What Inspired Us To Start Full-Time Traveling

We had always traveled a lot, even during our publishing career. Early inspiration came from study abroad programs during college. We still find that travel and education go hand in hand. Our first real travel adventure was hitchhiking and taking trains all around Europe for four months, just after we graduated from college in the 1970s.

Right after getting married in the late 1970s, we moved to Spain and lived there for nearly two years. That infected us with the travel bug, and we’ve been doing it ever since. When we finally retired from our businesses in 2010 and our kids were grown, nothing was standing in the way of doing it full-time.

How We Decide Our Next Destination

Now, we’re very flexible and take opportunities as they present themselves. Lately, we’ve been keeping our eyes on cheap airfares to places we find interesting, and since we have no fixed schedule we have to meet, we can jump on good deals when they’re available. 

We often try to extend trips by adding time or nearby destinations to be able to dig deeper. The idea is to cut down on flight segments, too.

Kris Tom Machu Pichu

Countries & States We Have Visited So Far

We’ve been to 49 US states—all but Alaska, which is a gaping hole in our experience. We’ll get there eventually.

We’ve been to 78 countries, which I was only inspired to count recently. As for budget-friendly and fascinating, it’s hard to beat Southeast Asia, especially Vietnam (once you get there.)

There are also some great bargains in South America.

Europe is not so cheap anymore, but you can save some money by visiting the eastern countries such as Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, and the Baltics.

Our Favorite Travel Experiences So Far

The richest experience we have had since we started traveling full-time is walking the Camino de Santiago 800 kilometers across Spain. Right up there, too, is trekking five days through the Guatemalan jungle to get to the ancient Mayan ruins at El Mirador.

Other favorite adventures include biking across Britain along Hadrian’s Wall, and biking tours of southern Italy and Brittany in France.

I also once spent an entire summer studying Latin in Rome, but that’s another story.

Favorite Memory Of Meeting New People & Exploring With Locals

The native guides on our Guatemala hike were unforgettable and were people we would have never met in our normal travels. And, we made lifelong friends with people we met on the Camino.

We’ve had too many encounters with locals to single out. But I particularly remember a guide we had on the battlefield of Gallipoli in Turkey and an art historian who gave us a wonderful tour of Venice.

Our guide during a land-based tour of the Galapagos won a prestigious international guide award based on our nomination.

We are “Students Of The World”

We both are college graduates in the liberal arts, so I guess all the history, literature, art history, and language courses we took over those years gave us a good start.

But, mostly, it’s that we’re still both big readers of both literary fiction and history. There are always more questions raised by our reading than answers, so it’s fun to keep learning.

Kris Tom Cambodia

Switching to Full-Time Travel

It really wasn’t that hard to get into full-time travel once we decided to do it. It was initially a commitment to selling our home and possessions (and storing some stuff that we thought we wanted to keep but later got rid of.) The main sacrifice really was being away from friends and family, but thankfully, with modern technology, it’s much easier to stay in contact than it used to be.

What Inspired Us To Start Blogging

We originally started separate blogs that we merged into TravelPast50 after a couple of years.

Probably the primary reason we started blogging was to serve as a sort of letter from the road for friends and family. Even after combining them into TravelPast50, we didn’t have any commercial intent. That came later when we realized we had more to offer, and in the early format, the only people who were reading the blog were our friends and family.

As for our mission now, it’s to inspire people our age to travel and provide them with some good information on how to do that.

First Avenue Minneapolis

Travel Apps & Websites That We Use

Over the years we’ve discovered a lot of travel resources that we use, and travel apps that have places on the front page of our phones. Probably the favorites include Google Maps, Google Flights, Booking.com, Tripit.com, and Travel Smart from Allianz.

How We Manage Our Travel Costs

Costs are always a concern, and they’re difficult to control. Like I said above, we do always look for cheap flights, and because we’ve become sort of spoiled in our advanced age, we usually use points we accumulate on our credit cards to upgrade to Comfort Class.

Probably the best tip to control costs is to shop at markets for your food instead of eating every meal in a restaurant.

Another good one is to consider not flying directly to your destination. A two-hour layover can often save you a lot of time. We have a whole list of travel tips that go beyond just saving money.

Lassen Volcanic National Park

Our Bucket List Experiences

Probably our remaining “bucket list” boils down to just a few. Like I said above, we still have to get to Alaska. We’re going to Antarctica in 2024, so our seventh continent is getting checked off soon.

Other than those, there is New Zealand and perhaps a return to Japan. And maybe Iraq, Iran, and a few of the “Stans” in south Asia. And Brazil? Or at least a return to South America.

Travel Scams That We've Faced

We’ve been lucky that we haven’t really been ripped off anywhere bad, other than the several times I’ve been pickpocketed.

We have learned some travel security practices from that and will never carry much cash or all our credit cards with us ever again.

Fun Outdoor Experiences That We Have Experienced

The Guatemalan jungle trek certainly ranks up there in the “insane” category.

Scuba diving and snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef are right up there, too.

And, the bike trips in France, Italy, and Britain were wonderful, although I’m not sure how insanely fun it is to cycle in an Italian city.

In the U.S., it doesn’t get much better than hiking the US National Parks or the great Minnesota State Parks System.

Advice That We Can Share

The best advice is to get moving and just do it. When people ask us how we can do all the things we do, the real answer is because we do them. It may seem facetious to say that, but it’s true. If you want to be fit and keep moving, the only way to do it is to move.

One of our biggest lessons is it's never too late or too early to get started traveling! 

Biking Brittany France