This fall has been a busy one at Galavante, with our team traveling around the globe to source the best in travel for upcoming features. I have just returned from a big trip to the Middle East, where I was in Oman and Dubai visiting our Co-Founder Sharmila, and her beautiful family.  As Sharmila so aptly puts it, at this point in our lives, we’ve known each other longer than we haven’t known each other. It’s been almost five years and two children since she moved to Dubai, so I was well overdue for a visit.

In grand Murat fashion, they rolled out the red carpet with a circuit of lavish dinners, second-row seats at Fashion Week Dubai, cocktail parties, and their private driver at my disposal. I made good use of my time, visiting over a half dozen hotels, including the mythical 7-star Burj Al Arab. With 24K gold trim everywhere and $70 cocktails, I felt like I had officially arrived in the Middle East.

It never ceases to amaze me how quickly fall evolves into the holiday season. In a few weeks, we’ll be celebrating Thanksgiving, and you’re hard-pressed not to find stores already stocking their Christmas and Hanukkah decorations. I haven’t heard my first Christmas carol yet, but it’s coming.

On our end, we’re putting together the finishing touches for our holiday features, already thinking about those yoga retreats for the New Year, and even planning for Valentine’s Day. But it’s times like this, when we’re looking forward to all the good things to come, that I remember the most important lesson I learned in business school. It wasn’t how to run regression either, but it was from my statistics professor. You can spend your life always looking to the next promotion, the bigger house, the more exclusive country club. And it’s not that those things aren’t important, if that’s what makes you happy. But we hope you stop to enjoy the moment, because unlike travel, life is about the journey, not the destination.