Travel dreams really can come true

What is your travel dream? This blog is as much about fulfilling your road trip hopes as it is anything else. Is there a place that you have always wanted to go but never could? Maybe it’s across the world or around the block. Dreams aren’t always big. Sometimes they are that happy idea that gets us through the day. It could be a moment of yearning to be at the beach (or the mountains) as you down that last drop of coffee on the way out of the office door.

Even as a young child, I stared at the street in front of my house in wonderment. My grandmother caught me looking at it one day and asked what I was doing. I told her that I was looking at the road. Asking her where it ended was the wrong question. Her reply was typically her. “Stup!” (Short for stupid, her favorite word). You can see it right there at the foot of the hill.” followed by “shut up”. Hot, humiliated tears where choked back as I did just that, but my dream didn’t fade, I simply decided to wait until I was a grown-up to pack my suitcase for real.

My school principal’s daughter regaled my kindergarten class with tales of the Alaska Highway. She raved about the vastness of the journey, of mountains that touched the sky and the glorious sunsets. We sat spellbound, stopping to breathe only in between the photos that were being passed around. Hers seemed like a grand journey and my five-year-old self wanted to go.

The moment that the school bus stopped my feet were flying home. Mom listened enough to pronounce it a “pipe dream” and say “Well, you ain’t never going to get there.” She said the same thing about Walt Disney World. What she didn’t, couldn’t understand was that a passion to see the world was ignited that burned as brightly as any fire.

She could not have been more wrong. It was 2009 when my college aged daughter and I headed for the open road of the Alaska Highway. She reveled in being the navigator, DJ and part-time photographer for our 11,000 mile adventure. Hubby drove home with us when our time at the mission site was completed. I returned in 2015 and may return in 2016.

Fulfilling my travel dreams didn’t end there. I’ve been across the country and across the state. I’ve also been to Walt Disney World with my Prince Charming and had breakfast in Cinderella’s castle with my two favorite princesses.

It’s all proof that wishes really can come true.

Don’t let that unrealized road trip go to waste. Your adventure is waiting. Over the next few weeks this bodacious broad will be sharing how my travel dreams came true. We’ll talk about the good, the bad and ugly of travel, what some of the obstacles are and how to overcome them. We’ll talk about saving without pain, planning, how to put the “budget” into budget travel and more.

You are encouraged to leave comments along the way. Where would you go? What would you see or do? Let’s journey together and find out just where that road goes.