40 year old Mom. Wife. Daughter. Sister. Worker. Goal-Setter. Dream-Maker. Lover of all things creative. Enemy of stasis and boredom. Person who just really likes to go places and do things and can’t really afford to pay for all of them the regular old way so had to research and plan and figure things out to have amazingly amazing experiences that generally can’t even be put into words. But I’m going to try.
As far back as I can remember, I had a desire to see the world. In the Nature vs. Nurture debate, this would go strictly on the side of Nature. I did not grow up in a travelling family, for various reasons. We had tons of fun experiences and lots of family time, but travel was not at the top of the list of things that we did. Nonetheless, some of my fondest memories are of trips we took to California and Florida. And we did live in a few different states: Pennsylvania, Ohio, and New Hampshire. As I got older and was able to do (some) things on my own, I started to venture out and travel as much as my very limited budget would allow. Then I discovered Points & Miles, and my whole travel game changed.
For the past 15 years, my husband and I have been using Points & Miles to travel in a manner that would not be supported by our current incomes. We both have jobs that we love (completely and totally unrelated to travel), but we do not travel for work. At all. Except to get in our cars and drive there. One of my goals is to give details here about how we earn free travel and to show that almost anyone can do it. Realistic travel for real families on a budget. Over the past few years, as the kids have gotten older, we have been able to take more & more family trips. My ultimate hope is that my children can step outside of their comfort zones to see and experience things that will shape their lives. Or at the very least, they can say that they have been to all 50 states (and hopefully a bunch of other countries and continents as well) before they go off to live their own lives as adults. Or resent me for making them trek all over the place (but I hope not).
About the American Travel Project:
I decided to focus my travel goals when I realized that there are just so many wonderful places to see and visit, and not enough time to do it all. Literally. I don’t have unlimited vacation time, and my kids are in school, so we have to make choices about where we are going to go when we do have time to go somewhere. I have always thought that it would be really cool to visit all 50 states, so we are making that our goal for the next 10 years. We will travel as a family most of the time. We also will not limit ourselves strictly to these travel destinations, but are open to travel that seems right to us at the time. You can read more about the project here.