Wander-Wisely

My passion for travel began the first time that travel truly changed me. Dissatisfied with my first job in the corporate world after I graduated from college, I went to Europe for six weeks. Even though I had a high fever, missed a ferry crossing and had other misadventures, I was hooked. I sat in St. Paul's Cathedral mesmerized by its immensity, and in that moment, I decided. to pursue a master's degree in literature, and my career in education was born.

Two years later, I was burned out from school and my parents' divorce, so while visiting a friend in New York City, I flipped a coin between Portland, Maine, and Portsmouth, New Hampshire and decided to move to Portland. My life was transformed, and I've never looked back.

My husband and I had traveled each year, and when we added children to our life, we realized that we had to get creative, so we researched credit cards to maximize our ability to purchase plane tickets and car rentals. We discovered hostels in Dublin and Wales, a yurt on Cape Breton Island and house rentals from Banff to Monhegan Island in Maine. When we wanted to do a llama trek in New Mexico, one daughter rode a llama while we carried the other in a backpack. We visited indigenous weavers in Oaxaca and hiked to a remote river in Iceland.