Book a GIRLS TRIP to Sedona!

When was your last REAL TRIP with your girlfriends? 

Not a cottage weekend. An actual, get-on-a-plane, somewhere-none-of-you-have-been trip? Sedona just completely blew my mind and I want to make sure it's on your radar.

If you've been putting off a girls trip because life got complicated, people had babies, schedules got impossible — this one's for you! 

Takeaways:

• why Sedona should be at the top of your girls trip list (and how to get there)
• how to navigate group trip planning with 9 very different women 
• mountain biking in Sedona: how we pulled it off with zero experience in the group
• vortex energy: what it is, the science, and why none of us could sleep
• the honest truth about female friendships in your 30s and why they deserve your effort
• why travel somewhere new unlocks a version of yourself you forgot existed

Transcript

[00:00:00]

Sam: Hello, freedom seekers. Welcome back to another episode of the Freedom Lifestyle Podcast, where we give you permission to design life on your own terms. I'm your host, Sam La Liberty. I have been a part-time nomad since 2017. I'm a serial entrepreneur with multiple flexible revenue streams and most importantly.

I live a life that 100% reflects who I am at my core. If we already follow each other on Instagram, you know that two big parts of my ideal lifestyle include travel and meaningful friendships, and today we are combining both.

Because I literally just got home from one of the most memorable trips I have taken in years. I had a four night getaway to Sedona, Arizona with nine. Nine. Nine of my closest girlfriends. Okay. I am still buzzing that we [00:01:00] pulled this off at our age, and so today is not only going to be giving you a full breakdown on Sedona and why it absolutely blew my mind and why it should absolutely be the next destination for your group trip, but also a very important reminder.

About the power of female friendships, especially as we enter new phases of our lives, ladies, so if you have never heard of Sedona before, I'm so excited to be the one to get to introduce this place to you. just to level set. Sedona is a town in Arizona. You fly into Phoenix, which was about a three hour flight. For me from Vancouver, and then once you land, you drive about two hours north to Sedona. The drive itself is quite beautiful, mountainous, desert, peaceful. And then as you get closer to Sedona, you start [00:02:00] to see what makes Sedona so special and so iconic.

That is like a big piece. I would like to mention. When I landed in Phoenix, I was acting a little snobbish in the backseat of our car rental. Because I live in Squamish, bc. I am used to gorgeous mountains everywhere I look in town. So when I got to Phoenix and I saw what they had, I was like, okay, this is pretty good.

But this is, this is no Squamish, but my friend's from Ontario. You know, they were loving it. They were taking photos and videos out the car window, the entire drive. I was not yucking their yum. I was just quietly sitting back hoping it was gonna get better and oh yeah, it did. About 20 minutes from Sedona.

So just as we were actually entering, all of a sudden everything turns red. It was dramatic, the shift. That is what makes Sedonas [00:03:00] landscape so jaw dropping is they have these towering Red rock formations that surround the town on every side. They are made from sandstone and limestone, and they're literally hundreds of years old. They have a very iconic rusty crimson red look to them from iron oxide and they.

Are everywhere. They surround the entire town. No matter where you look, you see famous formations like Cathedral Rock or Bell rock or coffee pot rock. And they're also so much more than just really pretty backdrops. They really define the entire. Energy of the place. Every hike, every restaurant patio, every Airbnb window has a different angle of these Red rock formations, and no matter how many times you look at them, it just never got old four days straight.

I was finding myself trying to take photos of them, and then the pictures would never be as pretty as what I was seeing [00:04:00] with my eyes. This trip was also particularly special for our friend group because it's been like seven years since we traveled together. We're in our mid thirties now.

About half the group has babies and has started to enter motherhood in the last five years. If you've got girlfriends with newborns, you know. Even with everybody's best intentions, it's gonna shift the friendship. Okay? We've been doing a lot more cottage weekends. Some girls can only get away for a night 

 As a group, we have been navigating these changes with as much grace as we can, but it hasn't been easy. There's definitely been growing pains and the culture of our friendship has shifted from fun being the like unquestioned top priority to rightfully so.

Some of the girls pouring more energy into building their families and building their futures, but. We're in such a good place, and it felt like Sedona was the first time in a while where we were like, okay, nobody's breastfeeding. Everybody [00:05:00] feels ready to get away for a little bit longer. We all like genuinely respect and celebrate each other's different pasts and different lives.

But for these four days, we were in sync and we were ready to say yes to the girls trip. for context, our last international girls trip together was a very different adventure. It was in Columbia, A very party heavy trip, booze cruises, late night shenanigans. And so we already knew that Sedona was gonna be different.

Whether you had babies or not, you were ready for something different. Okay? We've all grown up a little bit. We had some criteria though, so we needed to get on the same page. If we were gonna pull off this girl's trip, we knew we wanted somewhere that would be like five hours. Or less of a flight for everyone.

Somewhere where we could be really active and do outdoor adventures [00:06:00] somewhere that had decent food. Although honestly, that probably was the biggest disappointment, and especially for the fruities in our group, which I'll cover in this episode. And we also wanted to go somewhere that. None of us had been, and there's nine girls who also like to travel, so it was no easy feat.

My husband Jared, had been on a boys trip to Sedona the year prior, and he also wouldn't stop raving about it. I'm pretty sure that's how the destination came on our radar. I don't know if I can fully take credit for that, but that's how I remember it I honestly would've been thrilled to go anywhere other than Muskoka, thoughfor the past like five years, and I'm not kidding, we have booked approximately a dozen Airbnbs just. In the Muskoka area, so I was dying to take these girls somewhere new, but I didn't know if we would actually be able to make it happen, especially as everyone started to list out their deal breakers.

I think what [00:07:00] helped is that we had the initial conversation together in person. We do an annual Friendsgiving weekend every October. You guessed it. It was in Muskoka, obviously, and during the last one, the idea of taking an actual trip, getting on a plane and meeting up somewhere, this idea that always gets brought up, it was like getting more traction than usual.

 All the mamas were feeling okay about leaving their loved ones. The child-Free Girls were really wanting to invest and making a special memory together.

So it just took us like three hours to agree, but we did it okay. We spent three hours talking it out, hearing what everybody's hard limits were. Some people wouldn't budge on time zones. Others had already been to certain places. All inclusives were off the table for the adventurous people, including me.

But then also safety was a non-negotiable for other people. So I think the biggest [00:08:00] hesitation a lot of us had with Sedona was being nervous to travel to the US right now. You know, fair. Just gotta bring that up. But honestly, it was completely fine. None of us had issues at the border. All of us are white women with Canadian passports though, so please take that with a grain of salt.

I will say I never once felt any sense of civil unrest in the US or any type of fear for my safety. At one point, we rented really expensive mountain bikes and the guides. Didn't even suggest that we lock them up if we had to pop inside a restaurant to use the bathroom or to grab something quick. So I feel like that alone felt very telling in terms of just the safety and the vibes in Sedona.

So it checked all the boxes. We agreed on Sedona. And then I think the next key piece. To actually pulling off this girl's trip for this amount of women was to act quick. Once people had [00:09:00] already said they were interested. We quickly formed groups. Some girls were responsible for looking at the flights.

Others were on car rentals, others were on Airbnb, others were looking into activities, restaurants. We all kind of divided and conquered very quickly. And the girls who were on the Airbnb, just like within a week. Our Friendsgiving we're already proposing specific dates, multiple Airbnb options for us to vote on, and it kind of became this moment of like, are you in or are you not?

Because we all need to agree on a price, and it's based on how many girls show up. So like we're looking for your commitment now. So this was in October and the trip was in April. Just to give you an idea of how much time we had to work with on this, there were 11 girls at Friendsgiving. We did lose two, so not everybody was able to fully commit in the end, which was sad, but I'm really impressed.

With how many people were able to pull this off. These are my best friends from [00:10:00] Ontario. Okay. If you've been listening to the show for a while, you probably remember me moving from Ontario to British Columbia during the pandemic the hardest. Part of my move, or one of the hardest parts really was leaving this group of girlfriends that I was so close with in Ontario.

I knew our friendship was special and it wasn't gonna be something that I could just replace in bc, There is such a special mix of personalities in this group. We're all so different and I would say are becoming more different as we get older. Some girls are more. Spiritual.

Some girls are more athletic, some girls are more sciencey, some girls are more chill. And I am really mentioning the science first spiritual mix right now because it came up on this trip when we were agreeing on activities. Sedona has been considered a place of spiritual energy for centuries long before it became this popular Instagram worthy travel destination for [00:11:00] indigenous people of the region. They held Sedona as very much a sacred place. There have been really famous psychics that have come there and have identified that Sedona has a site with vortexes, which essentially are locations where the Earth's energy is said to be especially strong, swirling upward and swirling downward in ways that can affect your mind, your body, your spirit.

Now it is like home to hundreds of wellness practitioners. There's spiritual retreats there.

There are vortex tours there, Which is what essentially came up in our girl group, because scientifically there's no verified evidence that these energy fields actually exist in any type of measurable way. Right. And so. When one of the girls wanted us to pay like over a hundred dollars each to go on a Vortex tour, it caused pause for some of the other girls of like, is this a [00:12:00] way that I want to invest my money?

Do I agree with this? Am I willing to pay for something I can allegedly feel, even though I can't explain what it is or if it's real? When this got suggested as an activity to do a Vortex tour. While we were there, I was really curious I felt like this was our next hurdle as a girl group, was to actually decide what activities we were gonna do despite us being all quite different in our approaches and obviously how you spend your money.

That can bring up a lot for people when we're just going to Muskoka. Every single cottage weekend for the last five years. Not many activities or moments ofDisagreeance really comes up. We just agree we're gonna spend time in this Airbnb, spend this much money. Here's what we're gonna eat.

We're gonna hang out, and then we kind of do some casual activities during the day. Have lots of good wine, lots of good food, lots of great conversation. Everybody leaves a little bit tired, but we have a great time. Okay. That's been the vibe. But [00:13:00] now we were traveling.and I was genuinely so impressed by how open everybody was. Not a single person said no or bailed. We even gave them the option. 

We have a hot tub at the house. You can go for some walks around the area while we're in there. And I was just so impressed. Not only did everyone say yes, that they'd spend over a hundred US dollars per person, it was also like four hours of our time.

So it was a significant investment of our time. Now, as one of the spiritual girlies in the group, I was down for whatever. I was super open-minded to this. It was an easy yes for me.

people travel from all over the world just to meditate at these specific sites and experience the two different types of energy flows. I think even if you go into a Vortex tour as a full skeptic, it is hard to ignore the fact that for thousands of years. People have been going here and believing this space is so special and so like sometimes just that collective [00:14:00] belief itself becomes the experience.

Our guide was also quite the character we found ourselves quoting her like all weekend. One of her favorite lines was she would say, everyone thinks there's four vortexes here, but really there's just one. This whole police is a vortex. And you know what? I would say we felt that. Not in any type of grand enlightenment kind, but more in the sense that literally none of us could sleep the entire trip every single morning over breakfast.

Someone new from the group would report how they also had barely slept and they were tossing and turning all night. I found myself retreating to the living room couch. Every single night because I just felt so bad for my friend that I was sharing a bed with, like I could just not fall asleep. Even my trusted sleeping pills that I'll bring on a trip like this, they were not doing a thing.

Okay. [00:15:00] So, you know, maybe that upflow energizing energy is real after all. 

 another thing that kind of divides our group is sports. Everyone is quite active, everyone is healthy, but some of us are a little bit more into the extreme stuff, and Sedona is a world class mountain biking destination. I am still a new mountain biker, but I'm completely obsessed.

This is my third season mountain biking. I've completely overcome the fear of having to climb uphill for 30 minutes and not knowing if I could even do that in order to do the sport. And I'm riding like once a week. So when I saw that Sedona was a mountain biking destination. I was immediately excited and committed to pulling this off.

One of my other girlfriends in the group has way more mountain biking experience than me. She's been doing it for years. She's so impressive, and her and I were quietly scheming [00:16:00] about how we were gonna pull this off.

 we knew we were the only ones with any real experience, and it wouldn't be fair for anyone for us to have to spend the day teaching our friends go from zero to one as mountain bikers. We wouldn't be getting what we wanted out of it, and they would probably just.

Feel like a burden, but we still really wanted to mountain bike while we were there. And we also didn't wanna ditch our friends like it was a full day activity. And when you only have four days there, a full day matters a lot. We found the dream solution, the bike outfitter, I believe they were called Thunder Mountain Bikes.

They not only offered us rentals for the day, but basically the day they designed for us was. Perfect. They gave everybody a morning lesson. So the beginners who had never been on a mountain bike before learned a lot of the basics. Me and my friend who had some experience also did some drills. We had a little break for lunch, and then in the afternoon [00:17:00] we split up into two groups, those who were new mountain bikers, and then me and my friend with experience, and we did a guided trail ride for like another two and a half hours.

It was. Perfect. But still, I had to convince the girls that this was a good use of about 250 US dollars and a quarter of the trip. So again, planting the seed and suggesting it to the girl group. This was via text in WhatsApp. I didn't really know how it was gonna go.

But just like the Vortex Tour, everyone was completely game. I mean, of the nine of us, one girl was six months pregnant, so she very much had a pass for not participating. And then two of the girls said that they would. Keep her company, but also we're just like a little bit scared, which is fair. That's fair.

I mean, admittingly, most of the girls who were new mountain bikers did end up getting hurt. One girl is going home with a big [00:18:00] cut on her face. A couple have some bruises on their elbows and their knees. But let me tell you this smiles on. Everybody's faces after their afternoon guided trail ride was amazing, and me and my friend who were in the other experience group, we were just standing there in awe as the four girls came biking in, beaming, literally.

Squealing at points about how empowered they felt and how excited they were to mountain bike. Again, asking me questions about where's a good place to get a used bike and if they were gonna mountain bike in Ontario, where would we recommend? So I'm like so excited that this is like a new sport that could maybe even unite our group in the future.

They had the definition of stoke. I couldn't believe it. I was so proud, and I was also just so satisfied that we pulled it off. My ride was [00:19:00] amazing. I did the Mezcal Trail, which is one of the more iconic blue black runs in Sedona. I did most of the features. Definitely took the easy lines. A lot of the time I'm working on my bravery, let's say.

Um, but I think my technique is pretty solid. I'm pretty stable on a bike and I have really great endurance, so that is very helpful. But regardless of whether I had a good time, I was just so happy to see my friends willing to try mountain biking. 

I think that openness, that willing to try something outside of your comfort zone was something so uniquely alive on this girl's trip for us, and just something that I haven't seen as much from our girl group. During our typical cottage weekends in Muskoka, and I've been thinking a lot about why I really believe that when you go somewhere new, you just naturally slip into a different version of yourself.

 when you're in a more [00:20:00] familiar place, you're going to lean on your familiar habits, the things that make you comfortable, and if you're typically somebody who hesitates about something, why would that be any different? But when you're on a trip somewhere new, you're already in unknown territory mode. And so saying yes to one more unfamiliar thing, it doesn't feel like that much of a leap. Travel has this way of just like temporarily suspending this story, we can tell ourselves about who we are and what we can do and back home.

Maybe my friends would say, oh, I'm not really a mountain biking person, but in Sedona, surrounded by the Red Rocks and strangers and this shared sense of adventure and the energetic vortex is all around you. You know, maybe in Sedona you get on the bike and you know what? Maybe you love it. And I think that really is one of the [00:21:00] major gifts that we all received going somewhere new.

 and we all left with these new ideas about what was possible for ourselves.

A few other things that really made this trip flow so beautifully. I think my pro tips was that we made all of these decisions in advance. are we doing the Vortex tour? Are we mountain biking? Are we going to this restaurant? 

We had a shared notion page with our day by day itinerary. We had two activities per day, and typically either a lunch or a dinner reservation already booked. What that meant was there was no on the ground decision making about where we're going. Or what we're eating. That type of research on a trip, it takes up not only so much precious time, but it also creates this like subtle tension, this negotiating in person who's gonna get their way tonight.

 There was none of that. We just followed the itinerary and that went flawlessly. We [00:22:00] also didn't overpack the schedule. So for us, this felt light, you know, one morning activity, one evening activity of the four nights. We had two dinners out to. Two dinners at our Airbnb.

It felt like there was a lot of breathing room for spontaneous walks, last minute errands to CVS for saline spray because all that dry air and the high altitude, all of us had stuffy noses. At one point on the trip, someone forgot sunscreen, somebody wanted some Advil. Any type of just like random errand or thing you needed to do.

felt like there was space to do that. Sedona was also incredibly walkable, which was a massive bonus. Our Airbnb felt like it was in this very cozy and safe suburban neighborhood, but you could also walk to all the major shops including Whole Foods in less than 10 minutes. All of the hikes that we went to, we did at least one hike a day.

Were less than a 15 minute drive from our Airbnb. We did a [00:23:00] spa day that was less than a 10 minute drive All this proximity meant that you never once felt that like low grade panic in the morning of trying to think of everything you might need for an entire day because you were packing up for what felt like a mission on this trip.

You knew you could just easily pop back home between activities. It also meant that if anybody was taking too long to get ready in the morning and you were getting a little antsy and you wanted to just get moving, you could. You could just start walking into town, head to the coffee shop, start the coffee order, and the girls who were taking longer to get ready could just drive over with the cars and meet you.

Speaking of coffee runs, I will say that one of the genuine downsides of Sedona, in addition to the food being little average was the coffee was a little average. And it took forever. Okay. Considering it was a high season [00:24:00] destination that gets a lot of group travelers,

It felt like every single coffee shop was perpetually overwhelmed when nine women showed up desperate for caffeine. I'm not kidding. Each stop was easily 45 minutes every single morning as the barista slowly made. One espresso at a time with absolutely no system for volume. And at the beginning it was really frustrating and annoying, especially me.

I don't really like to pay for coffee. There was already coffee at the Airbnb that we had bought in bulk. I tried to be a little bit more practical, so the first morning when we stopped and everyone was getting their 45 minute coffee. I was a little frustrated, I'm not gonna lie, but then I just adjusted.

I realized that this is part of the routine here. I would only have one coffee at the Airbnb. I would treat myself to a flat white as my second caffeinated drink of the day. And we just added in the [00:25:00] time for this 45 minute stop and started to adjust because it wasn't just one coffee shop. Every single coffee shop we went to, we had the same experience where we just had to really settle in and wait for our order, which ended up being disappointing.

I mentioned that the restaurants were also a little bit subpar, and I do wanna give a little bit more context on that because they're really only a letdown if you are the type of person looking for like a polished. Fine dining dinner experience that is not really sedonas vibe. Our friend who handled all of the restaurant booking, she's our group foodie.

She absolutely nails it every time, and she shared that she really struggled finding restaurants for all of us to eat at in Sedona because that genre, that vibe she was looking for, just like didn't exist there. Every time we would end up going somewhere more relaxed. That was more like hippie leaning, veggie forward [00:26:00] casual.

The food was not only genuinely amazing, but the setting was also really cool. We ended up going to this chocolate place that was fully vegetarian and vegan menu. They had live music, a big patio, tons of plants. The staff was just so chill and laid back. Blankets waiting for us at a huge table. And we all really enjoyed the food, which was kind of rare for the restaurants that we went to there.

I think that reflects the entire town in general. Sedona very much has this unpretentious laid back energy. Even the spa day we had was casual, like the staff didn't even batten eye when we were wandering into areas that we hadn't technically paid for. The pool that we were hanging out at at the spa was nothing fancy, nothing overly aesthetic.

Everything was just. Simple and functional, and it kind of felt like the red rocks are enough of a decor and everything else [00:27:00] was just like chill and relaxed and the service and all the staff kind of had that energy too.

and it felt fair. The views of the Red Rock formations everywhere were definitely enough. We did so many, uh. Amazing hikes. Our favorite one was the airport Trail, which was also a Vortex site. If you believe that there's only four, and on this hike, you essentially do a 360 degree ridge walk on the top of a mountain, so you very much get a bird's eye view of the entire town.

The scenery was constantly shifting around you. It was like just under six kilometers, which felt like the perfect distance, considering we had a very healthy, very active, very pregnant woman with us. So a two hour hike in the desert heat at that altitude was not only Herm Max, but it was kind of everyone's max.

We were all satisfied at about the 5K mark and we're [00:28:00] ready to call it in for our next meal. The Airbnb that we went to, despite it being like very vibey and chic also was quite affordable. I felt each of us paid around $600 Canadian, and I would say we had a nicer place, four bedrooms, hot tub, big, fully stocked kitchen, super convenient location, and it seemed like there was a great supply.

There was lots of options to choose from. When we were looking at Airbnbs, 

 if you are still not convinced on Sedona, maybe this just isn't your vibe, but you still got to this point of the episode. Anyway, thanks for sticking with it. I'm guessing it's because Sedona, maybe girls trip. Hell yes. And this is what I want to end with.

And this is about female friendships in your thirties. And I imagine this is gonna be a consistent theme and my forties and beyond that they become much harder to maintain. Become more and more valuable than [00:29:00] ever.

Life gets complicated. People move. People partner up. People have babies. People get busy in ways that their 20-year-old self would find completely unimaginable and all that casual spontaneity that used to hold friendships together. That whole like, let's just hang out tonight What's up, let's get together.

It just kind of disappears. Maintaining close friendships, it now takes intention and scheduling and sometimes it literally takes booking the flight. The thing is, not all friendships make it. Some friendships quietly fade, and that's also okay. That is a natural part of how life evolves. But if you are in your thirties and you still have a group of women where that love is still there, where you are still curious about one another's lives where you can still laugh until it hurts, you have something rare. You have something that is genuinely worth protecting. So don't let the logistics [00:30:00] talk you out of it.

Book the trip. Say yes to the vortex tour, get on the mountain bike. Show up for each other in ways that actually take some effort, because that's often the stuff, that effort, that's what makes a friendship last a lifetime. So the trip becomes so much more than just the trip. It becomes a symbol that you care.

That these relationships matter to you and you are willing to put in the effort to maintain them. And I felt that from all the women on the trip, and I feel so much more confident as we're still in our mid thirties, that we got this for more decades to come. 

And if you're looking for a place to do it, if you need a destination for that girl's trip, I cannot recommend Sedona enough. It checks a rare combination of boxes. It is beautiful in a completely one of a kind way. It's incredibly active and adventure friendly. 

It's [00:31:00] accessible from most of North America in under five hours. It has this like relaxed unpretentious. Energy. It's not trying to be Miami, it's not trying to be Vegas. It's not a place where you like have to really care about being seen. And did I mention cannabis is also legal in Sedona, which absolutely spiced up the spa day for some of us, but you didn't need it. Okay? You don't need cannabis to have fun in Sedona. You don't even need to be spiritual or scientific, A hardcore mountain biker or someone who's perfectly happy with a spa, spotted and a hike, a planner, someone who just wants to follow along, Sedona has something for everyone in the group.

I highly, highly, highly recommend it go. You won't regret it, and until next time, freedom seekers enjoy your freedom.