The questions that people ask about you often reveal what they know about you. Either they don’t know much about you and they want to get to know you, or they know you already and want to hear updates on various aspects of your life.
There is one question that we probably hear more than any other: “Do you have any upcoming trips?”
It’s an interesting question because the answer is always yes. If you define a trip as going somewhere, we always have plans to go somewhere, whether that’s a few hours away to see family and friends or out-of-state for a photo/video project.
But if you define a trip as a vacation, a long journey across the country, or an overseas missions trip, we really don’t have a lot of those trips over the course of a year. In fact, the large majority of our trips are less than 60 hours in duration from the time we leave home until we return.
We have noticed, however, that the average person just does not travel much at all, so we tend to be an exception even though we don’t come close to matching the mileage of a select few.
The two of us definitely traveled much more in our single days before God led us together. So now we have that lingering desire to travel more but simply do not have the availability and the resources to do it as often as we would like.
As a result of these various factors, one thing that people know about us is that we love to travel, and we have discovered ways to do it without going broke. In fact, we have even found some ways to travel in luxury for less than the average person might spend on a basic, no-frills trip.
Some people do not like traveling because all of the stress and expense involved. But when you’re walking through airport security in less than 5 minutes, eating and showering in cozy airport lounges, sleeping business class on an airplane, driving Mustangs and Teslas, and staying in hotel rooms that feature two bedrooms and full kitchens, suddenly the trip to get somewhere is just as enjoyable if not more enjoyable than the actual destination.
Of course, sometimes our trips look like us simply driving our 2000 Toyota Camry down to Iowa and staying overnight with family and friends. You don’t put 20,000 miles on your car in a year just by driving to work and back every day!
But whether our trips find us in our little car or in the front seats of a Boeing 777, we have found scores of ways to save money and upgrade our travel, thus enabling us to travel even more and help others do the same.
Experience is our primary teacher, and we have learned so much from trying new things and making mistakes (sometimes costly ones). But we are also deeply indebted to hundreds of strangers and a few good friends who have traveled this road before us, teaching us the “tricks of the trip” and keeping us updated on the latest travel trends and deals.
So now we embark on a new trip, sharing our trips, travel tips, and money advice on our family blog for the benefit of others. If you want to follow along, we invite you to subscribe to our blog so that you are notified anytime we post. Also, if you are interested in receiving a few emails a year that are dedicated specifically to family updates, you can also subscribe to those (this is separate from our blog updates).
Here is a short list of the travel-related things we plan to cover:
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Travel experiences
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Saving money and budgeting for travel
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Places to visit in the US
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Places to visit internationally
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Traveling with kids
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Planning missions trips
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Travel products
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Tips for flying
- Tips for packing
Comment below to tell us what you want us to write about! The more feedback we receive, the better, because we want this to serve our readers.
Hopefully we can help you learn some new things and explore more of this amazing world that God has given us!
Our trip to Ghana was two firsts for me- first international trip with my husband (awww <3) and first visit to the continent of Africa. My new friends were so excited that Ghana was my first African experience! So what was Africa like? Let me tell you…
Food- The food was definitely unique! We were there during the tomato season so tomatoes were in everything we ate in some form or another. We had fufu, cassava, banku, jollof rice, redred, and gari (just to name a few things :). The flavors and textures of Ghanaian foods are so unique that I don’t even know how to describe them to you… you’ll have to go and taste them for yourself! They also use lots of ground nut (American translation- peanut!) and plantain and cook with palm oil as their base for many dishes.
Church- Wooden benches, simple structures, open windows- these were the common denominator among the church buildings that we visited. But the church isn’t the building- it’s the people. The people greeted each other warmly and sang each song with all their enthusiasm, rejoicing in what our great Savior had done for them.
“You are welcome!”
Ah! Fresh air with a hint of diesel. Riding to the Mapes’ home in an open-air vehicle was such a refreshing way to wake up. It was also a nice contrast to the bus we had just disembarked.
Thank you for praying for us! We have returned safely from our trip to Ghana and have jumped back into life here in Minnesota.
We are excited to share our first big update with you today as we are currently en route to…Ghana, Africa! We made a video to explain why we’re on this trip and what we are doing over the next two weeks. You can access it