New Adventures

It's always been a dream of mine to travel the world with my family. I didn't travel a lot as a kid, and didn't even get a passport until I was in my 20s. My first international trip was to Munich & Prague with my fiance when I was 25, and it changed my life. I didn't want to do anything else. But alas, bills. So I returned to my 9-5 teaching job while my husband started his career as a dentist. We traveled a few times - back to Germany along with Italy, Spain and France as well as some local trips closeby, but travel was expensive and we were poor. Five years later, we were married and had our first baby. Bought a house, renovated it, had another baby, bought another house and sold the first, renovated the new one, had another baby. Opened and ran a few small businesses (etsy, photography). The years passed quickly and all of a sudden I had 3 little girls, a photography business and a big house to maintain. When my youngest (now 8) was a newborn, my middle (now 10) was in daycare and my oldest (now 12) was in preschool, I had the fleeting thought that I wanted to be one of those families that traveled full time. But that was crazy. A year later, we booked our first flight to NYC, and a few months after getting back from that trip, I booked our first international trip to Iceland for my oldest daughter's spring break (she was in Kindergarten). A few weeks before our Iceland trip, I withdrew my daughter from school and started homeschooling, so our Iceland trip ended up being the first trip we did homeschoolers, and the start of 7 years of adventures on the road and around the globe (we're still homeschooling and I now run a homeschool hybrid with classes 3 days a week). I got a free blog all those years ago and thought I'd post there, but I didn't. I did take a lot of pictures and post them on Facebook. The market was just too saturated and there was no upside to starting a blog in my mind. Looking back, I wish I'd have taken it more seiously, because since that first trip 7years ago, we've traveled to 19 countries with our 3 girls. I've spent countless hours researching, planning, researching some more, searching for deals, reading reviews, booking trips, rebooking trips, packing allllll the things, then packing very few things (we've been carryon only for the past 5 years), flying red-eyes, flying daytime, flying non-stop for 10hrs and 24+hr days with multiple layovers....the list goes on and on. I wish I would have been more proactive in keeping a blog. Sharing tips, sharing our journey, and making connections in the travel industry. But I didn't. It was too much work with no percieved reward, so I just posted on Facebook and the years went by. So far this year, we've been to Argentina, Uruguay, the Falkland Islands, Chile, almost Antarctica, Switerland, Germany, Lichtenstein & Austria. We have a quick 3 day Bahamas cruise coming up in a few weeks, and a 2.5 week trip to Singapore and Thailand booked for Dec-Jan. As I research and book our Thailand itinerary, I'm looking ahead to spring break in March - should we do a cruise in the Middle East? Maybe the Canary Islands? Or Japan? We only have 10 days, but we've done 10 days each in Ireland, Iceland and Morocco and those were perfect. There are too many options - I want to see it all!! The thought occured to me as I was booking things that I should look into travel blogging again, and maybe look into a travel business of some sort. So here I am - 7 years into traveling not full time, but pretty extensively as a family of 5. My husband works full time as a dentist for a company, and I work (more than) full time running my microschool and homeschooling our 3 girls. But there's always time for travel, so why not document it. Here's to new adventures <3