As previously mentioned, for the 5th edition of our mother-daughter trip, we are taking our talents to....the Pacific Northwest. We'll be making stops in Portland, OR, Seattle, WA, and Vancouver, Canada. The four of us nailed down the dates of the trip this past weekend, along with which cities we'll be visiting which days. Some of the specific activities we'll be doing while there are still to be determined, but I'm sure there will be a lot of beer drinking, ala the two trips Megan and I have made to Portland the past two years.
I'm not exactly sure how we came to select this as our destination, other than Megan and I love Portland, but neither of us have been to Seattle or Vancouver. Their close proximity (approx 3 hrs between each) meant we could rent a car and make this our first ever mother-daughter road trip.
The biennial (which I've incorrectly labeled before as biannual) mother-daughter trip began in 2004, which was the summer after I graduated college (I'm pretty sure Megan graduated in 2005). I have no idea who's idea it was, but we decided to take a cruise to the Caribbean. This trip took us from San Juan, Puerto Rico, to St.Thomas, Aruba, Barbados, and Dominica (not in that actual order). We found cruising to be a nice way to see a lot of places in a short period and do so from a "home base."
Thereafter, we began planning mother-daughter trips every other year and have been to some incredible places.
The next edition of the trip was also a cruise, but this time from Hawaii. For 7 days, we cruised to several of the Hawaiian Islands in what still may be my favorite trip. The scenery was unbelievable. Mom and I played golf in Kauai on a course that lined the ocean and it was worth every penny.
In 2008, we took our third cruise, but set our sights towards Europe and the longest ever mother-daughter trip was a 12-day Mediterranean adventure. Our ports of call included Civitavecchia (Rome), Naples, Venice, Dubrovnik (Croatia), Cannes, and Barcelona. We spent a few days in Rome after the cruise was over and practically walked the entire city. We tried our hardest to see everything we could in two days, and for the most part, I'd say we were successful.
For our most recent trip, we bucked the cruising trend and visited Costa Rica. We stayed in two different parts of the country - near the Arenal Volcano, then in the Guanacaste Peninsula region.
I saved a lot of the details of each trip but most of the photos are online via my Facebook account and I think they tell a pretty good story by themselves.
I never really had a travel "bug" but in the past 8 years, I would definitely say its become something I'm really passionate about. Its hard for me to fathom not seeing as much of the world as possible before I die. I think mostly I like seeing new places, and meeting new people. Seems pretty simple, but its true.
This is perhaps one reason why I am so excited about this summer. During college I had one professor tell me that some of the best advice he could offer is to take the summer after we graduate, max out a credit card, and travel all over Europe (or wherever). Regrettably, I never did anything like this. I spent most of the summer after college working a retail job, and holding out for my first "real" job. Obviously, I've still traveled quite a bit, but in some ways, this summer may be a last hurrah. Since I'll be starting school in the Fall, and pretty much locked in for 3 years, this feels a lot like the summer after college graduation. I may be 30, but I feel like I'm just getting started with my next life. Depending on what happens these next few years, I may be getting married, starting a family, etc. and travel could be one of those things that takes a back seat. So, at the expense of my savings account, let the adventures begin....in June!
