Witnessing a local festival at Wat Hanchey in Cambodia was one of the few travel experiences we enjoyed this year during a year of transition for Go See It Travel.

2020 Travel Vision for the New Year!

January 8, 2020

2019 was a year of transition for this family. We stayed “put” more than we traveled because we were “moving on”. Last year we downsized our life and our work significantly, to open ourselves to more opportunities to travel with fewer responsibilities. We downsized our living spaces, saw our young adults launched into their own lives and careers, assisted loved ones into safer living environments, sold or donated nearly half of our possessions, all while keeping our bags packed to be ready for the next travel opportunity!

So Where Are We Headed in 2020?

Jan: Baja Sur, MX For an UnCruise aboard Safari Endeavor to explore the Gulf of California with a snorkel or kayak and search for migrating whales in Bahia Magdalena. ( for more on UnCruise, see our report on Alaska here

Feb: A city trip to Pittsburgh. This “second” city of Pennsylvania has become “cool” again, but our reason for going is to celebrate a special relative with a big birthday!

March and April: We explore Vermont again, during the less crowded less expensive “mud season”. To see our past VT reports click here Woodstock Burlington Maple Sugar Season

May and June: We take our first adventure with Overseas Adventure Travel to Norway and Finland via Great Britain. Their longer, in depth itineraries, using local transportation and authentic accommodations better fit our new lifestyle, and we are excited to try this well regarded travel company for ourselves after highly recommending them to satisfied travelers for years!

June-Oct: Will find us living and exploring in New England, where our whims and a passport could take us to National Parks, the mountains, the seashore, or even Canada.

Dec: Back to Europe, this time starting in Prague, where we will cruise the Danube aboard AMA Waterways from Germany to Budapest, with a stop in Vienna, for the annual Christmas Markets. During our move we realized our Christmas tree topper had become very tatty, and this will be the perfect trip to pick up a beautiful new angel for the tree in our new home!

We look forward to hearing about your travels, we hope you’ll comment on your own plans or join us for on of our travel presentations in the New Year. Be sure to follow us on FB and Twitter, to learn where we will be.

Where We Were in 2019

2019 Wasn’t a total wash out as far as travel goes. we made several travel presentations, including Alaska, and Costa Rica, and Polar Bears of Churchill to a wide variety of audiences. We also managed to squeeze in some “get-aways” with friends and relatives between curb alerting furniture and filling boxes! Be sure to follow us for upcoming reports on our recent trips to:

Motion on the Ocean Zumba Cruise (click for report) https://www.goseeittravel.com/travel-blog/2019/5/6/motion-on-the-ocean-2019-zumba-cruise

Walt Disney World- What’s new in the World? We went to find out! Mostly, planning has gotten easier and if you do it right, you can expect to wait in line less, yes less!! (report coming soon)

Harmony of the Seas- Our first experience cruising with a large group on one of the worlds largest cruise ships. And all of it was more relaxing and enjoyable than you might imagine (Thanks to planning by Jay Paul at Cruise Planners! (report coming soon)

20190607 - Harmony of the Seas - 013.jpg

AMA Waterways Meekong River Cruise Vietnam and Cambodia- An amazing adventure from Saigon, to Phnom Penh and ending Siem Reap, full of culture, activity and adventure. Highlights were experiencing Siem Reap’s culinary specialties via scooter, (thanks to planning by Active Travels) climbing hundreds of steps to witness a local holiday celebration at Wat Hanchey, and meeting locals who shared their stories of living through some the most difficult times in our human history. (report coming soon)

Where To in 2018?

January 2, 2018

About 2/3 of our travel is intentional, meaning, we intentionally choose the destination and plan to travel there. About 1/3 of travel is what I like to call opportunistic, meaning an opportunity to travel comes up through business or personal matters, and we make an effort to expand that into experiencing the destination the best way we can. Sometimes, it's just a morning photo walk on the way to a day full of busy meetings, or it's dragging relatives around the tourist circuit during family visits. There is is almost always time to sneak in the adventure and spirit of "travel" into any ordinary errand or weekend. We have a friend has challenged himself to visit every city and town (350+) in his state. This doesn't require any advance planning, or more money than a tank of gas! The adventure of travel, costing almost nothing, and his life is richer and more interesting for it!

We've posted a few photos hinting at our upcoming travels (many repeat visits, some new!) We hope you enjoy them, and most importantly, we hope you enjoy your travels, whether they be an epic trip to Australia a friend is secretly planning for their spouse, or ticking another town off your state map some Sunday afternoon! We wish you a very happy New Year and safe travels in 2018!

Great Britain via Iceland

There won't be any roses during a winter trip to St Ives, England, to visit relatives, but we will be able to take advantage of a flight that includes a layover in Iceland.

We have relatives in Great Britain, and when we visit, we often expand on our travels. This year my daughter and I are taking advantage of Icelandair's offer of a "free" layover in Iceland of 3-7 days, when flying to Europe. This has become hugely popular, and the jump in tourism to Iceland proves it out. Expect to see more small airlines offering these kinds of specials in the futute. It's a fabulous way to turn a connecting flight into a mini vacation!

We will spend about a week with relatives and visiting London, and then fly to Reykjavik for 4 nights. This short winter trip won't allow us to experience the whole scenic ring road, but we will have time to explore the Reykjavik food and bar scene, relax in the thermal pools and (fingers crossed for the right weather conditions) experience the northern lights.

Arizona

My favorite thing about social media? Crowd sourcing ideas of places to visit with friends who live in the locale or have been! A diverse group of friends had suggestions for art, hikes, food and gardens to experience during an upcoming trip to AZ!

A winter conference provides an opportunity to take a long weekend to explore Arizona. With local friends to visit, and a chance for Jeff to see the Grand Canyon for the first time, we plan to bring both bathing suits and parkas and take a road trip through the desert to the Grand Canyon after a business meeting.

Cruise to Mexico, Jamaica and Grand Cayman via Galveston

This Mayan ruin is located in a park in Cozumel, one of the places we will visit on our spring break cruise

A cruise leaving out of Galveston, gives us a chance to explore this island off the coast of Texas before leaving for the Western Caribbean aboard Liberty of the Seas. We tend to balance small ship cruising with large ship cruising. Every time we take a small ship cruise we marvel at it's ability to tuck into tiny places (like our Azamara Quest Cruise working it's way through the narrow gorges to Montenegro last fall!) But then on some quiet night, we think of all the entertainment offered on the big ships, and we love the excitement of bouncing from night club, to water slide, to Broadway style show, at anytime of day or night! So Liberty of the Seas will fill our craving for a mud season escape with plenty to keep us entertained, and we will get to explore Jamiaca, Cozumel and Grand Cayman again!

Wait, Is She Cruising AGAIN? Zumba Cruise!

This Zumba class was held by Zumba with Judy http://zumbawithjudy.com/ and raised over $2000 for hurricane relief in Puerto Rico!

About 5 years ago, I went on a cruise and met a wonderful couple, Amy and Randy from MO who were sailing the same ship (Randy and I "met" online on a cruise planning website BEFORE we sailed, and spent months obsessively planning every detail of our cruises!) We shared lots of planning ideas and a once we got on board our families shared a lot of laughs and a crazy excursion aboard High Pockets in St Thomas. Amy taught Zumba classes in MO and I had never heard of such a thing, but because she made it sound so fun, I started going to Zumba classes when I got home. Pretty soon, my husband and kids were joining the fun at Zumba. One of the best things about Zumba, is as Jeff says, "Its like the Catholic Church, you can go anywhere in the world, and even if you don't speak the language, you basically know what to do, and you'll be welcomed!" Although I would add, you can also wear a lot less clothes to Zumba!

So we have "danced" all over the country with new friends, finding classes everywhere from Florida to Maine. One of my bucket list items is to try the Zumba Cruise, which puts all those international Zumba devotees on one ship in the middle of the ocean! I think that myself and the 6 gals I'm going with may be among the oldest people on the ship, but we won't let that stop us from having a good time! I'll probably set up a Face Book group and share our adventures live, so be sure to send me a message if you'd like to be invited and follow all the excitement! (oh, and that wonderful Zumba instructor I met 5 years ago...she isn't' going, BUT see the end of our post to hear about what we have planned!)

Alaska

This summer we head back to Alaska for a special celebration of our daughters' college graduations. Like their parents, they much prefer an experience as a gift, so we will spend a week aboard an Uncruise, planned for us by Expedition Trips, who expertly organized our Polar Bear Safari in Churchill Manitoba. Uncruise is a line that operates small expedition ships throughout the Northwest, priding itself on getting guests closer to the action and in a more active way. The ship includes an activity platform where you can launch to explore the coast on kayak, or aboard small skiffs, to land and take hikes in places inaccessible by vehicles. With no more than 80 guests on board, we can expect plenty of personal attention and no crowds!

"Not Planning" Planning Way Ahead with This Guy!

Kathy with her new friend, Randy back in 2013...on his first, but certainly not LAST cruise. Our spouses, Jeff and Amy tolerate our obsessive planning because they get to enjoy the cruise too!

And what about those friends we met on an Allure of the Seas Cruise back in 2013? The ones we helped develop a passion for cruising, and she helped us find the fun of Zumba, even though we all live half a country away? Well, they celebrate a big wedding anniversary in 2019 and have planned a BIG group cruise (more than 40 people so far) on one of the BIGGEST cruise ships in the world, Harmony of the Seas. And while we aren't the ones "planning" the trip, we are happily signed on to travel with our friends again and help them celebrate!

The joy of travel for us is sharing our trips with people we care about, visiting old friends and loved ones, meeting new people, and sharing the stories and pictures with anyone who enjoys them! We have a wonderful mix of those kinds of trips planned in 2018 (and 2019!) and we can't wait to share them with you. We also love hearing all about your trips too, and please contact us if you have something exciting happening, and let us know where you are headed in 2018, we love to do interviews for GoSeeItPeople! We can't be everywhere!

Happy New Year!

What's Wrong With Their Home?

December 27, 2017

That's the question people might ask if they took a look at our travel schedule in 2017! Luckily, we love our home...but we also like to explore the world. We especially love to explore it with people we love and meet new friends all over the globe. Travel is all about connecting with people all over the world, and we feel very fortunate to have met and traveled with so many incredible people. We are grateful to all the people who followed our adventures and those who shared their corner of the world with us! We especially want to thank the folks who shared THEIR trips with us in our GoSeeIt People interviews. (You can find the interviews here) We love hearing about your travels too! THANK YOU! We hope you have many safe travels in 2018 and wish the very best in the coming year!

Over the last year here are some of the places we've been able to explore. Click on any link to see more photos in our posts and learn more about each destination! (Next week, we will share where we are headed next!)