Hey, everyone. My name is Meredith Carey, and you're listening to Women Who Travel, a podcast from Connie

Nass Traveler. With me in the studio today, as always is my co-host, Laliara Coglue. Hello.

And calling in, we have a very special guest, Olympic medalist and five-time Grand Slam

winner Maria Sharapova. Thanks to tennis,

she spends 25 weeks a year on the road, so we thought who better to question about travel.

Thank you so much for joining us, Maria. Thank you for having me.

So I wanted to kick off with maybe what seems like an obvious question, but as Meredith's just said, you spend,

I know, half the year on the road traveling and, you know, playing in tournaments and training

takes you to all sorts of amazing places around the world. And, you know, as with any job when

you travel, it can sometimes be hard to actually experience that place. And I'd love to know

what kind of like routines you use and tricks for getting to see a snapshot of a place when you visit it.

Well, when you say it like that, it feels like I'm never home, which is very true, because I just go home after being away for almost three months.

And I was going to meet a few friends and go to a local restaurant.

I was like, wait, what do we have around here?

It's been so long.

So I do travel a lot, and I could talk about it all day long because I love to travel. I love

experiences. I love cultures and meeting people. I think that's one of the best ways to grow

and it's one of my favorite activities. Playing and competing and traveling is tricky because

while you're excited to be visiting these incredible cities that I get to plan,

a lot of my job is to be focused on what I'm there to do, and my job is very physical.

And so the recovery aspect is very important.

So I do spend a lot of time in hotel rooms in those amazing cities.

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