"I felt like an explorer. And I'm just getting started." 

You’re bound to have come across Chef Mareya. Known as The Fit Foodie, she's a holistic nutritionist, bestselling author of Eat Like You Give a Fork, host of The Real Dish podcast, and a familiar face on food TV and morning shows across the US. A passionate advocate for clean living, sustainability and reducing food waste, she's spent 30 years making healthy eating feel like something worth getting excited about. 

One Life-changing Trip

Ask Mareya Ibrahim-Jones to sum up her Lisbon and Sintra In Style walking trip, and she doesn't hesitate. 

"Life-changing." 

She pauses, then adds: "Seamless. From start to finish, there were no hiccups at all." 

That seamlessness started the moment she arrived. Their transfer driver, Susanna, was waiting at the train station. "She reached out and said, 'Hey, I'm here in the train station.' I was like, you are? Wow. Because we are too." It set the tone for everything that followed. 

Mareya is the kind of traveler who sits in the front seat. Literally. "Whenever I could, I sat up front to interview the drivers - to understand more about who they are and what they love about Portugal. That local experience, those conversations - they were a huge part of what I really enjoyed." 

The Hiking. Oh, The Hiking. 

"The most incredible hiking I've ever done in my entire life," she says, with complete conviction. "And I loved how varied it was. We were in the middle of forests, then on the coast overlooking these massive cliffs jutting into the ocean. We walked across meadows. Through ancient villages. Every part of the hike was something I'll never forget." 

What struck her most was the solitude. Many days, they'd encounter a handful of other people on the trail at most. "Even though it was self-guided, it had the feel of a private tour. We were just... alone out there. It was so freeing." 

She's clear about what that means for the way she'll travel from now on: "People who only see a country by visiting the major tourist spots in a city are missing out on the experience of their life. The more I was hiking, the less I wanted to be in the touristy areas." 

Standing At the Edge of The World 

There was one moment, though, that rose above the rest. The route led Mareya and her husband - via a small diversion of their own making - to Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point of continental Europe.  

"I just felt like an explorer. It was so liberating. My husband caught me literally pointing at it - so excited." She laughs. "We felt like explorers of the new world, even though we weren't the first to do it. But it cracked open this definite desire to want to explore more." 

The trail to that point hadn't even been on the map. They'd gone off-route, off-plan, off-script - and found something extraordinary. Their driver picked them up without a second thought. That flexibility, she says, made all the difference. 

"You don't have to stop living in your midlife. You can just start. I feel like I'm doing things now that I never did when I was younger - I either didn't have the time because I was building my business, or I was raising kids. Time is the biggest luxury we can invest in." 

The Hotel That Gave Her Goosebumps 

The trip's first property - Areias do Seixo - stopped Mareya in her tracks. "The most beautiful place I've ever stayed in my entire life," she says. "I don't know if I would have ever found it on my own." 

The rooms don't have numbers - they have names. Poetry is written on the doors. The bathroom had a massive candelabra, a gorgeous tub, and a fireplace in front of it, with firewood provided. "And then you open the door, and there's this pathway that takes you to an incredible clifftop. Just talking about it is giving me goosebumps." 

"It wasn't like staying in a hotel," she reflects. "It unlocked something. It ignited things. Some hotels you stay in, and you feel like you're just staying in a hotel - this was a whole experience." 

Food for The Soul (and The Trail) 

As a nutritionist, Mareya brought a certain intentionality to the food on the trip - but she also gave herself full permission to enjoy it. "I ate dessert every day. At home, I don't do that. But that's the point of a vacation." 

The breakfast buffets at every hotel left her speechless. She ordered off the menu when she needed to keep portions in check. She packed sandwiches and fruit for the trail - sometimes picnicking on a beach, sometimes at a monastery, sometimes perched on a rock in the forest with an ocean view below. 

"Anybody can sit in a restaurant," she says. "Those picnics - that was the real thing. That was my #Macsmoment." 

The standout meal was a beautifully presented whole John Dory at Areias do Seixo - ordered without realizing it was a whole fish, which she laughs about now. And then there was Portugal's greatest obsession, one she's brought home with her: tinned fish. "The artistry and quality are just next level. I collected about a dozen tins and brought them all home." She even tried a 75-euro tin of cockles, served simply with bread and olive oil. "Simple as that. And it was brilliant." 

Oh, and the pastel de nata? "Highly addictive. Highly dangerous. So unbelievably good." 

Why Self-guided? Let Her Tell You. 

Mareya had never done a self-guided walking trip before. She's already plotting her next one. 

"There is no way I would do a vacation on a bus with a group and flags. No chance. This is for people who want to explore but want the freedom to go off the map when they need to. And the Macs Adventure app is really good - turn by turn, tracks you without Wi-Fi, lets you know if you've drifted off the path." 

She's also certain about what self-guided isn't: lonely. "It's not like you don't have anyone to interact with. The drivers, the briefing from Susanna at the start - it's all there. But the core of it lets you really just experience the place." 

On one stretch, they chatted to Portuguese fishermen casting lines off a cliff edge, their catch laid out to show off. In a tiny village - barely more than a church and a cafe - she sat on the porch with locals and pieced together a conversation with her patchwork of languages. "I want to be woven into the culture. Not segregated from it. As soon as I heard people speaking English, I was like, let's get out of here." 

Where Next? 

"Travel is a little bit of a drug," Mareya admits. "You taste it, and you're just like, okay, when's the next one? Where am I going next?" 

Greece is high on the list. So are the Amalfi Coast and Provence. Somewhere, she's already mentally packing her bag. 

But it's perhaps this, more than anything, that captures what the trip gave her: 

"Anytime you walk, it's self-discovery. It's meditation, introspection. Being able to walk on any trip - that's just such a big part of what we should do as travelers exploring. Portugal will forever have my heart. And I'm just getting started." 

Ready to walk the same trails as Mareya? Explore our Lisbon & Sintra In Style trip.