I should have been a flight attendant. Truly. I suffer from a permanent case of major wanderlust. Nothing makes me happier than throwing my clothes in a suitcase or bag and walking out the door knowing I’m going somewhere. On vacation, some people dream about their bed at home. I dream about the next bed in some far off location.

Life has a habit of happening and it’s taken me a while to figure out that life is short and we should all follow our passions. No longer am I the wild and free twenty-something that could have and should have started a travel blog or wrote a book. Now I have responsibility in the form of children, a mortgage and a real estate career. I also have a loving husband who tends to think I’m crazy and attempts to curb my wanderlust.

Ok, I’ll admit we’ve fallen into the American “"two weeks vacation trap”. He gets two weeks off for vacation every year and we are lucky if we take those. We try to take trips around times the kids are out of school but as they get older even those become harder and harder to pull off. Life is a beautiful, busy and chaotic mess that spins faster and faster. Before my kids are grown and gone on their own adventures it’s time we took them on some. Summers are precious and I plan on using every freaking minute.

The question is, how?

I just spent the last hour researching travel blogs. I figure I need credentials if I’m going to be asked to write about these amazing far off places so I looked up Travel Blog Associations. Once I have 500 email addresses from subscribers, 30,000 followers and one years worth of articles I can join their happy little tribe. (I’m really not knocking it, just tucking that nugget away for later, lol)

That led me to TravelCon. Why yes, I would love to go to New Orleans and attend lectures and workshops led by forty of the best writers in the industry. Looking at their panel I quickly realized I am in a league of my own. I’m willing to bet 98% of the speakers are under thirty-five. Somewhere between my initial reaction of, “damn, I’m old” and signing up for " Vlogging 101” it occurred to me that none of this crap was available to me twenty years ago. I barely had a Cricket flip phone and dial-up internet. Video cameras consisted of twenty-pound handheld bricks. The smaller they got the more expensive they were. We didn’t take selfies and climb buildings to video our assent while base jumping.

Then it hit me. I. Am. Unique. I am not blind to the fact that there are other Moms out there traveling the world and entire families traveling in campers full time but we are not the norm when it comes to travel blogging.

Guess what? Families travel! We go all over the world sleeping in hotels, campgrounds and everything in between.  We want fun experiences and tours for our kids. We eat food and visit museums. We are a force to be reckoned with! Why is Disneylands’ Peak Season during the summer? Families!

I do not need to be twenty-two and globetrotting solo. All I have to be is me. Forty-six and beautiful. Smart. Street savvy and armed with my own minions. We will wreak havoc in our own way and tell the world about our adventures. I know how to budget, pack for an army and most of all… how to make sure everyone has a great time. Sharing those skills and experiences is worth a lot to other families and parents. Someday these twenty-somethings will have their own families and guess what… they’ll be figuring it out too.

I figure if this blog goes well it may grow and ultimately lead to bigger things.f not, oh well. Writing is keeping me sane and cheaper than therapy. J