I just want to say Happy Mother’s Day all the mothers out there but most importantly to the coolest mom out there, mine! (byass much?) I am extremely fortunate to have a bad ass mamma who has quite literally traveled around the world with me!
It started out with your typical family vacation down to several Florida or some other stellar islands like Grand Cayman or the Dominican Republic. I’d say these fabulous trips sparked my own wanderlust but I wanted to go farther, wanted to explore deeper. So I hopped on a plane and headed to Thailand working for the Peace Corps.
About a year and a half into my service she did the same thing and came out to visit me at my village in Ban Ku Ka Sing. It isn’t easy to travel across the world, take an 8 hour bus ride, only to sleep on the floor of your daughters house, but she did all of that with my brother and aunt! The next morning, without much time to recover from jet lag she was dragged to my office to meet my family, co workers, and pretty much ever villager that had hear that the farang (foreigner) had brought her mom to work today.
It wasn’t all sleeping on floors and being put on display. After a few days in my village drinking Lao Cao, exploring temples and eating DELICIOUS rice paddy fish, we did head on down to the beach where we could relax and take in the sun. Traveling around like a true backpacker we hopped on and off boats at each of our islands and scurried around trying to find ourselves a hotel or some tasty food or even cool live music. She got to experience a bit of a snippit of my thai lifestyle for ten days but our adventures together didn’t stop there.
After having returned from Thailand my mom approached me with an opportunity. Would you like to go to Greece? she asked. Greece!? Is that a real question because umm YES I would like to go to Greece! We packed our backs and headed on out to explore the main land and do a bit of island hopping.
We explored ancient ruins, sailed out to watch the sunset of Oia and even road a donkey, because when in Greece, why not?
Finally, most recently (as in last month!) we took a life changing trip to Guatemala. Joining We Journey, we started our trip in Antigua and headed out to a school where we joined a group of high school/college kids to help build homes for those less fortunate with Techo, a service organization that helps build homes in several Central and South American countries.
After our two days of service work we headed over to Lake Atitlan where we did yoga, experienced a shaman ritual and learned about the culture and history of Guatemala. It was an amazing experience that I am so fortunate to have experienced with my mother.
In summary, if you haven’t been able to tell, my mom is a badass. I’m not sure if she gave me the wanderlust gene or if I infected her with the travel bug, but the two of us have become quite the travel companions and I expect nothing less in the future.
So thank you mom, thank you for supporting my crazy travels and thank you for joining me on some as well! Happy Mother’s Day Mom, I look forward to many more adventures to come!
Our Traveling Tales 