"road trip"

Dakota Confusion My 7th grade geography teacher assigned yet ANOTHER diorama, and while I usually relished a fun, creative, easy project like…

How to Work Remotely While Traveling: Avoiding Burnout and Embracing the Adventure I cannot tell you the number of times that people…

Travel is education. I’m a firm believer in travel as education. By visiting unfamiliar locales, we expand our worldview, we gain different…

8 years ago I married this stud, formalizing our love and partnership, and so far we’ve enjoyed a beautiful, exciting and sometimes…

One of my goals with this blog is to share the less-than-glamorous aspects of travel. The logistics of planning. The frustrations of…

After a month of sickness in the Schwannema household (pneumonia and HFM), several extra crazy weeks at work, and too many late…

I’ve been quiet — too quite for my own liking! — since our New York trip in early May. I’ve been slacking…

In March, the husband and I took a much-needed 8 day vacation to Nuevo Vallarta, Mexico as part of a non-simultaneous home…

Picture this: It’s our last night of our four day weekend in Budapest. We’ve walked our legs off, hitting every corner of…

It’s been a minute since I’ve posted here, and I do keep meaning to post about the awesome trip to London I…

Since August 1, 2016, our beautiful sweet furbabies Cosmo and Dexter have spent 50 nights at our home. The rest of the…

A highlight of our South American cruise was seeing penguins in their natural habitat in the Falkland Islands. I can’t say that,…

In 2005, my family spent six weeks living in Whistler, British Columbia. My dad and brother flew, but my mother and I drove an SUV full of everything we’d need including four suitcases, three computers (remote work, ftw!), three pets, and one litter box.

This is the story of Sherra and Ashley’s Cross Country Adventure.

Spoiler alert: things get REAL WEIRD in Colorado.

  File this one under “Stupid Shit Kids Do.”

August 20, 2005. I was 20 years old, had 6 years of French under my belt, and got to fly international first…

The alarm goes off three hours earlier than usual. I slam my hand down on the phone to shut it off. Waking…

Where We Stayed: In a small, no-frills AirBNB in a killer location. Ocean Park is far enough of the tourist track to…

In elementary school, I used to tell people that Schwartau was the shortened version of my real last name, the Ellis Island version given to my ancestors when they immigrated to America. My real last name was Schwartauburgerhifinfiner. My friends believed me, for years. But it’s not true.

A recent discussion with some friends made me think about the souvenirs we buy from our trips, the trinkets from vacation, the gifts for other people. Why buy anything at all from these places? The cheap tourist stuff is probably made in China, and what good does a magnet from Puerto Rico do anyone? What’s the point of a souvenir?