Off the Beaten Path: LTD visits the Orkney Islands at the 59ºN Latitude

The Orkney Islands are off the beaten path but such a meaningful and beautiful place to visit!

Enjoy our visit and wait for our visit to the Ring of Brogdar at the end of the video below! The spellbinding stone circle - the Ring of Brodgar - is arguably the most iconic symbol of Orkney's prehistoric past. It is a site of ritual and ceremony, and hauntingly beautiful.

Stuck in the North Sea just beyond the tip of Scotland, the Orkney Islands often fail to register with tourists, but are FILLED with beauty and history. Too often, they're excluded from the map of Europe’s worthwhile hot spots. And with a latitude of 59ºN, they’re definitely not tropical: you won’t find white sand beaches and hammocks strung up between coconut trees here.

Instead, this scattered archipelago of 70 islands — two thirds of which are uninhabited — has a time-worn, slightly mystical charm of its own. All day we had Outlander on the mind! Like Claire and Jamie, we visited cliff top vistas, sat among heather fields, and dare we say, stood amount standing stones! You will see it all on the Orkney Islands, travelers will be rewarded with storm-battered cliffs, ancient stone circles, and ominous-looking “sea stacks,” which rise from the churning blue water like swords.

They might appear far away, but for travelers, these islands are entirely accessible by air or sea. Kirkwall is a thriving capital with shops and tour operators, frequent ferry service connecting the islands, and Europe’s highest concentration of ancient Neolithic sites (all of which are open to visitors). From the moment we arrived, we felt the warm embrace of the locals eager to tell us about their home.

Get yourself a great pair of European travel shoes the color of the Ocean to help you anticipate your Scottish Adventure!  Click the photo to learn more:

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Your Guide to the 40 Most Meaningful and Healthy Holiday Gifts for the Traveler you Love (That They Will Actually LIKE)

Share is an important word for traveling and we see it more and more every year! Our favorite gifts will help capture those memories, inspire future adventures, and make life on the road healthier and more meaningful.

Share the Gift of Meaningful and Healthy Travel!

The purpose of our blog is to share with you everything we have learned to make Meaningful and Healthy Travel happen! We only recommend products that we use or would buy for friends! Please BUY or SHARE this post to support our blog and keep it going! THANK YOU!

Each product we feature has been independently selected and reviewed by our editorial team. If you make a purchase using the links included, we may earn commission.

1.  Freeday Gear Collapsible Water Bottle for the Healthy Traveler

 LTD always stresses that healthy traveling is important for everyone!  This collapsible water bottle is designed to be a perfect companion while your favorite travelers are following their passion. So whether they love travel, camping, backpacking, sports, exercise or just wandering and dreaming, we think you will find this stylish water bottle to be a perfect accessory.  At a reasonable price, why not give a healthy and practical gift?

2.  The Dichotomy of Leadership for the Professional

From the #1 New York Times bestselling authors of Extreme Ownership comes a new and revolutionary approach to help leaders recognize and attain the leadership balance crucial to victory.

With their first book, Extreme Ownership (published in October 2015), Jocko Willink and Leif Babin set a new standard for leadership, challenging readers to become better leaders, better followers, and better people, in both their professional and personal lives. Now, in THE DICHOTOMY OF LEADERSHIP, Jocko and Leif dive even deeper into the unchartered and complex waters of a concept first introduced in Extreme Ownership: finding balance between the opposing forces that pull every leader in different directions. Here, Willink and Babin get granular into the nuances that every successful leader must navigate.

3.  Our Favorite Smart Watch for the Active Traveler

The Garmin Fenix 5X has an enormous number of features, a long-lasting battery and an attractive  build. It's expensive, but for serious outdoor travel enthusiasts it's hard to beat.  The GPS features of this watch are unrivaled and work all over the world.  This is a high-performance timepiece that meets big challenges and fits smaller wrists. This Plus version comes in many finishes and holds about 500 songs.  Anyone would love to receive this special gift!

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LuxuryTravelDocs Gives 5 ⭐️ Stars to SpearHead-Tours.com for Your Visit to Normandy, France!

This Veterans Day Americans around the world will honor their fellow citizens who have served their country.

LTD had the honor of visiting American D-Day Normandy Sites with Florin Petre, owner of www.SpearHead-Tours.com.  The Normandy landings were the landing operations on Tuesday, June 6, 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II.  Enjoy our interview with Florin, and a view of our day together.  Wait for the end to understand how meaningful a day this was for us and every visitor to Normandy.  That is what it is all about...

Florin makes the day meaningful by including many stories about the INDIVIDUALS who participated in the D-Day invasion of Normandy.  Here are a couple of the stories we heard and the souls whom we visited:

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LTD Interviews Harry Lockhead and Chronicles His Amazing Life as an Early Navy SEAL in WWII

What is Meaningful Travel?

The origins of Navy SEALs actually began with specially organized maritime commando units during World War II, where legacy capabilities were adopted and remain embodied in today’s SEAL Teams.

LTD likes to “Make Meaningful and Healthy Travel Happen”, but what is meaningful travel?  In this case, “Meaningful” is speaking with Harry Lockhead as we will chronicle some of his amazing life before, during and after WWII. In a series of interviews we will speak with him about being part of the “Greatest Generation” and how he and our country came together to save the world from the global aggression of WWII in both Europe and the Pacific.  We have a rare chance to discuss that time, the recovery after WWII and our current state of affairs.  These individuals are “perishable national treasures” and are becoming rarer everyday.

Harry enlisted on March 1^st, 1943 in New York and went to Navy Boot Camp in Great Lakes, Michigan.  He boarded the USS Glansar (AK 111) in Pleasanton, California and proceeded to the American Somoan Islands, then the Mariana Islands and then to the Marshall Islands.  En route a concussion split the hull of the ship and a patch was placed until they could reach Pearl Harbor they hoped to have it permanently repaired.  On arrival, all the docks were full with ships under repair so their ship was run aground to prevent it from sinking.  

Their crew was then shipped to Seattle, Washington and assigned to put the USS Lenawee (APA 195) into commission and then sailed to San Diego, California where they picked up a company of Marines.  They then sailed to Tarawa in the Gilbert Islands where one of the bloodiest battles of the Pacific occurred.  Harry was part of one of the groups that delivered the Marines landing on Tarawa.  He wanted to do more after witnessing this carnage first hand and when the Navy asked for volunteers to become reconnaissance swimmers and Harry volunteered immediately.  They went to Naval Combat Demolition Base in Maui, Hawaii and would become some of the first Underwater Demolition Teams (UDTs) and what is now the famed “Naked Warriors”.  

Please listen to the firsthand accounts from Harry as he shares his amazing life and heroic past to allow us all “meaningful” lives today.

Make Healthy and Meaningful Travel Happen! 

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