Babymoon in Niagara

I’ve never been a big fan of the term “babymoon” — to me, it kind of insinuated that this is some last chance trip to take, because once the baby comes, you won’t be traveling anymore. I really didn’t accept the idea that traveling would need to stop once we had a baby.

And while I still believe that we will always value travel, now that my baby has been born, I fully admit that for at least a little while, traveling is going to slow down, at least a little bit. As I write this, I have a 6-week old newborn baby, and man, it’s tough. We’re a bit in survival mode, so to be honest, traveling doesn’t even sound fun to me. What sounds fun to me is sleep, a few moments of peace and quiet without a crying baby, and a nice long shower.

But I know this is just a short season for us, and we’ll soon resume our travels – only this time, we’ll be taking a baby with us! And I can’t wait for that!

While we wait for that phase to begin, let me reminisce on our babymoon.

A roadtrip through the American South

This blog post is a unique one because I’m writing it so long after the actual vacation. Mitcher and I visited the American South in September 2020, but somehow I never got around to writing about it, or even sharing many photos.

I figured, better late than never, and I’m on maternity leave right now, so I find myself with bits and pieces of spare time while little babe naps, so let’s do it now!

At the time of our trip in 2020, neither Mitcher nor I had really spent much time in the South, at least not the states that I think of when I think of Southern states. Technically Texas and Florida are considered Southern States. But I tend to lump these a bit differently in my mind when I think about culture: Texas and Florida each have such a distinct feel – for example, I don’t think of southern food when I think of either Texas or Florida; so I consider them separate from more traditional southern states. It doesn’t really matter either way, but we wanted to experience the real southern culture and history, so we chose to visit a couple of spots within South Carolina and Georgia.

A map of the states in the American South

Our trip started in Charleston, South Carolina, then we headed to Savannah, Georgia, and we ended our trip with a little beach getaway to Hilton Head, South Carolina.

What to do in Fort Worth, TX

I’m a Dallasite, and I absolutely love Dallas! In my 4+ years of living in Dallas, I have visited Fort Worth a handful of times to visit, and I thought it was about time that I share some tips, especially for first-time visitors.

Fort Worth is a great place for out-of-towners who want to experience the “real Texas”. Dallas is so metropolitan, but Fort Worth has some more traditional “cowboy” touristy things to do that visitors will definitely appreciate.

Fort Worth is also a metropolitan area of its own right too, so I’m also going to include some tips on non-cowboy things to do in Fort Worth.

Loire Valley, France

Mitcher and I have a tradition of visiting a new wine region each year to celebrate our anniversary, and this year, we went abroad.

As you may have read in my previous blog post, we visited Paris October, but Paris was not our only destination in France. Because this was my first trip to France, we knew we had to visit Paris, but we also wanted to visit a wine region – and luckily, France has many to choose from.

Why Loire Valley?

But which region to choose? France has so many great wine regions – Bordeaux, Burgundy, Provence, Alsace, Rhone, Languedoc, and of course, Champagne… how could I choose? To help narrow down the choices, we opted for proximity to Paris as a starting point. The wine regions closest to Paris are Loire Valley, Champagne, and a little bit of Burgundy. I’d been drinking some Loire Valley wines recently, so we picked Loire. On top of being well-known for it’s extremely varied wine, Loire is a vacation destination of its own right due to the dozens and dozens of castles dotted all along the region. Basically, it was a no-brainer.

Paris, France

I finally made it to France! This trip was a long time coming (read more about why over on this blog post). But after so much anticipation, I couldn’t help but wonder, would France live up to the hype?

I had to find out.

My French Love Story

Oh là là, ma chérie, Paris!

I recently got back from a trip to Paris, and I must say, this trip was *potentially* the most meaningful trips I’ve ever taken. And — umm, that’s saying a LOT, because travel means the world to me (pun intended).

But my love of Paris — really, France — goes way back.

Acadia National Park, ME

We visited Acadia National Park in July as one of the anchor stops along our 2-week trip around New England. Maine was everything we thought it would be, and more! And Acadia National Park was beyond beautiful. Let me tell you about the 4 days we spent in Acadia National Park.

2 Weeks in New England

We try to take a couple of larger trips per year, and early July is a great time to do it work-wise. Ever since we went to Alaska last July, we’ve loved the idea of traveling somewhere cooler during those hottest of weeks in the summer. So this year, we decided to go north, but this time, to the east instead of the west, to New England.

Omaha, NE

We just got back from a really fun weekend in Omaha. We’ve been a few times so far to Omaha to visit Jordon and Erinn, and each time has been great, but this time definitely was one to remember.

New Orleans, LA

For some reason, throughout all of 2022, we’re very late with our trip planning. It seems like we’re planning everything at the last minute, and we’re not able to catch up. I blame it on being busy, and the fact that in early May I had to shift gears and plan a last-minute trip to Spain (!), so we didn’t book our trip to New Orleans until about 3 weeks before we left.

We knew we wanted to travel somewhere for Memorial Day weekend – we were open to different ideas of what to do – we were tossing around the idea of going to California, maybe a road trip near Big Sur; we looked at doing Philly or DC; but all of the flight prices were prohibitive. So we went with the trip that was on our list that had the most affordable price (which, in 2022, means: still expensive, but not absurd): New Orleans.