Not all those who wander are lost – J.R.R. Tolkein
Hi! I’m Kami. I have started this blog to help capture my family’s adventures and hopefully inspire other families to travel and enjoy the world. I’ve heard a lot lately about doing things “outside the box” such as trying new foods, playing new games, trying new restaurants, but I suggest trying new places to travel. It can change the way you view the world!
It became evident early on in our relationship that my husband and I both enjoyed adventure. In 2001, while dating we took a trip to Tennessee and went white water rafting on the Ocoee River. Funds were tight while we were dating so we took trips to places like the Atlanta Zoo with my family and Six Flags over Georgia. Later in 2001, we took a trip to Disney World. This was my first time on a plane and I was hooked.
Over the next few years, with funds continuing to be tight and three children at home, our travels and adventures kept us close to home. Being from Alabama, that means the beach or the mountains… same ones year after year. It was either Panama City Beach or Gulf Shores, or to Gatlinburg in the Smoky Mountains. It got comfortable, because it was familiar, predictable, and safe. After all, it’s what everybody around here does. We had settled in to our own little bubble.
Every so often we’d luck out on the travel jackpot. My husband’s work would require him to attend a training class or conference once in awhile, and when that happened, we did everything we could to tag along on those trips. We were able to go to Miami, Atlanta and Seattle this way. Since his company paid all of his expenses, the rest of us could essentially travel for the cost of airfare and food. Our biggest splurge through those years was a trip to Las Vegas. Though neither of us gamble, we always wanted to see what the buzz was about. While there we rented a car, drove to the Hoover Dam and also drove to San Diego to spend a few days. That, along with more trips to Disney World, just added more fuel to the fire – there had to be so much more out there!
That continued for about a dozen years or so. We love to travel the United States, but we felt this deep desire to go bigger. My husband had seen a few of the Caribbean islands while he was in the U.S. Coast Guard but that was about it. Neither of us had ever crossed an ocean or set foot in another country, much less another continent. So, while we never stated it as a goal to see the world, it just sort of happened.
Fast forward to today. Since 2014, we’ve been to 51 different countries, set foot on five different continents, navigated city streets and countrysides, negotiated public transportation systems with signage in a variety of languages, climbed mountains, ventured into rainforests, ziplined into the clouds, hiked volcanoes and so much more. We’ve eaten exotic foods, stayed with royalty, hopped in a car with complete strangers, swam with stingrays and taken quite a few gratuitous selfies. Our friends and family tell us that they’re captivated when we travel and that many of them watch our Facebook feeds every day to find out what we’re doing next. It’s exciting, it’s adventurous, and it’s profoundly fulfilling.
We are all different, and my blog is in no way intended to tell anyone how to live their life. I personally have friends and family who take the same vacations and travel to the same places year after year, and they have no intentions of ever changing. That’s OK with me, and we can be friends regardless! Even if that describes you, I hope you’ll read on as maybe you can find a tip or two on my site that you can use someday.
Being able to do all this requires effort, money, time, but most of all, we had to decide to Leave The Bubble. You know the bubble, that comfort zone that so many of us snuggle into every day. In fact, what happens without us even knowing it is that we put up that bubble for ourselves. Day after day, week after week, year after year, our focus slowly narrows to the familiar, predictable, and safe. Then, before you know it, you become trapped by the very bubble that you’ve so carefully constructed over so many years.
But the one thing we’ve learned about the bubble is that we ultimately decide how big or small that bubble is, or if one even exists at all. While I won’t say that we’ve burst the bubble, I can confidently say that we’ve been able to Leave The Bubble many times. I hope you stick around to find out how we did it, and I hope it inspires you to Leave The Bubble too.
Hi all, I’m Paul. I’m Kami’s husband and the y-chromosome contributor of the Leave The Bubble team.