In The Atlanta Baby Mill…
After 46 hours of labor he was finally here, my firstborn son. Becoming a parent is something that no advice, book, friend, movie, or TV show can prepare you for. And let’s be honest, as a guy, the baby was really an abstract thing until I was staring reality in the face:
That photo was taken about 10 minutes into his life (and on an iPhone in ’13…hence the poor quality). I couldn’t believe that he would just grab my finger like that. Ok, I really didn’t know what to expect. But two things I realized in this very moment: there was a wellspring of love in my heart that I didn’t know existed and my life was forever changed.
Once we made it home and reality set in (middle of the night feedings, sleep deprivation, sonic torture, bodily fluids…you know the drill), a very different realization crept into my head…my life is over.
Whoa…I know, I know #plottwist! Let me back up a bit to explain before you think I’m a terrible human.
Travel Beginnings
I love traveling. I always have. This was something ingrained in me by my dad from an early age. My dad has always been a fan of history and therefore had the propensity to drag the family to every historical place, legitimate and otherwise. Growing up in Florida, my dad’s goal every summer seemed to be to flee the influx of tourists and explore some other part of the country. I saw so much of America, many of the big sights: DC, San Francisco, New York, Vegas, The Grand Canyon, Alaska, and Altus, Oklahoma. If there was a Civil War battlefield or an airplane/military museum anywhere remotely close to our route/destination, you could bet your house we were going to stop in. These yearly pilgrimages across the fruited plain proved fertile soil for growing a love of travel, history, and airplanes.
Fast forward to my college years. I somehow landed a job with Northwest Airlines/Delta Air Lines as a phone jockey in their reservations call center. Yeah, that job sucked about as much as you’d expect EXCEPT it came with one awesome benefit: unlimited free flights. Couple this with the fact that my girlfriend at the time (who has become my wife at the present) worked for Hilton Hotels, and we were able to travel all over the place for very little even though we were broke college kids. We saw most of the cities in the US with a transportation system (because we were too young to rent a car, HA!) and traveled internationally seeing Rome, Venice, Berlin, London, Tokyo, and some places in between.
Snap Back to Reality
Let’s go back to my, admittedly, somewhat over-dramatic statement about my life being over. Now that you know my backstory of consistent travel, maybe you can understand…and forgive my melodrama. In my mind, I was juxtaposing my amazing journeys with the brute force of an infant’s needs and found them to be incongruous. Don’t get me wrong. I love my son. I just figured it would be a decade before we could travel anywhere. Even then, it would only be to Florida beaches and Disney. And being one of about 12 people born and raised in Florida, I grew up going to both my whole life. I didn’t need to go again.
I know this is the epitome of first world problems. Nonetheless, it bothered me. Then we had a second, amazing boy 2 years later. Now it had been about 3 years since we traveled anywhere. I honestly don’t even remember if we left the state in that time. I had enough. I was determined to travel again. So, I decided we were going to start small and have a nice, easy trip to…Ireland! I went to the bookstore, bought some guidebooks (Rick Steves and Lonely Planet) and started the task of planning the trip.
And you know what I found? Nothing to help you plan a trip with a 3-year-old and a 10-month-old. I’m not talking about tips and tricks for how to survive the airplane ride, I wasn’t expecting that. I mean literally zero ideas about what to, you know, actually see and do once you got there with a family except for some lame ideas about going to a zoo. A ZOO?!?! Dude, I live in Atlanta, I can go to the zoo anytime. I don’t need to travel to Ireland to do that.
There has to be better content…
That planted the seed that has finally become this blog. For those of you scoring at home, yes, I am finally answering the question of “Why am I doing this blog?” Better late than never, right? I want to write a blog that will not only provide you with inspiration for travel destinations, but also sound, practical advice about how to plan a trip with the fam in tow. Thank you for reading, I hope you find the content useful. Let the adventure begin.