I really like having travel goals. It makes my constant daydreaming about far-off places a more manageable beast to control. When I think about planning my next trip, which could be next month or 5 years from now, I have a tendency to get bogged down with all of the amazing possibilities that exist. I mean, who wouldn’t want to visit Machu Picchu or snorkel in the Great Barrier Reef! My “bucket list” could fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool. So I had this brilliant idea to narrow things down a bit. To make my wanderlust a bit more focused. Plus, I really, really love this country of mine, and I know that there are endless places to explore and enjoy. It would take more than an entire lifetime to fully experience each state, I do realize that. My goal here is to tackle as much as I can (with a job, family, budget, and very full life outside of my travel obsession) in the next 10 years (yes, you can do the math, I just turned 40).
These are the reasons why I decided to start this blog on a cold and snowy day in Pennsylvania:
- People have been telling me for years “you should write a book, start a website, become a travel agent, yadda, yadda”. If I had a nickel for every time I heard that, I would probably have about a dollar.
- I read travel blogs all the time & I know that I can do justice to the genre
- With my goal in mind, I hope that I can help some other hopeless wanderers along the way who are looking for ideas, inspiration and some amazing family travel moments as we all journey through the USA. I don’t mind using my family as the guinea pig for this project!
- To show how travel is accessible for all, even those on a limited budget and those with young kids. By showing how I accumulate and use frequent flyer miles and hotel points to make our trips possible for us, I hope that others can see that this is not just a “someday in the far off future” type of dream. If I can do it, you can do it to.
- To force myself out of my semi-low-tech comfort zone and to teach myself some new technological tricks so that I cannot be outsmarted by my elementary school aged children, who already know way more about things like PowerPoint than I ever have! I need to figure out how to insert things like links and photos…I think I am already in way over my head here!
The plan is to write about trips that have already happened, trip plans in the making, and ideas for future travel. I also like to remember my trips once I am home, and to surround myself with things that make me and my family happy (Bringing the Memories Home). I hope to learn more than I teach, because to me, that is what makes any experience really worthwhile.
We are almost always sad to come home from a great vacation, and we have come up with lots of different creative ideas for bringing our memories home with us and making them a part of our home. Our house is filled with things that remind us of our travels, but we don’t like to spend a lot of money on souvenirs. We have some shelves in our living room that are filled with our sand and seashell collections. They make me happy every time I look at them.
This is our sand collection. I bought the glass vases from a local Habitat for Humanity ReStore. I like supporting a great organization and getting a bargain at the same time! They were each $1.00 or less, so I consider this to be an amazing souvenir bargain. Oh, and the sand was free.
I usually have some kind of water bottle or Ziploc bag with me wherever we go, so it is easy to grab a handful of sand & then label it so I don’t forget where it came from by the time I get home. I have even shipped sand and shells home in a flat rate box from USPS if they are really heavy (ok, this makes it not free, but still). Once I get home, I just pour it into the current vase with space, use a Sharpie glass marker to write where it came from, and enjoy another memory from a great trip!
It is never too late to start something like this. I wish that I had started it years ago, but I didn’t think of it until we were in Hawaii in 2012. I am glad that I went for it & have been doing it ever since. I expect this collection to be huge by the end of the year…
