As I have written, I was born and raised in Manhattan, New York. My parents were both teachers and worked in sleep-away camp during the summer. My grandparents were “snow birds”, so we traveled regularly to south Florida for winter vacations, and we always went for family adventure during the last two weeks of August. I have memories of visiting Bush Gardens in Virginia, Amish Country in Pennsylvania, the Smithsonian museums in Washington DC…those were the kind of places we went to. The furthest trip we ever went on was when I was a teenager: California. We drove along the coast from San Francisco to San Diego and went on an excursion to Tijuana, Mexico. That was the first time I left the country.
I didn’t venture that far again until after college when I went to visit a friend who was in London studying at law school. I spent three weeks camping out in her tiny dorm-type room. From there, we flew to Paris for a long weekend, and took the train through Wales and crossed the Irish Sea by boat. I LOVED it! I loved experiencing other cultures, the food (especially the foreign treats!), the castles, the palaces, the churches, the souvenirs…I loved it all! That is when I officially caught the travel bug.
I was luck to find a friend at work who was recently single and game to travel. We found a group called Contiki which did travel tours for 18-35 year olds. They offered those kind of trips where you travel in Europe for a week on a bus and see like 17 countries. Well, that kinda freaked me out, but we were able to find a two week bus trip through France, and booked it. It was so much fun! After that, I tried to travel to a different European city at least once a year.
It seems fitting that a girl with the travel bug would marry a man from Europe with an international family. He was a confident, experienced, and willing traveler and within the first year of our relationship, we visited Las Vegas, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, Greece, and Israel together. We traveled throughout our engagement and for our honeymoon, visited Australia and New Zealand.
Right before my twins were born, my husband and I went on safari in Botswana and visited South Africa (BEYOND AWESOME!). The bug I had refused to be squashed, and I worried about the arrival of kids and how we would maintain our traveling lifestyle.
We were homebound for a while, but finally, when the twins were six months old, decided to venture out to Deer Valley, Utah for my husband (an avid skier who had been going there for many years). The anxiety piled high, we packed up our double strolled, car seats, bags and more bags and began out journey. I must admit that I also brought along our night nurse who really reduced the feeling of dread that was threatening.
The trip went great! That set the stage for future adventures.
