Why We Started a Travel Blog

The travel blog market exploded while we weren’t paying attention.  At that time, our lives were focused on kids, careers, etc., and the last thing we had time to consider was a website. Ten years later, times are different. Our kids are older and under better control. We have more time to travel and more time to write about it.

So why start a blog so late in the game?  The industry is teeming with photographers who’ve scoured the planet for content. Can we possibly hope to do it better than these young, established folks?  Probably not. The truth is, our desire to start a travel website sprung organically from our passions when the time was right.  

Five years ago our life was in significant flux.  Five years before that, life was so chaotic we could hardly keep the paint on the walls.  Not until 15 years into our marriage have our lives somewhat settled down from raising four children: Two with autism, and two with ADHD.

Chaotic life notwithstanding, traveling was always in the cards.  When the kids were in diapers we took them camping around western-Washington.  Eventually we set out on longer road trips, which culminated in the purchase of a Winnebago in 2017.   

Over the last three years we have purchased stickers from all our destinations and displayed them like trophies on the window of our rig.  It would appear blogging about it was the next logical step.  

The Inciting Incident — why we started a travel blog

In 2012 we took our first major road trip, a three-week jaunt to the fun parks of California.  Our children were ages 2, 4, 6, and 12.  We had one with ADHD, two with autism, and one in a stroller.  I don’t know how we convinced ourselves it was a good idea, but we learned two remarkable things about our children on that trip:  

1.  They run off in crowded places.  This is very scary if you’ve never experienced it.  We’ve experienced it a lot.  

2.  When they aren’t eloping, our children travel well.  Despite their disabilities, taking our kids on the road was a possibility.

Fast forward some years later, our careers and children have somewhat stabilized.  Hitting the road feels less imprudent these days.  No one needs our phone number written on their forearm in permanent ink.

The past two years we have visited over thirty-three states in our RV.  In the summer of 2019, we spent 53 days road-tripping around the US.  Travel has become our favorite thing to talk about.  

Regardless of our newfound success traveling with our children, as recent as spring 2020 there was no talk of a travel blog.

A Fortunate Series of Events

Nine months ago, on a cold, winter night, Ryan searched for “best islands in the world” and found this link.  It wasn’t quite the same as the other websites we had used for information.  This site was run by a man who claimed to be the youngest to visit every country on earth.  “He must be rich,” was Ryan’s immediate thought.  Sounds like a nice life.

A few months later, Ryan came across this link while shopping for a new camera.  The advice was offered by a young couple who run a website showcasing their worldwide travels.  “Their parents must be rich,” he thought again.  As we read about the couple, we discovered that they were not necessarily overprivileged.  They appeared to be motivated twenty-somethings savvy enough to create a website, as well as intelligent writers and incredible photographers.  

We utilized travel blogs for research as often as they presented in searches, which was increasingly frequent.  Admittedly there was some jealousy because a top-shelf travel blog is a thing of beauty.   We talked about these travelers and their enterprises, but as impressive as they were, the travel blog idea did not materialize at that time.

The Aha Moment — why we started a travel blog

It wasn’t until several months later, after reading some articles about the Pacific NW (our home region), that Ryan spoke up.  “Why does everyone rank the Pike Place Market as a top-five thing to do in Washington?  There must be fifty better things to do.”

Flippantly, Monica put words to our unconscious thoughts.  “Why don’t we start our own blog?  We can tell people to avoid it.”  

The words hung in the air like music.  “Why don’t we start our own blog?”  It was as if Monica had given Ryan permission for something he hadn’t thought to ask.  It was a bona-fide “Aha” moment, the keystone idea that fell into a chain of ideas we had been constructing for decades.

What is Our Motivation for starting a travel blog?

We love to travel, but why write about it publicly?  This wasn’t easy to sort out.  What are we hoping to get out of it?  We have perfectly good careers.  We aren’t swimming in free time.  The notion swelled our hearts and lit our minds so we knew it was a good thing.  But to what purpose?

We settled on the following:  Monica adores the idea of creating a scrapbook for our children, something more organized than Facebook and more accessible than computer files.  Ryan enjoys systematically exploring and documenting the world, and if anyone can benefit its a good thing.

After having the big idea, eventually the doubt crept in.  

We’re in our forties.  We aren’t young or fabulous. Our children are crazy.  Why would anyone care?  

We came to two conclusions:  

1.  We don’t mind if no one cares.  Creating a beautiful place for memories is enough.  

2.  We know how rough it is parenting atypical children.  Autism, sensory disorders, ADHD, mental illness, etc., all provide reason to retreat from the world.  However, traveling with our children has made a huge difference in their development. Perhaps someone can seize strength through our example.

Are We Idiots?

So that’s how the travel blog happened, at least the medium length version.  We won’t bore you with the rest of the story because it’s even more tedious.  Just one last detail and we’ll wrap it up.

We spent a series of evenings trying to come up with a name for our site.  This was harder than one might think because someone had beat us to the punch on every idea we had.  

In the rare instance the URL was available, the social media was not.  Some had done little more than secure the URL, while others were selling their empty sites like pimps.  

After three fruitless nights chasing domains, we were completely over it.  Hilariously, we almost landed on happyandmappy.com.  She happy, he’s mappy, as in, he likes maps.  

In our exhaustion we figured it was perfect, and howled with laughter at the dining room table.  

It was so ridiculous that between the laughs we repeated the question over and over, “Are we idiots?”

The answer was clearly yes — total idiots — and we knew it.  Mercifully we arrived at hofftoseetheworld the next day.

Who Knows Where This Will Take Us?

This much we do know:  We believe families are the central unit of the universe, and no amount of success in the world will make up for a failure in the home.  We have decided that in our unusual situation, the best way to raise our children is to take our home on the road.  It is in these places that our kiddos learn best. 

Out in the mountains near the rivers and lakes, to the beaches at sunset and deep in the caves, in museums and prisons and battlefields we, will share big ideas as family. 

We hope that what we create helps our family grow closer. And we hope it will do the same for yours.

Thank you for stopping by our website! We are the Hoffmann family, a full-time RV family that has split residence in Seattle, Washington and San Antonio, Texas. We have special needs children that we homeschool, and work travel assignments for the Veteran Affairs Hospital. If you would like to learn more about us, check out our Start Here and Biography pages. In the meantime, God bless and travel happy!