ABOUT US…
Every adventure has a beginning.
Travel has been part of my life for as long as I can remember, but somewhere along the way, it became much more than simply seeing new places. I fell in love with the planning, the anticipation, the adventure - and the feeling of stepping outside everyday life to experience something completely new.
For nearly a decade, travel was also part of my everyday life. As a project manager, I spent years flying to client sites around the country each week - typically working with the same client for months at a time and traveling Monday through Thursday. After that many years of airports, hotels and living out of a suitcase, I learned a thing or two about making travel easier.
These days, I share those adventures with my husband and our little traveler. Becoming parents changed the way we travel (there are definitely more snacks, bathroom breaks, and things to carry!), but it never changed our desire to explore. If anything, getting to experience the world through a new set of eyes has made it even more meaningful.
Little Carry-ons grew from that love of travel - and from years of itineraries, notes, recommendations, lessons learned, and more than a few travel mishaps along the way. It's my place to organize what we've learned and share it in the hope that it makes planning your own adventures a little easier.
I'm glad you're here!
~BlairHere’s ours.
OUR STORY
Where it all began.
My love of travel started long before I was old enough to appreciate just how lucky I was.I was born in Texas, but when I was four years old, my family moved to Fulda, Germany. For the next four years, Europe became my backyard. My mom often took me along on her travels, and together we explored countries near and far - from Italy, France, Norway and Sweden to places like Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia that look very different on a map today.
Some of those childhood experiences are still surprisingly vivid. I remember walking through the ancient streets of Pompeii at eight years old with Mount Vesuvius sitting far away in the background. I knew a volcano had destroyed the city and understood that I was standing in its ruins, but at eight, I couldn't possibly appreciate the magnitude of what I was seeing. Looking back as an adult, I'm still a little awestruck that I got to experience it.
I was also living in Germany during a pretty incredible moment in history. We regularly visited a family friend in East Berlin, which meant I experienced both sides of a city that was still divided by the Berlin Wall. I remember seeing the Wall while it was standing - and visiting again when it came down. Like Pompeii, it was something I experienced as a child and only truly came to understand years later.
Eventually, we moved back to Central Texas, and travel became a much smaller part of my life. School, college, work and everything that comes with growing up took over. But the curiosity those early experiences gave me never really went away.
By my early 30s, I finally had the independence and means to start exploring again on my own terms. I wanted to experience different cultures, learn the stories behind the places I was seeing, eat the food, meet the people and do the things I couldn't do at home. I started traveling more and quickly realized how much I had missed it.
Around the same time, travel became a huge part of my professional life, too. For nearly a decade, my work had me on a Monday-through-Thursday travel routine. I got very good at packing - keeping duplicates of practically every essential toiletry permanently in my suitcase - and eventually reached United 1K and Marriott Ambassador status. I even had a hotel or two recognize me as their most frequent guest of the year. My lifetime Marriott night count is honestly a little frightening.
And, as luck would have it, that's right around the time I met Adam…
Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi, Rome (circa 1987)
Berlin Zoo, West Berlin (circa 1988)
So many of the places I experienced as a child, I can't wait to revisit someday - this time with my husband and our son, seeing them all over again through a completely different set of eyes.
Sibelius Monument, Helsinki (circa 1987/1988)
Rediscovering adventure in my 30s
TWO TRAVELERS, ONE VERY DETAILED ITINERARY
I met Adam. And the adventure got even better.
We met in Houston in 2014, after mutual friends set us up to play volleyball together. It didn't take long before we started dating - and travel soon became a big part of our relationship.
Our first big international trip together was a whirlwind through Dubai, Botswana, and South Africa in 2015. It was ambitious, adventurous, and probably a pretty good test of whether we traveled well together. Luckily, we did.
We're also very different when it comes to planning. I'm the researcher, the organizer, and the one who wants to know exactly what we're doing and when. Adam is much more go-with-the-flow and generally happy to trust whatever I've put together. Over the years, he's learned to embrace my detailed itineraries - and I've learned that occasionally leaving a little room in them probably isn't the worst thing.
“When do you have fun scheduled?”- Adam, reviewing one of my itineraries
We're rarely content just seeing a place from the sidelines. Some of our favorite experiences have involved getting a little outside our comfort zones - climbing, diving, riding, hiking, and finding ways to experience a destination beyond the usual sightseeing.
From safaris in Botswana and climbing Huayna Picchu in Peru to biking 40 miles down Bolivia's Death Road, we're usually up for an adventure. We've ridden motorcycles along South Africa's Cape Peninsula, gone cage diving with great white sharks, and said yes to plenty of experiences that took us well beyond the usual sightseeing. Not every trip has to be adrenaline-filled, but when there's an opportunity to experience a place a little differently, chances are we're interested.
Our kind of travel.
SAFARI, BOTSWANA
Nothing quite prepares you for seeing wildlife this close.
DEATH ROAD, BOLIVIA
40 miles downhill on a road with a name that says it all.
HUAYNA PICCHU, PERU
Worth every step to get to the top.
THE EXCEPTION TO THE ITINERARY
Proof that I can travel without a plan!
For all my planning, spreadsheets, reservations, and carefully researched itineraries, there was one trip where we did almost none of that.
We booked round-trip flights to Denver, reserved a rental car...and that was about it. We arrived without hotel reservations or much of a plan for where we'd go once we got there.
From Denver, we simply figured it out as we went - deciding where to drive, where to stay, and what to do along the way. It was completely out of character for me, which is probably why the trip remains so memorable.
I haven't exactly converted to spontaneous travel since…but Adam does have proof that I'm capable of it!
Then There Were Three.
By the time our son came along, another part of my travel life had changed too. COVID brought my years of weekly business travel to an abrupt end, and the work world that emerged afterward looked very different. The projects that once had me flying to a client every Monday could suddenly be done from home. After years of packing on Sundays, coming home late on Thursdays, travel gods willing (!) - and joking with Adam that we were only married on the weekends, my suitcase finally stayed put.
Our son joined our family in 2021, and suddenly I was very happy to be home. I still missed traveling, and sometimes still do, but I couldn't imagine going back to living out of a suitcase every week. We loved our new family of three, and from the beginning, we knew we wanted travel to remain a part of our lives. We just wanted it to look different.
His first international vacation came at just eight months old, and travel has been a part of his life ever since. Traveling with a child has definitely changed the way we do things. We move a little slower, build in more flexibility, seek out playgrounds almost everywhere we go, and have learned that snacks can solve a surprising number of problems. But becoming parents never changed our desire to explore.
If anything, one of the best parts of traveling now is getting to experience places through his eyes. Things we might have walked right past become exciting again, and some of his favorite memories have come from things we never would have considered highlights ourselves.
As he grows, we hope travel helps him become curious about the world and comfortable experiencing places, people, foods, and cultures that are different from what he knows at home. And along the way, we’re creating a pretty incredible collection of memories together.
Travel looked a little different from here!
Traveling with our son has changed what makes a moment memorable. Some of the things he gets most excited about are things we might have barely noticed before - and somehow, they’ve become some of our favorite memories too.
THE WORLD THROUGH HIS EYES
A CAR…ON A BOAT!
Moorea, French Polynesia
Taking the ferry to Moorea was simply part of getting there for us. For our son, getting to climb into the driver's seat once we were parked on board turned the crossing into an adventure all its own.
THE SIMPLE THINGS
He watched me order a smoothie and immediately wanted one of his own. Somehow, watching him happily sip it on our jungle balcony became one of my favorite memories from Belize.
San Ignacio, Belize
GETTING IN ON THE POSE
He'd seen us do our ridiculous “prom pose” on plenty of trips - and had even started taking some of the pictures himself. In Washington, D.C., he decided it was finally his turn to join in.
Washington, D.C.
Thanks for getting to know a little about our story.We hope it inspires your own adventures, big and small.
Have a question about one of our trips, traveling with kids, or something you’ve read here? I’d love to hear from you.