Introduction

I thought that it may be useful to say a little more about myself and my experiences. My goal with this website is to post about places where I have been, but not so the readers just learn about me or my experience, I want the readers to put themselves in these locations along with me. I want the reader to be there too. I will not often upload pictures with me in them (except in this post), because I don't want my being in the pictures to keep the reader from putting themselves in the picture.

Having all that, it does help to understand who I am and why I am here. Growing up, my family traveled quite a bit, mostly within the United States. I have seven siblings, so most of that travel was by passenger van. I have many fond memories of long road trips, to the West Coast, to the East Coast, to the South, really just all over. My first international experience (besides Canada and Mexico) was when I was 10 years old when my father took one of my sisters and me on a trip around Europe. Like many of the trips that we took growing up, we were tagging along on a business trip. Just a few years later, my family moved to Moscow, Russia, where we lived for about 16 months. A few years after that, I served a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in northwestern Russia.

All that is to say that by the time that I was an adult, I was both used to and loved traveling. As my siblings and I have gotten older, we have started a competition for number of countries visited. I have close to 50 countries and I am losing to three of my siblings (and my dad), so I have more work to do :). I have also lived in the Czech Republic for a few months, in England for three years and in Germany for about 18 months. We will likely be spending at least another three years overseas, if not more. At this point, I have spent more than 20% of my life outside of the US and that percentage will only go up most likely.

I have also realized as I have gotten older that I also really enjoy helping others to see the world. I love looking for travel deals, even for other people. I have always been happy to help research hotels, things to do or whatever else for other people whether they are less experienced with traveling or just don't have time to research.

On a personal note, much of my travel over the past five years or so has been with my wife and four kids, so often our trips are a little slower paced than a trip with just adults would be, but my children, in my opinion, are super travelers. They generally know to handle things, although there is sometimes a meltdown here or there. In some cases, I have been to the same place both with my family and by myself or just with other adults, so I can answer both sides of the coin (i.e. what are good things to do in such and such a city with children, as well as what are good things to do in such and such without children).

Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions or comments. I am working on adding a travel tips page to this website, which I hope will be useful to my readers.