Welcome Back

It's been two and a half years since I've written a travel blog on this site. Not surprisingly, that's the exact amount of time I've been in the working world. Writing blogs for money took some of the thrill out of writing blogs for my family, friends, and me. In the last few months, however, several things have changed that have given me the drive I needed to tell stories about my travels again in blog-form:

1. I (mostly) stopped writing blogs as part of my job. Instead, I started managing content, editing other people's blogs, and writing things that weren't blogs. As a result, the idea of writing blogs for fun sounds...well, fun.
2. I wrote the first draft of a novel in a month (those of you who don't know about NaNoWriMo should check it out). While I'm extremely proud of that accomplishment, it has exhausted my fiction writing for the time being. Writing about things that actually happened sounds more appealing right now than convincing audiences of something that never happened.
3. I made a New Year's Resolution to write at least 800 words every day. Due to reasons 1 and 2, those words will be put toward travel blogs until I get tired of them again. 

The good news is I've traveled a lot in the last two and a half years, giving me plenty of ammo for writing devastatingly wonderful trekking tales. You can expect blogs about my adventures in:

• Madrid & Barcelona, Spain
• Kiawah Island, South Carolina
• Chicago, Illinois
• Peoria, Illinois
• New York City, New York
• Los Angeles, California
• Kansas City, Missouri

Also, I plan on traveling more within the coming year to the following places (and probably others):

• Seattle, Washington
• Portland, Oregon
• Cleveland, Ohio
• New Orleans, Louisiana

Those of you who have kept up with my blogs in the past may be surprised that I'm staying within country limits this year. Part of that decision is money, part of it time. As you'll no doubt see from my adventures to Spain, it's difficult to travel well when you're working your first job after college. But more on that later. The most important part of staying in America, though, is just a realization that I know more about other countries than my own. 

Lastly, I plan on filling in some of the gaps that have appeared in my original blogs about Europe and Asia. That way those of you who could care less about a young American's travels in America will still be entertained. 

So welcome back, vicarious livers! I'll be seeing you.