Welcome to Jill’s Journey Journals

I LOVE everything about travel.  I love reading about travel, I love planning travel, and I love traveling.  Hearing the experiences of others gives me great ideas.  When I’m reading about others’ experiences, the trips seem so well planned, the pictures are beautiful, everyone is having a great time, and things seem to have gone so smoothly.  These trips sound wonderful….but trips like these are not my travel experience. 

Even as a little girl, taking vacations with my family was always…let’s just say….interesting.  We tried tent camping.  It stormed every time.  Not occasionally, not sometimes, EVERY TIME.  Wind, rain, thunder, lightning, scared kids and wet sleeping bags.  That was my childhood camping experience.  So my parents decided to try cabins.  Our first, and only, cabin experience involved my mom frantically cleaning the very buggy, dirty cabin for several hours and then my dad deciding that we were getting a hotel.  Also included in our family travels was the puking in the back seat-both my dog and I were prone to car sickness. But mixed in with those not so pleasant experiences were good memories, such as canoeing with my dad, the smell of the camp breakfast Mom was cooking, the sound of cicadas at night, a trip to Disneyworld, taking walks in the woods.

I believe my early experiences are why I still love to travel.  I learned to adjust when the trips didn’t go quite as planned and I learned to have fun in spite of some difficulties along the way.  I believe that the difficulties, unexpected events, and surprises are what make a trip become an adventure.  Now, when I travel, when things go south, my statement is “We’re having an adventure!”  My kids (now adults) will also say this, although not so enthusiastically. 

I am going to share my stories about the trips we have taken.  I will share stories and information about the amazing times, but also about those situations that have gone awry, turning our trips into adventures.  There is usually some stress, often laughing, and sometimes crying that goes along with the adventure.  I will share some special moments, some funny stories, and even some stressful situations that we have experienced through the years.  I might even be able to give some tips along the way, because let’s face it, no matter how good the trips look on Facebook and on others’ blogs, most trips never go quite as planned.  At least not my trips.