Hi! My name is Kristen and I’m the founder of this travel blog.
My goal is to give you honest, straight to the point travel information so you can have the best vacation.
Like so many other Americans, I don’t get nearly as much vacation time as I’d like. But, I don’t let that stop me from taking some spectacular trips. Whether you’re taking a short weekend trip, a two week vacation, or you’re just looking for a little information as part of a multi-month adventure, I want to be able to help you make the most of your travels.
My Travel Story
This is the part of the website where I tell you how I was an adventurous child. It talks about how I grew up wanting to escape my small town and see the entire world. It seems that’s how every travel blog starts their “About” section. But absolutely none of that is true. At least for me.
I grew up in a small town in Wisconsin and while I always said that my hometown was boring and there wasn’t anything to do, I think deep down I was okay with that. My family summer vacations consisted of weekend trips to campgrounds around northeast Wisconsin. I did travel internationally, but it only consisted of three trips to all inclusive resorts in Mexico. By the time I started college, I hadn’t explored much and didn’t really have much of a desire to do so.
Despite that, I still signed up for a study abroad program and flew to Limerick, Ireland in January 2014. As cliche as it sounds, this is when I really discovered travel and how much I enjoyed it. In my four months of Europe, I traveled all over Ireland as well as some parts of England, Scotland, and Italy. Again, this sounds super cliche, but it’s what happened. I needed to actually get out and travel to see what I was missing.
I returned from my study abroad with dreams of travel, but those dreams had to be put on hold. Instead of traveling, I finished my last year of school. I graduated college and started a “real job” to start paying off the thousands of dollars of student debt I’d accumulated.
It took some time, but three years after leaving Europe, I was finally on a plane back. I spent ten days exploring England and Scotland and had a phenomenal time. It also showed me that even though some time had passed, my wanderlust was still there.
Over the next few years, I traveled at every chance I got, focusing more on solo travel. I was having a wonderful time and it seemed that every year my trips seemed to get just a little more adventurous. I had big plans for the future.
Then came Covid.
Everything, including my travel plans, ground to a halt. I wasn’t traveling and I wasn’t even planning any trips because I had no idea when it would be safe to start traveling again. Still, I kept thinking about travel and what I would do once things actually got back to normal.
It took well over a year before I left Wisconsin again. Even then, it was just across the state line to Iowa, so I barely left the state. But I was traveling again and it felt amazing. The summer of 2021 was sprinkled with long weekend trips around the Midwest. Then in fall, my mom joined me on an epic road trip through the American Southwest and I solo roadtripped through New England. 2022 was even busier with road trips through more of the Midwest, Colorado, and the U.S. East Coast.
Finally in 2023, I traveled internationally again. I went back to Europe on an amazing 10 day journey through France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. And later that year, I flew to South America for the first time and spent 9 days in Chile. I’m back to traveling internationally (which feels amazing!) while also still trying to find time to explore my home country.
Although I don’t get to travel as much as I would like (there’s this pesky thing called a “job” that constantly gets in the way), I still try to travel as often as I can.
So Why Start a Blog?
This actually isn’t my first travel blog. I kept one during my study abroad as a way to keep friends and family updated. I treated it more as an after thought and it has long since been deleted.
As I’ve traveled more, the idea of a blog has always been in the back of my head. I love to talk about travel, but my friends and family don’t necessarily want to listen to every little detail that I have to share.
The period of no travel during the height of the Coronavirus pandemic made me start revisiting my old trips. One day, out of boredom, I wrote the first draft of an article. Since then, I’ve revised, written more, and decided that I want to share it with the rest of the world.
Want to read more? Check out my favorites page which has my favorite stories from the blog.