Welcome to our travel blog! We hope you find the information, reviews, and writings of our travels to be enjoyable and of use to you. Those are our goals, and we would appreciate your thoughts and feedback on how we are doing.
The name of the blog is very intentional, and each of the three primary words in its title conveys a specific meaning:
WE means the Owen family, consisting of Mike (that’s me), my wife Maria, and our daughter, Camden (currently 13). We are a tight-knit family who have travelled together since Camden was fresh out of the package, to local attractions and exotic destinations, close to home and halfway across the globe. While Maria and I occasionally get away by ourselves, at some point during our time away we inevitably look at each and say, “I wish Camden were here to experience this.” We work very well together on the road, and our approach to travel is akin to a sports team wielding its strengths towards a common goal. In our case, the goal is to explore a new destination, taste delicious food, meet interesting people, and experience the local culture.
CHOOSE refers to our approach to travel (and our lives in general): we believe that how people live their lives, and what happens to them, is heavily influenced by their choices. One of Maria’s favorite quotes, impressed upon her by a high school teacher, is “It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to what happens to you, that ultimately affects your well-being.” In our case, from the very start of our family, we were determined to make travel a priority. Because our resources are finite, we have *chosen* to travel on a regular basis, which means that we have *chosen* to live in a modest (by American standards) 1700 square foot home (with a corresponding modest mortgage), drive older second-hand automobiles, not splurge on the latest electronic gadgets, and in general live beneath our means.
Our choices also apply to our respective careers: I am a long-time employee at a high tech company, which means that I have earned (by American standards, anyway) a good amount of vacation–and unlike too many of my co-workers, and Americans in general (in my opinion), I use every last hour of it. Maria is employed part-time, which means that in addition to being able to take an active role in Camden’s school, she also has the flexibility to take extended vacations. Camden has attended, for the last eight years, a public choice school, which has not only provided her with an excellent, well-rounded education, but has also benefited our finances.
By making these informed decisions, our intention has been to free up budget and resources (mostly time) in order to pursue our shared family passions.
TRAVEL, of course, is why I am writing this, and hopefully why you are here: to hear about our experiences, to share some of yours, and learn something new. Much has been written about the benefits of and reasons why people travel, but to our family, it comes down to one simple reason:
life is an adventure, and we feel the best way to live out that adventure is to experience as much of our world, its peoples, and their cultures, as possible. For us, this can mean something as exotic as a tour through the tropical jungles of Costa Rica, as lengthy as a three-week driving odyssey around the coast of Ireland, a long weekend getaway to a favorite amusement park, or as short as an overnight stay in a downtown hotel to experience the lights, decorations, and spirit of Christmas.
Each of these trips brings different experiences and takes us to a variety of locales, but at their heart they are about adventure; of exploring our world together and sharing moments together as a family. Life doesn’t get better than that.
We Choose To Travel 