Where it all began...

We are a family with a mom, dad, and three boys (ages 4, 6, and 15) that loves to travel and typically escape our small Ohio town every chance we get. Sometimes we travel all together, sometimes with the two little ones, and sometimes we split up into smaller groups. We've been talking about sharing our experiences and being better about writing things down for ages, but 2020 was the year we decided to actually do it. We all went to Niagara Falls in January, then Dad and the six-year-old took a two-week trip to London at the end of February, Mom and Dad got an overnight in Chicago right after that, then we had a two-week spring break trip to Singapore and Malaysia planned for the family in mid-March 2020.

Then...COVID-19. Our spring break trip was canceled and we didn't want to start the blog with just a weekend and then a two-week trip and then nothing, or old material that wasn't relevant to traveling during Covid. So we put it on hold and basically stayed home with three kids for nine months with the exception of some small trips to Pennsylvania and Michigan, from March until December, until we decided that was enough. Our county in Ohio went from red (level 3 emergency) to purple (the Ohio Department of Health describes a level 4 public emergency as "Severe exposure and threat. Only leave home for supplies and services") and more and more people we knew started to get sick, and we decided to leave. The next post will be about some of the planning, but some of the factors we considered are that it’s likely best to stay domestic at the moment, we need to watch expenses, and we need to stay as distant as possible from other people, so we invested in a few things we need and are going on a road trip that will involve a lot of camping.

We're planning to share trip reports with details on the things we do that include how we choose activities and some history and information that we think will be of interest to kids and families. We'll review hotels, restaurants, tours, trails, campgrounds, all with a focus on how well they function for kids and families. We will also share travel tips, many of them learned the hard way, so you can laugh at our stories and learn from our mistakes.