Oaxaca is one of the most sensory places I’ve ever been. From the colorful buildings, the sounds of the accordion played in the street, the smell of cacao and native herbs, the taste of mole and mezcal, and the textures of crafted baskets and sculpted wooden figurines – it is easy to fall under its charm.

What makes Oaxaca unique is its incredible history, which seeps into all aspects of its culture. It’s one of the oldest inhabited places in Mexico: archaeologists have discovered evidence that humans lived in the Oaxaca Valley as far back as 11,000 B.C.

It’s been populated by various Indigenous groups: the Zapotec people were the first to inhabit the region, followed by the Mixtec and then the Aztecs – and then conquered by the Spaniards in the mid-15th century. To this day, there are “more speakers of indigenous languages in the state of Oaxaca than in any other state in Mexico.”

These indigenous roots have been well preserved and are omnipresent in all the sensory experiences that Oaxaca offers – from its art and music, to its landscape and cuisine, to its religious festivities and shamanic healing modalities.

During our Fall retreat, we’ll be exploring all those aspects with daily workshops taught by artists and craftsmen who will share their talent with us. Oaxaca has also become a hub for contemporary artists, and we’ll be visiting some of those artist studios and learning about their practice.

Since Oaxaca is such a culinary center, attracting food lovers from around the world, we’ll have delicious daily outings to our favorite restaurants. When we’re not visiting the city center, or venturing out to the countryside for our sensory workshops, we’ll be relaxing poolside at our hotel, which was once a monastery and has since become a UNESCO heritage site.

Paid subscribers can access the full Oaxaca Travel Guide below with 7 suggestions for each sense: SEE, HEAR, SMELL, TASTE, TOUCH, BALANCE and ENVISION. Other destinations are also available to paid subscribers, including Paris, New York, Mexico City, the French Alps, and the California Coast.

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I heard about it years before seeing it. Someone I met at a friend’s dinner party was the first to tell me. She described it as an “intentional community,” built on a specific architectural style, in harmony with nature. My ears perked up. I was intrigued, and filed this utopian place in the back drawer of my mind. 

A few summers later, when I was going through a particularly tumultuous life patch, I desperately needed some time alone in nature. I had to make a major decision and felt a strong urge to get out of town to think clearly. My partner reminded me that our friend owned a cabin in the woods, and had offered to rent it to us anytime we needed a getaway. I jumped on the opportunity.

I didn’t know where this “cabin in the woods” was located, but frankly didn’t care. I was grateful that it would fulfill my main two prerogatives of “alone” and “nature.” I booked it for three weeks. 

It’s only once I saw the sign that I realized where I was staying – that intriguing place I had once heard of. I was moved to tears when I first caught sight of the dramatic cliffs and glimmering ocean. I gasped in awe, driving up the sinuous driveway nestled amongst the redwood trees. When I walked up the wooden stairs to the octagonal-shaped house, I felt immediately at home – a sense of relief and belonging. 

It provided me everything I was then seeking – the silence, space, serenity – so that I could hear my own inner voice again. But it also offered so much more: endless hiking trails through redwood forests, desolated beaches with an ever-changing ocean; tranquil rivers to swim. My neighbors consisted mainly of furry and feathered creatures: the wild turkey family, the bouncing deer, and the bobcat hunting for moles in the fields. 

Since few people live here year-round, most days can be spent in the soft silence of swaying branches, and the rippling sound of the waves. Ocean mist would roll through the hills every morning, traversing the forest like a mystical spirit. The warm glow of sunshine would pierce through after noon, basking the whole landscape in a golden light. At night, I would lay on the balcony and gaze at an endless sparkling sky. Only the desert can compete with this show of constellations. 

I felt held by this ancient forest, as my life was seemingly falling apart. When I awoke in the middle of the night with anxiety, the deep darkness soothed me, cocooning me back into a state of inner safety. The cycles of the moon would project against the bedroom wall, and became the measure of passing time. 

I became attuned to nature’s rhythm and would rise with the sun and start settling in when it set. Evenings crackled to the sound of the fireplace, the aroma of boiling soup, and the slow movements of paper and pen. 

Over the course of 3 weeks, my love for the place took deep roots, curling within my heart. When it was time to leave, I dug my heels. Immediately, I attempted to turn this ephemeral experience into a permanent one. I tried to convince my partner to move there, but I couldn’t sway my financial reality to match those aspirations.

With the pandemic, the real estate market there imploded and the idea drifted further away, becoming an unreachable island. As with many places, what originally started as a hippie-chic community turned into an upscale vacation home destination.

But, I continue to drift back to it. I thought that circumstances had perhaps enhanced the place to romanticized proportions in my mind. But every time I return, it has the same effect on me: it quiets my mind, awakens my senses, and fills me with cosmic awe. 

It’s also become where most of my creative ideas are born, and where they can reach completion, with the utmost focus. I’ve managed in that space, to start and finish an illustrated book; write some of my favorite poetry; and find solutions to creative puzzles. 

It’s also allowed for expansive creative play and inspired me to experiment with cyanotypes, build beach sculptures, and doodle with friends. I attribute it to the straight-shooting redwoods, offering me structure, and the endless ocean, providing imaginative space. 

I rarely go back to a place I’ve already visited. I tend to travel for the feeling of newness, a thirst for discovery, and a release of the familiar. But somehow, I keep returning here, sometimes for as short as a week or as long as two months.

Friends and family have joined on several occasions. But I’ve been selective about sharing it with others. It’s not typically my attitude when it comes to travel destinations, but what makes this place so special is partly how desolate it is – a few hours from any major city, with only one road leading there, and many regulations to prevent its over-development. It’s quiet, isolated, and raw – which is what makes it special. 

Nonetheless, the secret has spread. The media has started to catch on, and in the past couple years it’s been featured in major outlets like the NY Times, as well as other travel and design publications. But I continue to remain discreet, and treat it like the sacred space it’s become for me – only letting a trusted few to join – and mainly using it as a creative sanctuary. 

It’s beautiful all year-round, with an ever-evolving fauna and flora. But I particularly like it in summer, when the rest of the Northern hemisphere is swelling with heat, this area retains a cool ocean breeze and shaded forest paths. 

I’m sharing this very special place, as part of my Seasonal Travel Guides for paid subscribers, offering you 7 suggestions for each sense: SEE, HEAR, SMELL, TASTE, TOUCH, BALANCE, and ENVISION. 

If your summer destination include Paris, Mexico City, New York, or the French Alps, check out my other Travel Guides. 

Happy Summer Solstice,

Sabrina

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That LCD Soundsystem song was my anthem of departure when I moved out of New York in 2013. 

“New York I love you 

But you’re bringing me down…”

I was breaking up with the city that made me – quite literally as I was born there. I spent the first two years of my life in Brooklyn, until my parents divorced and I moved with my mother to France, back to her hometown. 

I continued coming to New York three times a year to visit my father. A Brooklyn man through and through, born and bred in the Dodgers’ borough. He lived there until the age of 66, when he and his wife relocated to Harlem. Hopping over to the island of Manhattan was the biggest move he’d made in his life.  

When my partner first met my father he pointed out how thick his Brooklyn accent was, to which I replied “What accent?”  To me, it was standard speech, my father tongue. Still today, whenever I hear that way of talking, or that New York attitude on display – a mix of rough tenderness and no bullshit directness – I feel a wave of familiar comfort. 

After years of bouncing between two continents, I finally moved back full time to New York for college. I stayed for a few years after graduating and can’t think of a better place to have spent a good part of my 20’s. 

I naturally fell in step with the city’s rhythm, a life of constant frenzy and busyness. Like most people in New York, I worked more than one job – one for love, a few others for bills. Whatever money was left beyond rent was spent on fun, which New York never lacks. The city was built to dazzle and satisfy the wildest imagination. Its energy is intoxicating and I was hooked. 

But the price to pay to live there is high: not just financially, but also physically and emotionally. 

New York rents have become legendary for their absurdity. In fact there’s entire blogs dedicated to the city’s most ridiculous apartment listings. I had a friend who used to live illegally in her art studio (a commercial space). Her mattress had to be hidden in case of inspections and she had a cheap gym membership, where she would go to shower. There’s no real need to workout in New York, as the city provides ample exercise: walking 10 miles and climbing 100 stairs is part of the daily routine. Overtime, one also builds an emotional protective layer, an outer shell of dissociative apathy, to shield oneself from daily microaggressions and sensory overload.

When my high school friends came to visit me from France, they were shocked by the “lack of sky” – the way the towering buildings only reveal small blue parcels. They asked if it affected me, but I had never taken notice before then. 

New York is like a passionate but toxic lover. You fall head over heels, exulted by its raw and glittery charm, yet dismissive of its inhumane behavior. It always leaves you craving more yet content with bread crumbs. But those crumbs seem imbued with magic, and far better than any other loaf. 

New York is so self-important that when you live there, you forget its name. It simply becomes “the city,” as if no other metropolis existed.  Like many New Yorkers, I believed no other place could match up, for better or worse. As an avid traveler, I knew that to be true. Every place is different, but New York is truly unique. Part of me felt like I had scored a front row seat to the best show, and leaving the theater felt unthinkable. 

For a long time, I fed on the energy the city eagerly provided, propelling me from one activity to another. New York never stopped, so neither did I. This constant motion was driven both by creative desire and financial need – a tug of war between love and fear. 

But at some point, the charm of living in a shoebox and commuting in a sardine can started giving way to exhaustion. I felt like a hamster in a wheel, heading nowhere – or as the song goes:

“Like a rat in a cage

Pulling minimum wage”

Living in New York, one gets accustomed to the unimaginable. Human beings are some of the most adaptable species, along with roaches and rats, the other two main inhabitants of NYC. We pride ourselves in “making it” in harsh conditions and wear it as a badge of honor. But the weight of that pride became too heavy to bear. I started wondering, like describes in her essay about leaving NY: “Maybe it doesn’t have to be so difficult.” 

Thoughts of leaving started visiting me, gradually building over time. I was seeking an exit door, or at least a backstage corridor, a respite from New York’s endless show.  

“New York, I love you

But you're freaking me out

There's a ton of the twist

But we're fresh out of shout”

Leaving New York seemed like admitting failure. Giving up the struggle felt like a weakness of character. There’s an inherited idea that you’ve gone soft if you leave New York, especially if you move to California. But as Jenny Holzer wrote: “It is in your self-interest to find a way to be very tender.”

So in the Fall of 2013, I packed my bags and headed out to Los Angeles. 

Despite moving away a decade ago, New York hasn’t left me and it never will. I came into this world greeted by its sirens, and a view of the Brooklyn bridge — my senses are forever imprinted by New York City. 

“Everyone has their own New York,” writes . My New York is a medley of the late 80’s and the mid-2000’s – specific eras of New York’s many facets. Everyone argues that “their” New York is the best version, one that was grittier, more exciting, and expansive with possibilities. 

“New York, you're safer

And you're wasting my time

Our records all show

You are filthy but fine”

New York changes faster than we do, leaving us grappling with ephemeral attachments. Every time I return, there’s always a subway stop or street that floods me with memories. I often fall into a state of nostalgia, over the delis turned into hype fashion shops, and my stoop-sitting neighborhood giving way to luxury high-rises. 

“New York, you're perfect

Don't please don't change a thing”

Despite our resistance, New York was born to change. First called “New Amsterdam,” then renamed to “New York,” it always carried newness in its identity, a city ever-changing yet always true to itself.

To celebrate the Spring Equinox, I’ve compiled a list of my favorite NYC sensory experiences. They’re a mix of classic oldies, as well as some recent discoveries. I also asked a few local friends for some recommendations –– thank you Adi Gil, Brian Close, Gala Delmont Benatar, Kristine Michelsen Correa, and .

As with all Travel Guides, I’ve included 7 suggestions to SEE, HEAR, SMELL, TASTE, TOUCH, BALANCE, and ENVISION. 

In Joy,

Sabrina 

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Happy Winter Solstice ~ Every season, I share a Travel Guide exploring a new destination with, or as, a local. Featuring 7 recommendations for each sense: SEE, HEAR, SMELL, TASTE, TOUCH, BALANCE & ENVISION.  You can also access past guides, including Paris and Mexico City.

Most of my childhood was spent in Chambéry, a small city in the French Alps. I left 20 years ago but my mother still lives there, so I typically visit every other year. Due to the pandemic, I hadn’t been in 4 years, and finally made the trip over the summer.

Most people outside of France have never heard of Chambéry, unless they’re skiers. It’s the main city one traverses en route to some of the best ski stations in the world. From my mother’s apartment window, one can see Mont Blanc in the distance.

Naturally, like everyone else who grows up in the Alps, I learned to ski as a kid. But it’s been over a decade since I’ve gone down a slope, and I now much prefer the slow rhythm of snowshoeing. Even though the region is a popular winter destination, I actually love the spring and summer there, when the mountains shed their snow, giving way to the most beautiful hiking trails.

At 73, my mother still goes on multiple-day treks with her friends. Typically, they reserve space at a “refuge” along the way, They’re the mountaineer version of a hostel: a “chalet” (typical Alpine cabin) with a couple rooms, bunk beds and a shared bathroom. The ‘refuge’ host serves a typical dish for dinner (no menu choice), and a simple breakfast before you head out on your hike. They’re rustic, convivial, and “à la bonne franquette” which roughly translates to ‘unfussy’. 

The mountains have a culture of their own too. There’s an array of food specialties, which mainly involve cheese and potatoes – such as raclette and cheese fondue. There’s even regional dialects (Patois), and traditional Alpine outfits (typically worn for cultural festivals). And there’s the locals too, a breed of their own, who are the antithesis to Parisians. They’re shepherds and ski instructors, they’re cheese makers and rock climbers. They prefer silence over French intellectual discussions; they crave open air rather than art museums; and they can recognize any local plant but couldn’t name the latest pop star. 

Situated only 50 miles away from the Swiss border, and 80 miles from the Italian one, the area offers a trifecta of landscapes, languages and culinary specialties. Growing up, my uncle would often take me and my cousins to Turin, just for a day trip. We’d leave in the morning and arrive on time to have a delicious Italian lunch, spend the afternoon eating gelatos, and watch the beautiful Italian drama unfold in the streets. 

What I love most, every time I return to Chambéry, is how little changes. Like any other city, it has its share of rotating shops and restaurants. But overall, the place stays the same. The cobblestones and fountain square; the farmer’s market and corner bakery; the independent bookstore and old movie theater – they’re always there. As the world’s pace seems increasingly frantic, people from my hometown still find time to sip coffee on terraces, take swims at the nearby lake, and spot marmottes on their weekend hikes. 

What I often took for granted growing up are now the simple pleasures I most seek – the fresh mountain air, daily baked bread, and long meals with friends. Everywhere I look, the mountains are there, a constant humbling reminder of my place in the world. 

On my latest trip, my mother and I went around our city and compiled a list of our favorite things to experience. As with all Seasonal Travel Guides, my recommendations include:

• 7 sights

• 7 sounds

• 7 smells

• 7 tastes

• 7 touches

• 7 ways to balance

• 7 images to envision

In Joy,

Sabrina

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Happy Equinox! 

To celebrate Fall, I’m delighted to share the latest Seven Senses travel guide. Every season, I publish a new destination, with 7 recommendations for each of your senses. 

This time, I’m taking you to one of my favorite cities: Mexico City. 

I’ve gone twice in the past 18 months and can’t wait to return. It’s a place I could visit a thousand times and there would still be more to discover. 

As with most of my trips, my first trip to Mexico City was prompted by a visit to a friend. I’m grateful to Kristine, founder of Paz Home, who hosted me in her beautiful home in Condesa, and took me to some of her favorite places. Most recommendations on this list were inspired by her exquisite taste.

In recent years, CDMX (Ciudad de México) has become a booming tourist destination. It’s also become an attractive living hub for many young remote-workers, flocking from cosmopolitan centers around the US. And for good reason: the architecture is stunning, the food is incredible, and there’s a rich history and unique blend of cultures.

The first word that comes to mind when I think of Mexico City is alive. The city is bursting with overgrown trees; houses painted bright blue or pale pink; melodies traveling from cart vendors; the scent of cooked onions, tortillas, and fresh limes. The presence of craft, cuisine, and music imbues every space and city nook. 

Fall is one of the best times to go, as the heat subsides and the mosquitoes resign. The end of October also marks one of the most significant Mexican holidays – Day of the Dead – with skeleton decorations, specialty foods and marigolds everywhere. 

If you visit Mexico City, I hope the following guide will help you experience the richness and magic of this city. Here are 7 sights, 7 sounds, 7 smells, 7 tastes, 7 touch, 7 ways to balance, and 7 images to help you envision your adventure. 

Travel Guides are for Paying Subscribers only. You can upgrade any time to access them. Your support helps sustain Seven Senses.

In Joy,

Sabrina

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When I’m in Paris, I’m both home and a tourist. I grew up in France from the age of 5 to 18, but lived many miles away from the capital, in a small town in the French Alps. 

So being in Paris is both novel and comforting. I speak the language fluently and have dear friends who always host me. But I always feel like a newcomer, walking through the snail-shaped city, in awe and wonder. 

It’s been years since I visited the capital during the summer time. I forgot how the sun sets at 10pm and the terraces brim with the lively energy of passionate conversations. The scent of jasmine and linden trees transport you through the cobbled streets. 

Paris is the ultimate sensual city and the perfect place for the first Seven Senses travel guide. 

You won’t find the Eiffel Tour nor the Louvres listed here – instead I explore the unbeaten path, with the help of my dearest friend and local artist, Anne Lauroz. 

I put together an extensive list of Parisian treats: 7 sights, 7 sounds, 7 smells, 7 tastes, 7 touch, 7 ways to balance, and 7 images to help you envision your next trip. 

Travel Guides are for Paying Subscribers only. You can upgrade any time to access them. Your support sustains this publication, and is much appreciated. 

In Joy,

Sabrina

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Today’s a New Moon and I’m trying something new. 

I’ve been publishing Seven Senses for 9 months now. Every full moon, I offer you a curated list of 7 creative explorations for your senses.

It’s been a wonderful experience so far, offering me a space to converge all my interests and share my art and writing.  Each month, I learn so much by diving into topics such as Creative Faith, Time, Love, Originality, Grief, etc.  It’s also given me the chance to connect with an incredible array of writers, artists, and seekers – slowly forming a like-minded community. 

The reason I chose to publish Seven Senses on Substack is because the platform is ad-free and enables writers to be compensated for their work. Similarly to public radio, which runs on listener’s donations, Substack offers a reader-supported model. 

Seven Senses is a labor of joy - but it is nonetheless labor. Every topic demands several weeks of research, writing and editing. I only publish once a month because that’s how long each issue takes. I craft with care and curate with intention. The more time I spend on each issue, the better quality you receive. 

So in the spirit of reciprocity, I’m opening the door to paid subscriptions. If you gain value from Seven Senses and are in a financial position to support, you can now do so for $5/month or $50/year. Your financial contributions will sustain Seven Senses. 

Paid subscribers will also get access to exclusive content, including:

- Seasonal Travel Guides: Every season, I’ll be sharing travel guides that include 7 recommendations for each of our senses (see, hear, smell, taste, touch, balance, and envision).  They’ll be published 4 times a year, on the Solstice and Equinox. The first destination is coming out next week (June 21st!). 

- Discounts on Kenshō collectibles, events and workshops. 

- Analog surprises. Once in a blue moon, I’ll send you a creative gift in the mail. 

I’m excited to continue growing this publication and this community. Thanks for being part of the journey.

In Joy,

Sabrina