Where To Next??

We love to travel, I can’t imagine my life without it.
When I was around seven years old my parents took us on a family vacation from Washington state to South Dakota to go see Mount Rushmore. We stopped in Montana to visit my grandmother and lots of relatives. On that trip I was bit by the travel bug. After that, every time my parents planned a trip, even a small weekend camping trip I was always so happy, completely excited to be going somewhere. It didn’t matter where.
We always traveled by car, we visited Nebraska making stops at relatives along the way, we’d take camping trips to the mountains or to the ocean. The ocean trips were my favorite. We visited relatives in the San Francisco Bay area and it was on that trip I seen my first palm tree and it became my favorite tree. There is nothing like a palm tree swaying in the breeze.
So looking back I knew that going places and seeing new things brought me joy and little did I know that someday in my future my career would be in the travel industry.

I have to say I am very fortunate to also have a husband that goes with the flow.
He is not one to plan a trip or take time in doing things to make something happen but he’s very easy going and goes along with whatever I plan. So when I come up with a new place to visit or tell him that I want to go someplace to see one little thing I read about or heard about he just goes with it. He loves to travel as well so I don’t mind having to do all the planning as long as he’s willing to go along for the ride.
In the last three years we have increased our travel adventures as we are getting older and we feel like we are on a countdown clock. So many places we want to see and things we want to do before we are too old and no longer able to do them and making the move to Florida was a big part of fulfilling that dream.
We wanted to live by the beach, and have sunshine to enjoy the outdoors so we could stay active in retirement. It was very difficult moving away from our daughters and our grandchildren but we have to live our own lives and thanks to my career as a flight attendant with my lifetime flying benefits we are able to go visit often. We fly back to Washington about every six to eight weeks. So we knew it was something we could live with. I have to say after living most of my life in Washington and having months on end with little to no sunshine at all, Florida has been good for my mental health as well. I definitely feel more at peace here and I’m so much happier living here than I ever was in Washington. I am a person that needs sun and things to do and this works for me. Florida isn’t for everyone but we have found our niche here.

We have visited nine countries outside of America and traveled to all but thirteen states. I’m not counting states I’ve driven through a corner or made an airport stop, I’m counting states that we have actually visited. We have thirteen states to go and tour. We are planning a trip in June up to North Carolina so we will see two more there that we haven’t been to yet and we are leaving tomorrow for our first Caribbean cruise. I’ll be sharing more on that on our return. And our big trip for 2023, lord willing, is a trip to Egypt. So many more travels and adventures in retirement coming in the new year and several family and friends have planned visits here as well so we look forward to sharing time with them and experiencing more of Florida.
It’s packing day so off we go on more adventures in retirement. And my hope for you today is happiness, good health and making your dreams come true.