Welcome to my new travel blog! I decided to create a travel blog because this allows me to do two things that I am most passionate about: traveling and writing. I began writing when I was seven years old. I wrote little stories on wide-ruled notebook paper, complete with silly illustrations, about everything from the art of being a girl to playing baseball. From an early age, I knew I was going to be a writer, but I didn’t so much believe that about my love for travel. I always loved nature; I took every opportunity to be outside, especially when the weather was nice; and I marveled at all the places that my parents took us on vacation. But I didn’t truly appreciate the all-around encompassing nature of travel and adventure until our honeymoon.
My wife and I spent many summers in South Carolina, lounging on the beach and soaking up the gorgeous southern sun rays. Briefly, we even considered moving there because our love for the beach and the warm weather was overwhelming. My wife also proposed to me on that same beach in 2013! So at that point in our life, the beach was pretty much our obsession.
Until our honeymoon in the summer of 2015!
When we began researching locations for our honeymoon, we definitely were perusing beaches because that was clearly our love. But we ultimately decided to shake things up a bit and head for the Smoky Mountains! And boy, am I glad we did. Our love for the mountains, waterfalls, and hiking grew ten times the size of our beach obsession. We were smitten. The roaring of the enormous waterfalls crashing to the rocks below, the way the mountains looked like a perfect painting, the black bears that we saw and moved way too close to, the sense of accomplishment that we felt after we hiked all day, we craved more. We developed what some would call wanderlust.
Though our first time hiking was an absolute dream, we definitely learned a lot! I wore Converse sneakers 6 miles up a mountain, leaving me with bleeding feet and a ruined pair of shoes. I lugged my huge camera bag over treacherous waterfall crossings, causing me to almost lose my life. But most importantly, we learned that we LOVE hiking and adventure, and that was something we were going to cling to for the rest of our life.
So our love for hiking began! Since 2015, we’ve trekked through the Grand Canyon with a limited water supply, hiked up the Superstition Mountains in the middle of a thunderstorm, climbed across several tricky rock scrambles in the Blue Ridge Mountains, clawed to the very top of Cathedral Rock at lightening speed due to a caffeine boost at sunset, kayaked through underwater sea caves in Door County and tall, narrow canyons in Arizona, jetted through Lake Huron in Canada with six foot waves crashing over us, splashed in a 256 foot waterfall in Tennessee, walked through the country’s longest cave system in Kentucky, hiked through countless state parks and nature preserves in Arizona, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, and Michigan, and splashed in more waterfalls than I can count.
To me, hiking is all about connecting with nature on a deeper level and marveling at the world that we were given the huge responsibility of taking care of. I am passionate about leaving the world the same as we entered it, which could even mean simply picking up trash along the trails and paying close attention to park rules and regulations. We weren’t meant to stay in one place; I truly believe that we were meant to explore the beautiful world that we live in! Money will come and go, but time won’t. Use your time wisely, and go explore! After all, there’s no time to be bored when we live in a world full of mountains, waterfalls, bodies of water, beaches, islands, canyons, caves, etc. I can’t wait to share all of our past and future adventures with you all!
Happy hiking!
Wonder. Wander. Repeat. 