Travel, and Travel Often-I'm Now Booking Travel!

Travel, and travel often. I think that's my new motto. Anyone that has known us for a year or even a few months, knows we travel often. We decided a few years ago that life's too short to stay home or to just work all the time.  Even a bad day traveling is better than a good day at work, unless of course your work IS traveling which we are dreaming to one day do full time. 

Long story short, I'm now a Cruise Planners travel agent, an associate of Joshua and Karen Edge, Cruise Planners franchise owners.  I was already working on booking a cruise the day after I officially became an agent. (P.S. Thanks to my sister for being my first client!) Although I am working under the host agency called Cruise Planners, I can book more than just cruises, including but not limited to: all-inclusive resorts, international travel, local land travel, Disney and Universal vacations, and so much more! 

Now let's back up. As many now, we have the privilege of owning our own automotive repair shop. Being self-employed has given us the opportunity to take off whenever we want and travel.  In fact, I started planning more and more camping trips because my husband needed a deadline to finish vehicles by. Otherwise, they would sit forever.  It seems to be working and things do get done at a faster pace when there is a deadline. Do we still have a lot of vehicles in our yard that need to be fixed? Possibly, and they are also probably not getting finished as soon as I would like because we travel often. It's a never ending cycle, haha. But honestly, he works non-stop (even on Saturdays) when we are in town so our vacations give him a break from time to time.  There's no sense in working yourself to death. In fact, that is something that we learned on our August trip to Italy. Italy is also one of the main reasons I decided recently to become a travel agent. 

The Italians live by the motto of "work to live, don't live to work." Americans are known for working, working, working nonstop which in turn leads to grumpy, stressed, and unhealthy people. Italians don't care what people think. They live in slow motion, enjoying life to the fullest and as a result are some of the least stressed and healthiest people.  I'm sure it helps that in Italy you have to walk everywhere, food is REAL, and there are no places that sell supersized sodas. The sodas that they do have are made with real ingredients and no artificial ingredients or colors, it's truly amazing. Italians can eat pasta every day and not worry about gaining weight because their pasta is made with the freshest ingredients with no preservatives or artificial ingredients, I could go on and on. 

We noticed that if the Italians wanted to take 2 weeks off during the summer to enjoy the countryside, they would close their shop and take off with no problems. We saw multiple shops in Rome with handwritten signs that said they were closed for the festival season. What a dream, if only that was the norm here in the US but I think it's not done because there are so many people that want things NOW and don't want to wait even a day. We have become spoiled with Amazon Prime same day delivery and don't even know how to act if we can't get something we want within a day. It's truly sad what we have become...instant gratification has become the idol. Imagine what would happen if everyone just took a weekend every month just to chill out and de-stress. I think the world would be a better, happier place. But no, everyone is just concerned with how much more they can work so they can have more money and a bigger house to keep up with the Joneses. But is this what is going to make someone truly happy?

For us, we absolutely love traveling.  I've had people come up to me and tell me that I look so happy and I've told them it's because we are doing what we love.  Our kids are homeschooled which gives us the opportunity to do more than most and also allows us to save money to travel.  We have noticed they remember so much from every single trip we have ever taken, even the kids that were as young as 3 or 4 remember some insane things about our first camping trips.  Do I remember my best day of school growing up? No, but I remember just about every vacation we took and all the memories we made and I want to do that with my kids as well.  We want to show them the beauty that God has created in every different part of the world. So far they have seen a lot of it in Texas just from our frequent camping trips! Does everyone agree with our lifestyle? Absolutely not. Do we care what other people think about what we do? Absolutely not. We love spending time with our kids adventuring and watching them experience things for the first time with eyes full of wonder. The memories are like no other.

But you must be so wealthy to be able to travel so often? Ha, no. The most expensive part of our camping trips is the diesel it takes to get there and back. Otherwise, a 5 night stay at a state park usually costs less than $100 total.  This is one of the main reasons we camp so often, it's so much cheaper than a hotel especially with 7 kids. Have we taken a few international trips? Yes, and it takes a lot of budgeting and saving to make that happen. Do we have a huge fancy house or new cars? No, we'd rather spend money on the trips and the memories than material things. No, we don't just rack up all the credit cards, no use being stressed over money while on vacation!

Earlier this year, we learned that it was a Jubilee year for Catholics. We could visit Rome and go through the Holy Doors and receive a special indulgence during this special year which only happens every 25 years. Our church decided to put a group together. I remember I jokingly asked my husband in March if he wanted to go to Rome. Of course he was like, "Sure!" so then the planning started.  After going to the initial church meeting and determining that going with the church tour group was out of the budget for us, I decided I was going to figure out a way to do it anyway but within our budget and without selling a child to pay for it, ha. 

It took months of planning but we had the most amazing trip.  We visited Rome in August for a whole week. We got to see almost everything the tour group saw at about half the price and we had the most fun doing it.  Just joining the SSPX Pilgrimage in Rome for one day with 8,000 other pilgrims from around the world was truly amazing.  On our last full day in Rome, we visited over 20 churches/basilicas and walked over 25,000 steps and probably 14 miles.  We visited every Holy Door, the catacombs of St. Callistus and St. Sebastian and churches that are so huge you can't wrap our mind around how they built them. Literally you walk inside a cathedral and tell yourself "Wow" so many times in your head.  If you imagine the largest church you have seen in the US, just think of how the basilica of St. Peter's is about 20 times the size, but probably even bigger than that. It's just hard to explain, you really just have to visit it to be able to comprehend the size. And even then, you still won't understand how they built it. 

There were basilicas with relics in them on just about every corner, it was truly insane how much we could see and understand as Catholics in the "Eternal City." So many churches, all built for God when God was #1 in people's lives. So much different than today. 

The 591 steps to the top of St. Peter's dome were not easy but they were SO worth it. And then after a week in Rome, we rented a van and drove, which was an experience in and of itself. We visited the Convent of the Consoling Sisters of the Sacred Heart in Narni. Perched on the side of the hill, the views that the nuns had were AMAZING and it just made so much sense that a religious community would live in such a peaceful place as that. A few more hours and we drove through Pompeii, stayed in a hotel on a lake with a view of Mount Vesuvius, and visited Sorrento. This was followed by a trip to the island of Capri with beautiful teal water and a small town that didn't even seem real.  The views were what we could only imagine a small part of heaven looks like. Our final day was spent driving the Italian countryside, visiting the basilic of St. Gerard Majella, and golfing among the vineyards. It truly was such a dream and there was a long list of so many things that we still wanted to see that before we even left, we were already planning to come back at some point in the future.  

It didn't take long after we were home to realize that our only regret on that trip was not being able to take all of the family. And then we kind of joked a few times that I could just become a travel agent and book our tours myself the next time, I mean I basically planned the entire trip myself anyway. We already had multiple people telling us that they wanted to come with us the next time. Within a few weeks I was talking to the travel agent that books our cruises and asking what the process was.  A few weeks after that and I took the plunge and started the process. On October 27, only 2 months from when we got back from Italy, it was official. My basic training was complete and I could officially start booking trips!

A lot of people ask how on earth do you have time to do all of that with seven kids, and homeschooling, and running another business? I'll just say you make time for what you love doing. I can work remotely part-time while doing all of the above but if I want to, I can also "work" even more. My dream is to do this to allow us to travel even more often and possibly world-school. It's not even really work when I get paid (at NO cost to my clients) to research and book trips for others, which I love to do. I love learning about what the world has to offer and how God has created every little bit of this earth a little bit different. My goals in starting this side business: first, to cover a cruise for my husband and I; second, to cover a cruise vacation for the whole family; third, to cover an international trip (next is Scotland!); fourth, to cover an international trip for the whole family(Italy in 8 years for the next Jubilee of 2033, 2000 years after Christ's death); and finally, to completely cover our income so we can travel the US months at a time while roadschooling and then my husband could close his full auto repair shop and move to only focusing on customs. 

Am I crazy? Maybe. But what would it take for you to really follow your dreams? Life's too short to be miserable your whole life. Take it from someone who IS living the dream, and the dream just keeps getting better. It is so easy to see God in all the little details of every place we have traveled. In fact, I don't know how you wouldn't believe in God after traveling the world. 

Who's ready to travel? Contact me anytime or fill out my Vacation Inquiry Form HERE and I will help you plan your next trip. My services are free of charge.

"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all." ~Helen Keller