Cold plunging into the Irish Sea changed me
I emerged and felt reborn.
When you’re lucky enough to work at a place like Lonely Planet, the thing that changes you often starts with a recommendation, a bullet in an itinerary or a suggestion from a friend that hits you at exactly the right moment. Oftentimes, you didn’t know it was what was missing; in retrospect, it feels so obvious, it becomes part of who you are. In honor of the new year and the spirit of renewal it inspires, we’re here to share travel experiences that changed us.
Mine looked like this:
Hi, I’m Nitya, Executive Editor of Lonely Planet, and cold plunging into the Irish Sea changed me for life.
On the rugged, damp cliffs of Sandycove, it was a cool, crisp night in early April. At 7:15pm, the rock underfoot was sturdy and wet, every shade of gray imaginable with touches of copper and orange where it was blessed by the setting sun. The sea beyond was blue, undulating, and hypnotic for as long as you could see until it melted into the horizon.
Pause: I realize I’m kind of late to the party on Forty Foot; it’s certainly not my discovery. And so I share this with deepest respect for James Joyce, Bad Sisters, and the centuries of Irish people and their ancestors who have spent time immemorial experiencing the beauty and renewal of this baptism by sea.
But I think all would appreciate the month I’d had preceding that brought me to the southernmost tip of Dublin Bay. Life - real life - felt unmoored and untethered: parental hospitalization (everyone is fine now!); a series of balls I dropped on managing family schedules and calendars (the kind that don’t matter in the end but make you feel like a failure in the moment); followed by the anxiety of existential uncertainty, real and imagined. (And, yes of course, it was Mercury Retrograde layered atop the Spring Equinox.)
So I was eager to reclaim the narrative through this sea swim - lol, no pressure! It was an action that felt sure, intentional, and fully within my control. My small way of telling the universe I would not be defeated by a March of bad news dominos, that I - adventurous, bold, joyful, open - was still here: thriving, learning, and challenging myself, seeking experiences that transformed and changed me.
And it did.
Sure, I wasn’t the person who went to the top of the highest cliff and jumped feet first into 46-degree water. Instead, I simply went calf-deep down the ladder where the ocean showed me her power, seizing my muscles in her cold grip.
I climbed out, psyched myself up, and went back in, ultimately swimming from the steps near the changing area to the ladder at the far rock ledge.
I emerged and felt reborn. Like I’d alchemized the things that weighed me down into something magical, euphoric, and free.
Two days later, I was on my way to the airport and my fifty-something cab driver asked me if I’d gotten my Dublin sight-seeing in.
“What did you do?” He’d asked, politely but distractedly, “Temple Bar? Guinness Storehouse?”
“I took the DART to Sandycove and swam at Forty Foot,” I said.
He straightened in his seat to give me a proud and bemused nod: “Oh, f*ck.”
And just like that, it had become a part of me. I was someone who did those things, rather than someone who thought they might. My tone was matter-of-fact but eager (and secretly hoping to ride the high of my swim one last time with a local who appreciated the reference).
The driver shared his annual decades-long tradition of cold swimming on Christmas morning, a moment that’s just before his house fills with family. It was the first time I’d gotten a taste of the community that surrounds cold plunging; my rite of passage at Forty Foot anointed me a member.
The incredible thing about cold plunging is that you can do it anywhere: for free or for fancy. And so I did: bathtub, bathhouse, glacial lake, and back to the Irish Sea. Expanding with my family - Mindfuel Method in Pittsburgh’s Strip District with my dad.
The Taggart and Bradley lake loops at Grand Teton National Park with my husband and kids.
And another round with Dublin-based colleagues in the Irish Sea, this time Bull Island and Vico.
Experiences like these rarely stay singular. Personal resets often have a way of rippling outward - into rituals, into relationships, into the stories we tell ourselves about who we are and who we’re becoming.
When I reflect, the swim was more than cold water and courage, it was about choosing renewal when life felt heavy, and discovering how travel - in all its forms - can quietly and decisively change us.
It’s the same spark behind so many of the stories we hear and tell at Lonely Planet: the trips, detours, and small acts of bravery that become part of who we are.
On the topic of change, there is really no better place to do that than against the clean slate of the New Year: equal parts vision board, unbridled hope, and the chance to find versions of ourselves still undiscovered who have been with us the whole time. The quiet recognition that a single experience, chosen at the right moment, can recalibrate everything.
And so finally, without further ado or pictures of cold water, I’m here to kick off a multi-part series on experiences that changed us, from the curious and intrepid Get Lost team.
Enjoy the read(s),
Nitya
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adore
I love this. Just what I needed to read on Jan 1.