Do you love to travel but feel that traveling is out of reach now because you have children, or a pet, or just a limited budget? Not sure how to get the best airfares, not sure what it would be like to take a train, and what do we do for transportation when we get there? What kind of travel gets your heart pumping? A relaxing stay at the beach, exploring a small town along a two-lane road? Doing a walking tour of a city you have never been to before? Looking for unusually or rarely visited places to explore or just some crazy place along the roadside?
If you answered yes to any of those questions or there is something else you would love to do on vacation but not sure of where to stay and how to get the best deals then this website, blog and podcast are for you. We will give you tips on where to get good deals, the best hotels for the money, websites that will work for you and those that won’t, and ideas to make your vacation something to remember whether it be just you, your significant other, friends, family, and pets. Do you want to know places you can go for quirky roadside sites or hole-in-wall stores? Then we are here to help you on your journey.
My name is John Michael and travel is in my blood. It may be the fact that I was almost born on a Greyhound bus (it used to be respectable transportation). I was three weeks over due but my father had to move on to work in a new city while my mother headed back home from Seattle to Pasadena, California. Every time a new driver would get on he would ask when I was due and when they found out they got a scared look on their face and arrived at the next terminal stop to change drivers early (I don’t understand why…).
My earliest memories when I was four years old both involved transportation, one was picking out a new car for my father (yes he bought the one I told him to buy) and the other was seeing a passenger train zipping through town taking people to faraway places.
We took a lot of trips when I was younger either visiting my father in every place he was working at or visiting our family most of whom still lived in Michigan at the time. I remember many times flying PSA (Pacific Southwest Airlines) in California on their 727s, flying to Michigan on several different types of airplanes, and driving in the back seat of a Mustang Mach 1 from Detroit to Port Austin Michigan where my Aunt and Uncle owned the Horseshoe Motel which was an old motor court hotel with cabins that still exists and is part of a newer motel complex.
When I turned 17 I started taking trips on my own. Over the years I have taken trips both solo and with groups, for pleasure and some for work, and have enjoyed almost every minute of them. Due to life, the number of trips may have slowed down but even once I was married there were still journeys to be taken.
In 2011 my wife and I adopted a sibling group of 4 that we were fostering which lead to even new adventures. Once we bought a house I no longer had an excuse not to by a dog so we added a new family member who also created new adventures in travel.
Travel is an adventure and you never know what you might find, it might be a small-town celebration where you have the opportunity to meet new people, a ghost town, a quiet spot to relax, or something no longer usable as-built being turned into something else.
