Cross-Country Road Trip 2025: Wyoming Reset

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I hope this finds you well.

Welcome to another edition of The Matt Viera Newsletter.

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It’s been a whirlwind week.

We landed back in Brooklyn last Tuesday after over five weeks in Italy.

Two days later, we were packing the car and heading west for a cross-country drive to Wyoming.

It was ambitious, maybe too ambitious.

In hindsight, I wouldn’t recommend going from an international trip to a cross-country road trip with a two-day turnaround time.

A week would’ve been wiser.

Still, I’m grateful we made the push.

The road had its share of unexpected turns: a family dinner stop in Cleveland, a severe thunderstorm that forced us off the road in Rockford, Illinois, and a long drive to make up for lost time before finally making it to mid-South Dakota.

Somewhere near Chamberlain (South Dakota), the landscape shifted to vast open skies, endless plains, and a feeling of space you can’t capture in a photo.

By the time we reached the cabin in Wyoming (yesterday), a few hours before check-in, I felt the exhaustion lifting.

And now, I’m here.

But here’s what this week has reminded me: not all time off should be filled.

Italy was about discovery: wandering cobblestone streets, finding new restaurants, soaking in history.

Wyoming is about emptiness: the kind of space where nothing has to happen unless you want it to.

Both are valuable, but in different ways.

And sometimes it’s the “do nothing” kind of time that ends up giving you the deepest clarity.

For the next week, I don’t plan to do much.

I’ll hike, work lightly on personal projects, and enjoy steak most evenings.

But unlike Italy, there’s no pressure to “see it all.”

That’s one of the reasons I come to Wyoming: there are no checklists. No must-see sights. No urgency.

Just room to breathe.

From here, we’re hoping to make it to Glacier National Park and Grasslands National Park before heading back east.

It’ll be tight, especially since I need to be back in the office on September 2.

But whether or not we make it that far doesn’t matter as much as being here, in the present.

What’s the point of all this?

The point is to remind you that if your breaks from work are filled with more “work,” you’re missing the point.

Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is nothing at all.

To sit, breathe, and let clarity find you.

That’s what Wyoming gives me.

And it’s something you don’t need to travel across the country to practice.

You can start wherever you are.

Because if you can’t slow down now, when will you?

Reminder: I'll have to play it by ear with respect to publishing articles on 8/26/25 and 9/2/25 because I'll be driving cross-country out west and may not have the time or connectivity.

If I can, I assure you I will.

Quote that caught my attention:

“The trick is, when there is nothing to do, do nothing.”

—Warren Buffett

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