Hello! Bienvenue! Ciao! Guten Tag! Hola!
Hi fellow travelers! I’m Christina!
Travel has been a lifelong passion for me and I love nothing more than packing a bag, grabbing my camera, taking my husband’s hand, and as often as possible, grabbing her leash and scooping up our little Miniature Schnauzer, Pepper, and heading off on another adventure. I am thrilled to have you join me as I do my best to share the beautiful places we visit and the tips we discover along the way.
What I love about travel
I love everything about travel! I love planning for a trip and the anticipation of counting down until we go. I love exploring a new place, trying new foods, and being wowed by landmarks, architecture, and landscapes! And what is better than the magic of a sunrise or sunset in a beautiful place? It might also seem weird that I love coming home after we travel. Absence makes the heart grow fonder and I find that traveling makes me appreciate all the things I love about home like my family and my bed! I love the memories we make, the stories we have to tell, and choosing the next adventure to plan!
On my bucket list
I have a long bucket list, some of which includes repeat visits to our favorite travel destinations, but the biggest pins on my bucket list map include a Cruise to the Antarctic, an African safari, and visiting the Blue Mosque in Turkey.
My favorite travels
Italy, Italy, Italy! Love, love, love!!! Our trip to Italy was and still is the trip of a lifetime!
I’ve also adored Budapest and enjoyed the true exploration of a self-curated Maine Lighthouse tour. I was blown away by the Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming, and awestruck by the beauty and majesty of the Canadian Rockies in Banff and Jasper National Parks. I also fell in love with Key West, a spot we have visited many times and THE #1 place that comes to mind every time my husband asks me where I want to go.
So here’s my story!
Once upon a time, a girl traveled with her family…
One day when I was visiting with my parents, I asked my mom if I could look through our old family photos. She had piles of them and as I browsed the yellowing pages and flipped through stacks of loose, printed photos, I noticed that there were no fabulous pictures of foreign lands, no campy cruise photos like the ones photographers insist you pose for as you board a cruise ship, no old boarding passes, and no travel postcards like the ones we collect when we travel. Knowing my parents though, this wasn’t a surprise and I wasn’t expecting those types of photos anyway.
Instead, as I sorted through the pictures, I looked for something else; memories! As I examined the photos, I realized that my Mom and Dad are to blame for my love of travel!
My Dad worked hard to support our family and my Mom made it her priority to ensure that my brother and I had secure and memorable childhoods and looking through all those photos, I realized how truly blessed I was to have had such a great childhood, for which I am eternally grateful. And while I know that worldwide travel wasn’t in the budget back then, what I do know is that my parents didn’t hesitate to load us kids into the car for endless road trips.
My parents took my brother and me up and down the East Coast from Canada to Florida and as far west as Texas and we have so many cherished memories. The most memorable includes the perennial apple that my Mom packed as a snack for every road trip–never a cookie to be found! Then there was the adventure to Florida & Walt Disney World around my 13th birthday. Instead of memories of Mickey, for me, the lasting memory of that trip was of four very tall people (and our luggage) packed into a two-door hatchback Ford Pinto with no air-conditioning in the late June/early July Southern heat and humidity. It was hotter than I can express and when my little brother started touching me, the typical sibling mayhem ensued. Hot and annoyed, my Dad stopped the car and with traffic whizzing by along the interstate, seats were exchanged and the touching definitely stopped! It wasn’t funny then, but it is a hysterical memory that we giggle about often. Isn’t it funny that after all the planning to go to Florida, the one memory that stands out the most is that part of the trip?
From other family trips, I love the memories of watching my Dad valiantly attempt to fish in beautiful mountain lakes with only little nibbles or tiny fish not fit for eating as his prize, my Mom on horseback knowing she was not happy about it, watching my Mom eat lobster in Maine with a bib around her neck, observing while my Dad packed our cars with military precision, making use of every inch, visiting the ducks at The Peabody Hotel, and an endless afternoon in a hotel pool in Nashville with my brother while my parents ventured off to the Grand Ole Opry (everyone was happy). I also have vivid memories of a very hot summer evening when my Dad and one of our dear family friends hand-cranked ice cream on the porch of a State Park cabin while sweat poured down their faces.
Then there are the sweet memories of our favorite family activity, camping. It is amazing to me that we loved it after our very first disastrous trip. Just after setting up, the rain that Noah must have experienced came down leaving us stranded inside with nothing to do. It down poured for hours and for us kids, it was torture! Eventually, my determined Dad waved the flag of surrender and we took the contraption down and went home. Damp but not discouraged, we went out again and again. Over time we graduated to newer and bigger campers and disappeared as a family into what my husband calls the “deep dark woods,” as often as possible, sometimes for weeks at a time.
My favorite family trips were to rural Upstate New York where my Grandmother and other relatives lived. I especially loved the house my Grandmother lived in, especially her claw foot tub and slanted bathroom ceiling that made it hard to stand up after a bath. I also loved that it was cool at night and because there was no air conditioning and the windows were open, I could fall asleep to the sounds of the adults playing cards downstairs after my brother and I had gone to bed. I loved the rural farmers market and weekly farm auctions as well as the summer fair with horse & tractor pulls. I loved cheese curds, fresh corn right out of the field, and the long hot dogs with casings that popped when you bit into them. These were magical trips for me, full of family memories and new experiences.
As I got older, travel included Mission trips with my church youth group and summer camps as a counselor. That meant that my summers were often lived out of a suitcase with quick turnarounds at home for laundry and reset for the next week’s adventure. The summers of my teenage years were busy, glorious, and some of the most formative of my life. In fact, as a camp counselor, I worked with a woman named Rose Mary, helping her as she cooked in the camp kitchen and worked on craft projects with the campers. Little did I know that she would one day become my Mother in Love!
I have to confess that as I looked through the photos with my Mom, I was a little disappointed that there are no photos of most of these sweet memories. On the other hand, I am equally relieved to have grown up during a time when we didn’t have a camera or electronic device readily available to expose all of our shenanigans!
I cherish my childhood memories and credit them with my love of fun, adventure, and exploration. My love of travel is an affliction for which my parents are to blame and from which I never wish to be cured. It is also a condition that I still love to share with my parents when we are able and as an adult, I am so very blessed to be able to go to places that I never thought I would see.
Thanks, Mom & Dad! I love you both!
As adults, my husband and I enjoy dreaming, researching, and planning our travels. In fact, this blog was born out of one specific trip that launched us into travel as a married couple. One afternoon, my husband informed me that he discovered that it was cheaper (at the time) to go to London than it was to go to Las Vegas. He asked me which I preferred. (Never give me that kind of choice!) My response? “Let’s just go!” and we took our first trip to England!
“Let’s Just Go” has turned into the philosophy that we adopted for all of our travel. We understand that life is precious and if there are places we want to go, we need to JUST GO! We have enjoyed traveling internationally, relaxed on cruise ships in beautiful places, taken endless road trips, and we bought an RV to explore beautiful places while having some comforts of home.
My guess is, if you’ve made it to the end of my story, you love to travel too and that your travel passion was sparked by similar early experiences! My travel blog, Let’s Just Go, was born to share the travel tips, tricks, and experiences that we have learned with each trip. I hope you enjoy “traveling” with me and thanks in advance for following along.
If you’re ready, Let’s Just Go!
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Let’s Just Go! 