One of the coolest gifts Erin and I got for Christmas this past year was this map from Erin’s mom:

It’s one of those maps where you pin the places you have visited – and also the places you hope to visit with a different colored pin. You can kind of see in the picture that Erin and I have been blessed with so many opportunities to travel to some amazing places for both pleasure and for work.

Here is a quick list of some of the places we’ve gone together:

Turkey, Canada, England, Alaska, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee, Virgina, Maryland, DC, Vermont, etc…

And some of the places we both would LOVE to go that neither of us have made it to, yet:

Iceland tops our list, then Kenya is a new desired location for obvious reasons, and New Zealand, China, India, Fiji, and the list goes on.

Our shared passion for travel is one of the things that we connect on and has become a big part of our life together. In fact it inspired our blog title – and Erin’s clever mom even titled our map accordingly:

We do have some differences in our style of travel, however. And, I think Erin will agree 🙂 Erin likes to take “real” vacations, she loves to lay out on the beach to relax and then head to a nice hotel for some good food. I enjoy that, too – but, I am also more likely to find the edgier/rougher places and really try to stay near locals and avoid resorts. I think  we’ve done a good job finding a balance where we do both on our trips.

The next trip we have on the horizon is a to…wait for it, DALLAS, TX. Haha. Well, not an especially exotic desitnation, but Erin has family there and it is the location of the 2013 TESOL conference. We are planning to take a long weekend so I can attend a couple days of the conference, and then we can visit with Erin’s family. I know they have fried okra in Texas, so I think I’ll be good 🙂