Welcome to the blog!
This blog is a diary-esque memoir of one woman and her family's adventures on this fair planet, journeying from one destination to the next whenever and however we can. From family trips, to couple retreats, to solo excursions, we try to journey 'down the wrabbit hole' as often as possible!
This humble little site began in 2010, when author and editor Marti first really began to realize how much she truly loved to travel. Since then, she and her husband Joey have expanded their family to include two more little wrabbits, and are now enjoying the unique and crazy experiences that come with family travel!
We hope that by sharing our travel adventure with the world, we can help others discover new places to enjoy, and be inspired to travel themselves, either solo, as a couple, or as a family. Each post contains helpful tips and tricks, attraction details, and fun travel stories to help you plan your own journey.
How to Use the Site
To easily navigate the site, you can use the Posts by Country tab at the top of this page to sort posts by destination, or Thoughts on Travel to read about travel stories and destination-unrelated posts. You can also simply scroll through the Blog Posts themselves. To compare your own travel bucket list to Marti's, visit the Travel Bucket List tab!
Please enjoy, and feel free to leave comments - we will always respond!
About Marti:
I fell in love with traveling when I was 16-years-old. I first traveled for two weeks overseas to visit a pen pal in London during my sixteenth summer. It should probably be added that my pen pal was really a cute boy, whom I referred to as my 'overseas boyfriend', and that I was sent to visit on my own, without parental supervision. At sixteen, I must have earned a great deal of trust in my parents! Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, my parents had nothing to worry about - we fought like cats and dogs once I was there. However, the dye had been cast and I was enamored with traveling from then on.
That same year, I spent three months living in Quebec on a high school French exchange program, learning the language, culture, and furthering my education in a foreign tongue. I came back blathering fluently at an incredible rate but also with a thick Quebecois accent, and had a photo album bursting with pictures of new friends and 'family'. Another month passed, and I found myself visiting Texas for Christmas holidays with my family.
Then, I had a dry spell for several long years while I completed my university education and gained my Bachelor of Education degree. I worked hard during my internship year but was rewarded with my first teaching job, a half-time position in Southern Alberta. My first paycheck was disappointingly small, due to the half-time rate, and I despaired that I would never have the life that I had always dreamed of. I had a bucket list stacked with travel destinations, long before Morgan Freeman's "Bucket List" movie was ever introduced.
A year after that first paycheck, I was offered a teaching position in Central Alberta, just north of Red Deer. My fiance and I packed up, bought a modest home in a small town, and moved to our new lives. I was teaching full-time, and this time, the first paycheck was indeed rewarding! I began to spend my money on my home, my new professional wardrobe, and things other than my forgotten bucket list.
Luckily for me, my dreams of travel were reawakened when my principal found a flyer advertising a technology seminar down in New Orleans during the Spring Break period of March in 2008. My eyes bugged, for New Orleans was on my list! I'd always wanted to see Mardi Gras. I knew that by the end of March, we would just be missing Mardi Gras, but I still wanted to see the city. Being a first year teacher, however, I didn't believe I'd be eligible for the convention. I was wrong! As a technology teacher in my Junior High wing, my principal felt that I would gain a lot from the trip, and so I jumped at the chance. I was approved to miss a few days of school before Spring Break, and booked the convention seat and my flight.
Since then, I've tried to take every opportunity to travel: weekend breaks around my province, holidays with my husband, and now family trips with my children. I have dreams of taking my parents to Ireland, my sisters on a road trip somewhere, anywhere, and my husband on a Greek cruise. I want to raise my daughter and son to be world travelers; open-minded, adventurous, empathetic, and confident. I want to climb the ruins of Chichen Itza, lay in the shade of a strangler fig at Angkor Wat, learn to scuba dive over the Great Barrier Reef. My career goal is to become a full-time travel writer - with pay!
I am dedicating this blog to past and future travels, to share with you the ups and downs, traveler tips, must-see sights and events, and humorous stories along the way. I will share with you my Bucket List, and hopefully, will be able to check off as many as I can before my own travels on this Earth are complete!
Feel free to contact me at downthewrabbithole@gmail.com or on Google+.