Travel - Family Connections Experiment

Traveling, seeing the world, going on adventures! I love it and I hope I always take opportunities to travel and explore this beautiful world we've been given. Mark Twain said "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime."

Thanks to the Air Force I've lived in Europe for 19 years of my life and have been able to see some really cool places. I think now that I'm back in the United States I really should shift my focus to all the cool places that are here in this country - once we're able to be out and about a bit more anyway. There are beautiful places and beautiful people everywhere. Today, I thought I'd share some of my favorite travel memories.

Jared and I had a few nights in a nice hotel for our honeymoon, but not in any sort of exotic or tropical location. When he completed basic training and tech school and received his first assignment to Hawaii, we joked that we were getting a three-year honeymoon from the military. The thing is, when you're newly married and poor and during those three years you have two babies there isn't a lot of money or time for traveling. But Hawaii is paradise and we spent some weekends camping at the beach and we took one actual trip to the Big Island where we hiked, saw volcanoes, had shave ice, and went to Punalu'u black sand beach.

After Hawaii, we were stationed in Germany. So two pretty sweet assignments in a row and Germany is a great central location for exploring the rest of Europe. We were slightly less poor at this point, but we still weren't traveling every long weekend like lots of Americans stationed in Europe. In the three years we were there we went on lots of day trips, spent a couple of nights in Rothenburg ob der Tauber, one night in Paris (where we couldn't find our hotel at first and Madison was carsick and it was a bad first experience in the city of lights), an amazing trip to Ireland with John and Larisa, and one last hurrah in Germany to Bavaria.

The boat to Skellig Island, one of the best travel memories ever

Our next duty station was Wyoming. Which might seem like a let down after Hawaii and Germany, but we loved our time there. We made some great friends and we did a little bit of traveling. Mostly it was driving to visit family in Utah or on the East Coast (one time our car needed a new transmission halfway across Iowa; 10/10 would not recommend), but we mixed in some day trips to Denver for baseball games, a wintery get away to Estes Park, a couple of camping trips in the Black Hills of South Dakota, and week in Yellowstone, and even a trip back to Germany to visit friends.

After almost six years in Wyoming, we moved back to Germany. This time we were determined to see more places and we ventured a little further afield our second time in Germany. We tried to take one big trip each year and to really take advantage of the cool things that were closeby as well. So there were lots of day trips to cool places in Germany, as well as to France and Luxembourg. Every Christmas season we tried to visit a different Christmas Market each Advent weekend. Our travels took us to Italy, Poland (where the Polish police shook us down for 50 zloty (about $15), England, Berlin, Bavaria a handful of times, Austria, Italy again, Ireland, England again, and the Czech Republic.

This is one of my favorite pictures of Jared - overlooking the Eagle's Nest. He loves traveling more than anyone else in our family and is the planner/architect of all our vacations. 

After almost six years in Germany, we moved to Maryland. This was another location where we did lots of local traveling. Going into DC for basketball and baseball games, traveling to Civil War sites, the Cherry Blossom Festival, things like that. We did make one fun cross-country drive to visit family in Utah, a couple of trips to Ohio for the Air Force Marathon, a trip to Germany to go to as many Christmas markets as we possibly could, one trip to Ann Arbor for a Michigan Football game with the Kennedys, and we spent spring break in Philadelphia.  I would definitely recommend Philly as a destination for anyone looking for a fun, friendly, history-filled city to visit.

We loved the city of brotherly love so much we went back two more times in the next six months!

After two short years in Maryland, we were on the move again, this time to England. We continued our pattern of a spring break trip somewhere new and other smaller day or weekend trips mixed in throughout the year. There is no shortage of castles, cathedrals, abbeys, stately homes, and other historical places to visit in England. Our first spring break in the UK, we traveled to the Loch Lomond area of Scotland and learned that Scotland is tied with Ireland and Germany as Jared's happy place. He and I went back last year for our anniversary to attend the Edinburgh Military Tattoo and it was amazing - even the train ride there where we didn't have seats and had to stand for most of the four-hour journey was a blast. The next year we traveled to France for spring break and I grudgingly gave Paris a second chance to show me that it could be as wonderful as everyone says. Paris wasn't all bad, but it was Normandy and Mont St. Michel that we really loved. Last year we promised the girls somewhere warm for spring break so we flew to the southern coast of Portugal with it's soaring cliffs, sea caves, golden sandy beaches, and delicious food. We didn't take a spring break trip this year, so I'm so grateful that Jared convinced me that traveling to Ireland over Thanksgiving was a good idea. In fact, it was a great idea and we had a fantastic time in one of our favorite places with the Martins, one of our favorite families!

Heilan Coo (Highland Cattle) in Scotland

A windy day at Mont St. Michel in France

And a windy day in Portugal

Blarney Castle - I could spend an entire day wandering the beautiful grounds at this place. 

London was a short train ride away and we would head there at least a couple of times a year to see a show and enjoy the sights. We traveled to Wales twice to run trail races and that is a magical country that everyone should have the chance to see. Stonehenge wins as the most underwhelming destination, but at least we can check it off the list. Germany was a destination several times each year either for work trips that we'd try to tag along for, Christmas markets for Natalie's birthday, honors choir for Abigail, or for Abigail and Emily to compete in the European soccer tournament for school. Jared spent six months in Sicily for work and I visited him four times while he was away, bringing different kids with me each visit. I learned that there is nothing more stressful than having a suitcase full of pottery that you're planning to carry on and then the airline forces you to check it instead. Jared's mom and I traveled to Barcelona together and I would love to go back and see more of that amazing place. I took a trip by myself (no Jared, no girls) to Italy to visit my parents; traveling without any kids or a husband was amazing and I love Jared for encouraging me to go. We did a lot of traveling in a little over three years in England.

Travel opens your eyes to the beauty and goodness in different cultures and makes it easier to see similarities in people where you might otherwise see only differences. Traveling is something we've grown to love, even the sometimes crazy experience of actually getting to your destination, and Jared and I are already planning where we want to go next. What has been your favorite trip? What was your worst trip? Is there somewhere you've always wanted to go?