that actually matter.

New post is up.

Link below to read 👇🏼

Women's adventure travel isn't supposed to feel completely safe. Here's what a Botswana safari taught me about fear, awe, and what we're missing.

05/16/2026

When did you last feel truly awake?

Not scrolling-through-life awake. Not fine awake. Actually, fully, in-your-body awake.

I just said goodbye to ten women in Marrakech and I have been sitting with something ever since. Something about the comfort crisis we are all quietly living through. And what Morocco does to it.

I wrote it all down.

Link to read below 👇🏼

A reflective story from a women’s retreat in Morocco exploring transformative travel, the Sahara Desert, cultural immersion, human connection, and what happens when we step outside the comfort crisis and back into the real world.

05/06/2026

We are all mothers.

The mother daughter trip to the Galápagos you have been imagining is here. The sister trip. The grandmother granddaughter trip. The trip with the friend who feels like family.

The aunties who showed up when no one else could. The grandmothers who hold the memories. The women who never had children, and still mother the world.

Our stories are shared stories. We are born of each other. Connected in stardust.

This Mother’s Day, I am opening the doors to something I have been holding close for a long time.

The first Grit & Grace Intergenerational Journey. Twelve days through Ecuador and the Galápagos Islands.

Quito at nearly 2,900 metres, where the Andes carve a valley around one of the oldest cities in the Americas. Two nights in the Ecuadorian Amazon, where the rainforest hums in a thousand voices. The Otavalo market, where indigenous women have traded for centuries.

Four nights aboard a private Galápagos catamaran, where sea lions sleep on black lava and the wildlife has no fear of you.

Designed for mothers and daughters and grandmothers, traveling as pairs or trios. Built for all of us. Sisters. Aunties. Friends who feel like family.

Save this post for the woman you would bring. Send it to her if your heart already knows the answer.

16 May to 27 May, 2027.
Limited to 10 women.

Full itinerary and deposit at the link in bio.

04/27/2026

Why women in midlife feel more like themselves when they travel, and how to hold onto that version of you once you get home.

Travel for women in their fifties and sixties is rarely just a holiday. It is one of the few times your nervous system gets to meet a version of you that home has spent decades quietly editing.

The boldness. The ease. The yes. None of that was the destination.

That was you, finally without the weight of everyone else’s expectations.

The challenge is not finding her. The challenge is keeping her once the same kitchen, the same dynamics, and the same unspoken expectations start running the old programme.

Swipe through for what actually keeps that version of you alive once you land back home.

Fifteen years of building meaningful travel experiences for women in midlife has taught me what holds, and what quietly slips away.

Which slide hit hardest for you? Tell me below.