As part of my personal evolution as a travel blogger, this is an early post from Upgrd.com where I joined Matthew and other talented writers (including my husband) which would then merge with Travel Codex, another Boarding Area blog. Finally, we found our home here at Live and Let’s Fly with Matthew. As this is an early post, references have not been updated and may no longer remain accurate. Please enjoy this time capsule blog post.
Early Travel Experiences
When your second date is to get passport photos taken, you might be dating a born traveler.
I was.
Kyle loved to travel, or was it just that he loved to fly? (Something I truly hated by the way.) We were dating for about two months when we started to plan a trip to Europe with some of our friends. I was so excited! Europe was something I thought of as a once in a lifetime trip. We planned an insane itinerary that took us to nine cities in just ten days. I “Xanax-ed” my way through the flights, ended up in one unplanned city, made a visit to the ER in London and, in the end, we debated whether or not to actually board our flight back home. Needless to say, it was a life-changing experience.
![Whoa! Tan and cute (pre-baby) from 2012 in Bangkok, Thailand.](http://liveandletsfly.boardingarea.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/img_8778-410x410.jpg)
Moving Abroad
Six months later we were engaged and planning our wedding and our move to England. We were engaged 6 weeks before being married and married four days before moving to a new country. It was crazy, chaotic, stressful and amazing. We had this opportunity to live abroad and we decided that we would travel as much as humanly possible; and so we did. Of course, our families thought we were crazy and maybe we were, but we were seeing more of the world than we had before. We were able to travel all over Europe and eventually even made our way to Asia for the first time visiting Thailand, a country we would later call our home.
After living and working in Manchester, England, a city that is near and dear to our hearts, traveling most of Europe and even Northern Africa we made the move to Thailand on “sabbatical.” During our time there, we traveled all over the continent; Hong Kong, Myanmar, Singapore, Cambodia and Malaysia just to name a few favorites. This amazing journey came to an end and brought us back to America. We knew we had a lot of this side of the world left to see too, so we made stops in Mexico, Brazil, Costa Rica and even Canada.
New Addition
I say all of that to say this… when we talked about “family planning” travel was always a part of the plan. There was no way that we could or would just stop traveling. Having a baby is another life changing experience, yes, but that doesn’t mean you have to completely change the way you live.
You choose how you want to live, what you will and can do.
Here at ABM (Another Baby Maybe) you will find helpful hints, tricks, tips and ways to make your way of life a little bit easier at home and on the road. Who knows where our travels will lead us, could there even be… another baby? Maybe.
– XO Carly Stewart
PS – For an updated intro into our family, see this post.
Welcome to UPGRD Carly! Great first post!
@Matthew – Thank you! So excited to be a part of the team!
A warm welcome to the team! And my wife and I can relate. We got married a couple of months before what was going to be a 3-month work assignment in India that turned into a nearly 3-year expat gig. She must not have minded too much, since 8+ years later, we’re still together 🙂
@Meanmeosh – Thank you for the welcome. Wow! Three years in India, that sounds like an amazing start to a marriage. I might get some tips before our September trip to Delhi.
Welcome to UPGRD Carly! You guys are adorable together and I can’t wait to meet you in person at our next gathering. Definitely looking forward to reading more of your posts and seeing your perspective on things.
@James thank you! I am excited to be a part of the UPGRD team and look forward to the next gathering!