We are a family of five that decided to leave our normal lives behind and travel around the world for 180 days. Joey and I are both physicians back home in Lexington, KY and our kids are Wilson (a smart, funny, pragmatic 14 year old who approaches life with the wisdom of an 80 year old and the mischievous grin of someone who gets the inside joke), Bailey (an opinionated, strong-willed, compassionate 12 year old who never misses anything and may rule the world someday), and Gus (an energetic, passionate 9 year old who lives every second of his waking life with everything he has and would give the shirt off his back to ease the suffering of an earthworm). We love traveling, trying new things, meeting awesome people, eating good food, and adventure sports. In this blog, we will be sharing the stories of the places we experience along the way. We will share our successes and our failures in hopes that this is inspiring, helpful, and entertaining to our friends, family, and anyone else who happens to discover us. For more on why we decided to do this, see our blog post on “Traveling is my favorite thing”. Read More About Our Philosophy.
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Maha’Ulepu Heritage Trail, South Shore Kauai, Hawaii
What: This is a lovely, easy trail that winds along the cliffs and beaches of the Southeastern Shore of Kauai
Where: Starts at Shipwreck Beach, near the Grand Hyatt and Poipu Bay Golf Course and extends to Punahoa Point and Mahaulepu Beach.
Distance: 3.7 miles total out and back
Difficulty: easy
Pay out: 7 (scale of 1-10)
The Kalepa Ridge Hike: what not to do
Mistake 1: When it comes to picking a trail, I usually spend several hours researching trails in each area before picking one for our family. Difficulty, length, and pay-out all have to be taken into consideration. I had done this for Kauai, but decided, at the last minute, to abandon my careful research and take the advice of a local on this one. I did a quick search to find the location, read a brief intro to the hike, saw that it was only 1.9 miles long with great views, and we went for it.
Four days in Kauai
We had originally planned to spend a whole month in Kauai, but our month-long rental fell through the week after we booked our plane tickets, and we couldn’t find another good place to stay in Kauai. After much deliberation, we decided to book a short stay in Kauai and then spend the rest of the month in Oahu, where cheaper monthly rentals were more abundant. As a result, we only got a small taste of Kauai, enough for us to know we want to come back.
Snowmobiling in Yellowstone
Yellowstone is closed to private vehicles in the winter. This means that, in order to see this crazy super volcano in the winter, you must go on a guided tour. Your options for guided tours are plentiful and include a variety of snow coaches and snowmobile tour companies that leave out of West Yellowstone and Jackson Hole
Hiking to a frozen Ousel Falls: The Ousel Falls Park Trail
Where: Located on Ousel Falls Rd., 2 miles from Lone Mountain Trail Rd in Big Sky, MT
Distance: 1.6 miles
Difficulty: Easy
Big Sky Skiing
Big Sky quote of the week: “You just need to let go of your nervousness and let yourself go fast and be free.” –Wilson to Bailey after day 1 of skiing.
Big Sky, Montana
As a summer person and a lover of warmth, it took several years for Joey to convince me to go somewhere colder than Missouri/Kentucky in the winter. After finally convincing me to head to the mountains instead of the beach, however, it only took one snowy evening in a hot tub…
Traveling with my family is my favorite thing
Ultimately, the goal in life, whether traveling or not, is to come to a place mentally where you can be totally in the moment and utterly open to experiencing the world around you. It's one thing to achieve that as an individual, but it's even better to achieve it as a family unit.
The Sun Rising over Kauai from Poipu Beach. January 23rd, 2022