Tomorrow is the birthday of my very first plane ride. I have never felt so nervous before in my life — well maybe that’s a white lie, I was pretty nervous deciding to make the leap of going off to college after being done with school for five years. Or the day of my first date with Andy, but either way, I was nervous for this plane ride.
People had been telling me their worst plane trips they have ever been on – and I was wondering to myself why they would be telling me these stories hours before our flight was ready to leave!
“Do you like rollercoasters? A plane ride is just like it!”
What the hell kind of 727, 737, or 747 is doing flippies and 360’s in the air? Because I can bet you my cat Spooky that I do NOT want to be on that plane!
“I’ve hit turbulence so bad that I peed myself!”
Once again, not the words I want to be hearing about my future trip!
May 7th, 2012 – the morning is here, the day for my flight! Andy and I had to wake up super early to head to the airport and head to San Juan, Puerto Rico for the first time. And let me tell you, the plane ride was awesome! I had my face pressed up against the window the whole time from Milwaukee to Atlanta. I was also excited when we pulled up on the tarmac because my favorite baseball team of all time – their logo was on the plane next to ours! Go Brewers!!
Flying to San Juan was amazing, and I enjoyed flying every minute of the trip. But next up on the list of travels was Denver Colorado of June 2012 for TBEX. I have always wanted to go to Colorado, so I couldn’t wait for this trip!
Colorado truly took my breath away. Denver is an awesome city, and I love how artsy it is. And when we took our drive out to Keystone, my mind was beyond blown! We made a stop at Red Rocks because how can you drive to Keystone and not stop there? I could have spent the whole day exploring that park. The colors were something I have never seen before. And the history of the music that has been played there is magical.
Keystone itself is such a wonderful and breathtaking place. While Andy was attending TBEX conferences, I went exploring the nearby towns. I went to Breckenridge and Vail. During my drive to Vail, passing by a huge mountain with another one towering besides it was beyond beautiful. I love those mountains so much, and cannot wait to see them again.
We took some time off from traveling after Colorado to recover our bank account and Andy’s vacation time from work. But it didn’t stop us from taking weekend trips all over the state. We had just gotten engaged in May before we left for Puerto Rico so we couldn’t wait to decide where we wanted our wedding! We had traveled up to Door County and over to Blue Mounds to check out spaces. But with Wisconsin only having a few solid months for outdoor weddings, the industry found a way to highjack prices, and Andy and I knew we wanted to save money for other adventures. Not that a wedding isn’t special, but we can find a better way to spend $12,000 (and that was just the catering price!)
We started planning for a Las Vegas wedding, but when flight prices were not coming down 5 months before the wedding, we decided to call off Las Vegas. We were pretty up in the air as to what to do with our wedding. But after some searching around on the web (you really can find anything on the internet! Just Google “cheap weddings”!) we had settled on getting married in Vieques, Puerto Rico!
Vieques is a magical place off the coast of mainland Puerto Rico, and we had been there before from our first trip and fell in love with everything about it. We even found a great wedding deal just for Vieques! The whole catch of the great deal we were getting was that we only had a month before the date! In the end, we had a great small group to come down to Puerto Rico to watch Andy and I get married on a beautiful beach in Vieques (this post will come in due time!)
Fast forward to where we are now: I am sitting in our lovely hotel room (mind you – free for three nights thanks to Andy’s hard work at Travel-Hacking!) in Gatwick, England – just outside of London! We always knew we wanted to go on a RTW trip, but as the days became more stressful for Andy at his full time job, we decided to change our travel plans so Andy could quit his job sooner.
We weren’t entirely sure where we wanted to go – or what we wanted to do. Plans first came out that we would start in South America in October of this year and then travel over to New Zealand, Australia and slowly work our way back to North America. But like stated before – Andy’s job wasn’t going the way we had hoped for. We got to brainstorming and decided upon a Royal Caribbean transatlantic cruise – stopping at handful of Caribbean islands, a pit stop in the Azores, and ending in Southampton, England! We knew what we were getting into, stumbling upon Europe in it’s high season, but to tell people that we have crossed the Atlantic Ocean by boat is such a tasty treat!
After this our plans are to see Ireland and all of it’s beauty – catch a flight down to France, and let my heart be filled with Paris. (I heard people’s takes on Paris already, but I just have to see it for myself!) We are then hoping to head over to Brittany France for a couple of weeks to take it all in and then make our way over to Italy. After that, our plans are up in the air, and we are not sure where we will end up, but I am sure it is going to be beautiful and never regretted.
Cassie says
Congratulations, Becki! You’re so brave, going right from your first flight to RTW traveler! I admire how you’ve taken the initiative and followed your dreams without looking back!
My first flight was fairly late in college, because my family never had the money for long-distance travel when I was growing up. I was never scared for the first years, but I’ve recently developed a bit of a fear of flying. I’m not sure why, I’m traveling more than ever! :(
Best of luck on your European adventure!
Becki says
Hi Cassie, thanks for such awesome feedback! I know what you mean, we never flew when I was a child because of funds, and later in my teenage years, my step dad had never flown, but was afraid to fly, so we always did road trips.
We just flew from Gatwick to Dublin today, and I gotta say, I was not a fan of that flight! So my nerves do come and go as well, but it just so exciting to be in a new city! And thank you again :)
Steph says
Congratulations Becki! Like you, I’m not one of these people who’s always been a world traveller. Vacations weren’t something we did growing up. Even though I’ve since been to the ends of the earth and all manner of places, I truly hope that I never become blasé about flying. May it always be an exciting adventure! Well, maybe not to exciting ;) There was this time when… Oh right, you don’t want to hear those stories.
Journey’s mercies my dear. I hope you both enjoy your trip to the full. Maybe I’ll get to meet you one of these days.
Becki says
Aww thanks, Steph! We are loving Ireland so much that we are going to see if we can TBEX Dublin work out for this year. I want to keep exploring in our Europe adventure, but I want to stay in Ireland!