Personal
Meg's Story
- Surgery
- RNY
- Date
- March 2022
- Meg Sytnick, HMCC, MMP
For more than two decades, travel has been the lens through which I’ve experienced connection, growth, and transformation.
Long before Bari Adventures existed, I built my career in the travel and meetings industry — designing experiences rooted in movement, logistics, human connection, and the power of bringing people together.
In 2021, I made the decision to move forward with bariatric surgery. It was a deeply personal decision, but also a thoughtful one rooted in my long-term health, future, and quality of life.
What many people do not realize is that my journey was not simply about weight.
Prior to the pandemic, I was curvy, active, traveling constantly, building my career, and fully engaged in my life. But after navigating long-haul COVID and other related health challenges, my body changed in ways I could not have anticipated. I found myself navigating entirely new physical realities, including reaching a weight of 289 pounds and experiencing a level of disconnect from my health that no longer felt aligned with the life I wanted to continue building.
That experience shifted something for me.
Not because I suddenly lacked confidence or ambition, but because I recognized that I wanted more for my future self — more mobility, more longevity, more freedom, more ease, and more capacity to continue experiencing the world fully.
And that distinction matters to me.
My decision to pursue bariatric surgery was never about becoming a different person. It was about creating greater alignment between the life I envisioned for myself and the way I was physically moving through the world.
In March 2022, I underwent gastric bypass surgery. As I moved through recovery and eventually returned to travel, I realized something significant: there was space for a different kind of experience within the bariatric community.
Not simply trips.
Not performative wellness.
Not perfectly curated social media moments.
But thoughtfully designed experiences created by someone who genuinely understood the journey from the inside.
That realization became Bari Adventures.
Today, I bring together lived experience and more than 20 years of professional expertise in travel, meetings, and event design to create experiences rooted in connection, exploration, wellness, and community.
As an HMCC holder and certified Medical Meeting Planner, I approach every experience with both structure and empathy — balancing thoughtful logistics with the understanding that transformation continues long after surgery.
Because travel is never just about the destination.
It is about perspective.
Confidence.
Connection.
Expansion.
And reconnecting with yourself through the experience of exploring something new.
That is the heart behind Bari Adventures — and the deeper purpose behind the work I continue to build today.