So I, woman of few words, have started a blog…crazy, eh?  Well, it’s true.  I am blogging.  Or at least, I am a blogger in progress.

(this very shadowy picture is Me! at cooking school in Istanbul…hence the apron)

This will be the story of my traveling…solo, with spouse, en famille…what started with a Junior Year in France continues, because of that first bite into the flakiest, sweetest pain au chocolate at Café Je ne Sais Quoi on the Champs Élysées.  So, I have taken my experiences as mom, expert cat-herder, educator, study abroad professional and now personal and professional results coach and linked them with the wish to help everyone see the advantage of having an up-to-date passport, a suitcase ready to go and a desire to learn about the world and one’s self.

What this is not:

This won’t be the tale of the best backpacking hostel…that book was written many years ago when I carried ‘Europe On $5 a Day’ (no kidding…it was $5 a day!) in my backpack’s front pouch. My backpack has since been upgraded to a suitcase, and the hostel?  Well, switch those letters around to ‘hotels’.  And the $5 a day…well, no comment.

◊Travel shakes the status quo.  Done right, it beats it up and turns it inside out.  It’s that place where, looking back now on a lifetime of going…I realize that the greatest learning takes place in that space between discomfort and wonder.  I don’t want that to end.◊