Do you find yourself wanting to explore more as you travel?
Over the past few years, our style of travel has changed. Our vacations have put less emphasis on a single city or attraction and become more about exploring whole regions and even states. Looking back through our early posts, this transition seemed inevitable.
Vagabond3 started with a once-in-a-lifetime trip 10 years ago, though we didn’t think about it like that at the time. Growing up, the car trips our families took us on were just a means of reaching the destination. As I planned our drive through Australia, we weren’t racing to get to a single spot, but rather using the journey to explore and see things only accessible by highways and backroads. From renting a hatchback and driving the Great Ocean Road to hopping onto Kangaroo Island and cruising from koala trees to sea lion beaches (eyes always peeled for the elusive car-attacking-kangaroos we had been warned about), our behind the wheel journey through Oz helped us redefine the way we travel.
Since that first experience, nearly every trip we’ve taken has involved some sort of road trip, scenic drive, or out of the box journey. Once we opened our itinerary up to nearby locations, it became impossible not to include the few hours drive that would take us from New Orleans to a giraffe-feeding wild animal park, from Las Vegas to alien hunting near Area 51, or from Jacksonville to The Keys, to test taste all the Key Lime Pies and alligator bites.
As a family, we found these trips even more exciting. Before turning one, Augustine had already been on eight road trips; some were as simple as exploring around Lake Tahoe and others covered entire states – like the time four adults and a baby spent a week exploring West Virginia in a single SUV.
At first, we used the time in the car to help make sure naps happened even when we were on vacation. Now, we often find ourselves keeping Augustine awake by pointing out different landscapes or sights, like when we didn’t let her sleep through all of Germany because every few miles we found new reasons to pull over.
Our travel style may have evolved, but our initial philosophy hasn’t changed. Exploring the surrounding landscape and making time to check out the more elusive attractions; these are the reasons we started our travel blog. We wanted to maximize each experience, figuring out where to save and where to splurge. If we’re going to buy plane tickets and cash in vacation days, we want to make sure each day away is something worth remembering.
This upcoming year is our most ambitious yet, with a new adventure every month. We have plans to check off some of the bucket list items that have been gathering dust too long, including our return to Maui (Augustine’s first trip to Hawaii), finally exploring Yosemite, camping at Big Sur, and taking Augustine driving on the ‘wrong side of the road’.
We’re excited to announce our partnership with Alamo Rent A Car as one of their Chief Travel Guides, to help us see more of what the world has to offer. Every one of our trips will be featured on Alamo’s blog, The Scenic Route , where we’ll share not only our experiences, but also the tips and highlights we find along the way that you should add to your bucket list.
