Buenos días, dear readers

There was no week 6, and week 7 is late, because I’ve been (mostly) offline. And it was absolutely bloody marvellous, so I’m not apologising.

I’m writing this 33,000 feet over the Caribbean Sea, heading home after an incredible trip to Colombia. This country was a glaring omission from my earlier South American adventures—frankly embarrassing, given how much time I’ve spent on this continent. So it seemed like the perfect place to hit my 80-countries-visited milestone.

I travelled with Flash Pack—again. They specialise in high-end, high-energy group trips for solo travellers. Which, in reality, mostly means women. Because, let’s be honest, most men would rather miss out on a brilliant experience than admit they’re nervous about going somewhere alone.

This was my fourth trip with them (last one: 2024/week 42), and as usual, it was a high-octane sprint through three destinations and three weeks’ worth of activity in nine days. Equal parts thrilling and exhausting, designed for people who are determined to live the absolute shit out of life. My people.

Highlights included:

• Getting a crash course in Bogotá’s past and present via its banging street art scene
• Trying my hand at Tejo, a bar game that involves throwing a metal ball at some gunpowder, and despite a heroically shite performance and a police raid, surviving with both hands intact
• Conquering El Peñón de Guatapé. Less a hike, more an extended queue at altitude. Not quite “27 hours to shuffle past the Queen’s coffin” queuing, but a strong contender for the Queue Hall of Fame. The view from the top was worth it, mind.
• Visiting Medellín’s Comuna 13. Once a violent slum, now a riot of colour, music, and ice-cold micheladas
• A 17-course tasting menu at El Cielo, including a course where I licked chocolate off my own hands like a feral child, and an onion ice cream that was far tastier than it had any right to be
• Taking a salsa lesson, then, fuelled by rum, putting my newfound skills to use dancing with a man in a giant inflatable mouse costume
• Sailing to an island in the Caribbean, jumping into the sea, and ordering a ludicrous piña colada in a hollowed-out pineapple from a bloke in a kayak

Another perk of a trip like this? Someone else sorts out all the logistics. You just show up and enjoy. If something goes sideways, there’s a Pack Leader. In this case, a man called Oscar—part guide, part miracle worker, with the patience of a monastery full of monks and the problem-solving skills of a seasoned diplomat—who took it all in his stride. For control freaks people like me, the real luxury isn’t the boutique hotels or the fancy dinners. It’s the rare, beautiful feeling of letting someone else take the reins without worrying you’re missing out.

Colombia in slightly more photos than anyone’s really interested in:

More so than usual, this trip made me reflect. It’s impossible not to compare it to my first time in South America, 23 years ago. A time before smartphones, Google Translate, or even the vaguest semblance of common sense.

For reasons that presumably made sense at the time, I—a person who had travelled solo exactly once—decided to move to Bolivia on a whim.

The trip started badly. A two-night layover in Miami led to a wild night out with some nurses from New Jersey, the reckless expenditure of a month’s worth of spending money, and nearly missing my flight because I slept through check-out.

I arrived in Bolivia with zero Spanish. I’d bought a Lonely Planet phrasebook and skim-read six pages of it on the plane. By the time I landed, I could say “hello” and count to eight. And that was it.

A couple of days in, I sat on my bed in the random houseshare I’d moved into and thought: what the actual fuck have I done? Then I cried my eyes out. But I survived.

More than that: it changed me. When you’re thousands of miles from home with no one to rely on, you grow up fast. I learned the language (well, enough of it). I found a confidence – and a maturity –  I never knew I had. Getting on that plane was the kick up the arse I didn’t realise I needed.

Since then, I’ve been back to South America plenty of times, usually with my (now) husband. But this was my first time doing it solo since that first trip. And in the intervening years I’ve moved country three times, learned two languages, visited 66 more countries, started a successful business, and built a life I never thought possible back then.

I wish I could tell 2002 Sharon how it all turned out. But honestly, she’d never believe me.

Consuming

👩🏻‍💻 Internetting
Bits of digital lint caught in my browser’s belly-button

• Research by McKinsey finds that for all the bloviating over RTO mandates, the office experience still mostly sucks for a lot of people. In a tight job market, talent has to suck it up. But as soon as the pendulum swings, as it inevitably will, your best employees will jump ship for places that offer a better employee experience and quality of life. Forbes have a summary of the research here.

📺 Watching
What’s on my telly
I watched Lee on the plane out here. A sharp-elbowed biopic of the model-turned-war photographer Elizabeth “Lee” Miller, who smashed through the glass ceiling with a camera in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Kate Winslet embodies her with grit and fury, trudging through the horrors of WWII while men in uniform try (and fail) to sideline her. A story of talent, trauma, and telling the patriarchy to get stuffed. Perfect material for the journey out to meet a troop of boss women, on reflection.

📚 Reading

Downloaded five books to my Kindle to read on this trip. Managed 0.4 books, or 41% of Killing Pablo: The true story behind the hit series ‘Narcos’ (a hit series I’ve never watched, but never mind).

Tl;dr: El Patrón was a bit of a shit.

🎧 Listening

A heady mix of salsa, raggaeton and Chappell Roan. Eclectic is my middle name*.

* it isn’t. It’s Margaret.

🧳 Travelling

Nothing coming up for a few weeks. Yay.

Coverage

I was interviewed for this piece in Reworked on why organisations have invested in collaboration tools but aren’t seeing the benefits.

Too often, employees default to email and chat instead of using shared channels—leading to confusion, lost information, and burnout. Many of these habits were cemented when organisations rushed to roll out Microsoft 365 and other tools during the pandemic, without the time or training to support real behavioural change.

The key takeaways:

• Create a team charter: Set shared expectations for when to use email, chat, and channels
• Equip managers: If leaders don’t use channels properly, their teams won’t either
• Customise notifications: A little time spent tweaking settings can reduce noise and improve focus