Baby Steps to Success

I'm happy to report that since I started going to the gym in January I've lost 4 inches...all around of course, not just in one place. I haven't really seen any difference so it was nice to get measured again and see that my hard work is paying off. I'm not sure how much weight I've lost because I wasn't weighed when I started. Numbers on the scale aren't that important to me, it's more how I feel and I feel great!! Too bad losing weight the right way isn't quick and it certainly isn't easy! I'm just happy to know that there was a difference :)

Costa Rica...Here I Come!!

I have been talking about spending the summer in Costa Rica for a while with my friends and I don't think they believed I would actually go but I just booked my ticket and registered at a Spanish Academy. I'll be taking 5/hrs of spanish classes a day from Monday-Thursday at CRLA.I looked at a few language schools and decided I felt the best with this school. After a few emails back and forth to address some of my concerns I worked it all out and I'm going...YAY!! I will be spending at least 8 weeks there from May 24th-July 19th. My best friend is getting married July 26th and being the good friend I am (I'm a bridesmaid) I am coming home for her wedding. Depending on how well my spanish is going at that point, I might go back to Costa Rica for 2 more weeks to get a little more practice in. I've been trying to learn spanish for the last 2 years (not always so diligently) and have taken 3 classes at the university level but I still suck at it. Hopefully after this summer I will be able to get over the hump I'm stuck on. Yay...I can't wait. If you've been there and can recommend any cool places I have to see let me know. I have the weekends to do my own thing and plan to visit all the hot spots, as well as try to go to Guatemala, Panama and maybe Nicaragua. Oh yeah, the best part is the school has a free gym so I can continue to work on my fitness and not lose any progress I've made...which, I've lost 3 inches to date :)

Crunch Time!

For those of you who were fans of my former blog you are aware that I hired myself a personal trainer in January. It's a little more than I would like to spend but some people just need a little extra guidance to get started and I'm one of those people. If I didn't have appointments with my trainer then I wouldn't be going to the gym as often, even though I tell myself I need to. For the first month I haven't really seen any results, partly because I didn't really work on my eating habits. I've started changing that now too (it's hard to change that part of your life) and supposedly, according to my trainer and my friends, there's a difference. Yay!! I've started noticing little things like increased strength and endurance and I can touch my toes finally (something I've never been able to do). It's great to know that the hard work is doing something.


I have a little less than 4 weeks before my family cruise and it's crunch time. I will be sportin' a bathing suit and I need to look good. I'll be pasty white for the first few days but a couple days in the sun will take care of that. I might even get myself a spray tan before I go just to have a little base of something before but who knows. Today I ordered a couple of new bathing suits and I can't wait to use them at the beach. Yay for traveling!! I'm only grateful that the cruise ship has a gym because I can't get out of the habit. Plus, if you've ever been on a cruise then you know all the wonderful food they have so I will be a gymoholic while I'm there. My extended family is going to think I'm crazy but oh well...I'll look good :)

Jamaica Anyone?

Right now I have a roommate from Germany who works for an airline. We are planning to go on a cruise of the Caribbean the first week of April together. I'm also going on a cruise with my family 2 weeks before my vacation with my friend. Tonight we were talking and she said she had a few days off the week I get back from our family cruise so we are trying to decide whether or not to go to Jamaica. If we go then I'll stay in Miami and wish bon voyage to my family and meet my traveling buddy at the Miami airport and head to Jamaica. Then, when we come back home for a few days and head down to Puerto Rico for our next vacation. I'm pretty sure I'll be broke when all my travels are done. But hey, you only live once right? Has anyone been to Jamaica...where should we be sure to go visit? We'll be flying to Montego Bay so if you have any hot spots let me know :)

Masters Research...On Blogs!!

I am in my last semester at George Mason University...Yay! If all goes well this semester I will be earning a masters degree in Secondary Education: Curriculum & Instruction with an emphasis in History & Social Sciences, wow, that's a mouth full. I'm taking an educational research class, where we have to conduct action research. I've conducted research already in high school and college and the design of those and action research is similar so that's nice but action research is more personalized and meant to improve classroom instruction. It's meant for teachers to reflect on the nature of their own classroom and research what's been done and come up with something new to try for their classes. Prior to this semester I have been racking my brain trying to come up with a research topic. There are a lot of things that could be done but it has to be interesting for me because I will be spending a lot of time reading up on the topic and conducting research on it. I even tried looking into education journals for ideas and for months and nothing...yikes!

I almost considered withdrawing from the course until I had my own classroom (right now I'm working as a substitute teacher, seriously the best job ever). That meant delaying my program another 8 months and I wasn't too excited about that. I want to be done. Plus, if you noticed in my previous entry I have a few travel plans requiring me to miss a couple class sessions and I didn't want that to effect my grade. I decided to attend the first session of class and talk to my professor and find out if the missed classes would get in the way and also talk about research ideas. No problems were found with me missing a couple classes, mission one accomplished. I also talked with her for help with narrowing down a research topic. Study habits of students has always been interesting to me as I rarely study and always did well and other friends would study tons and barely get by. For clarification, I do put in the time needed for assignments but spending hours studying for tests was never my thing. I'd rather write a 20-page paper than study for a test...seriously! I thought it would be interesting to do some research with study habits so I started looking up articles and one about using blogs in the classroom came up and a light bulb went off. I ran the idea by my professor and ta-da, I have my research topic.

The question I am posing is "how would the use of blogs in the classroom effect student motivation outside the classroom?" I love blogging and I fully intend to use one when I'm a full-time teacher but there hasn't been a lot of research on their effectiveness and so forth. Yay...pave the way for new research. I love the fact that I'm finally researching something fairly new. I also look forward to interviewing students and teachers to fine the best way to implement a blog in the classroom so it's fun and also provides for a reflective, intstructional device. Stay tuned for more updates on how my research is developing.

It's All About Who You Know

Have you ever heard, "it's not about what you know but who you know?" Well, as much as I'd like to say that's not true, it is. In a lot of my travels I have gone to visit people living in those locations, I rarely stay in hotels. I have been lucky enough to make friends from all around the world and therefore, have places to stay when I travel. If you meet people from around the world and you get along with them, keep in touch. You never know when you might want to make a trip somewhere exotic and having a free place to stay is a nice way to save some money. Obviously, I wouldn't recommend keeping in touch with people you don't like because if you want a place to stay you will want to enjoy your visit but it's worth it to go through the hassles of staying in touch. Life is busy and gets hard to stay in touch with people sometimes but fostering those relationships makes traveling cheaper and more fun when you have a friend to go see. If you meet cool people along the way, stay in touch!!

My Travels Map

Have you seen my travel maps and thought, "I want one too?" Visit Travbuddy and create your own travel widgets. It's really easy to use. All you do is click on "Countries Visited Map" or "Future Travels Map" and click off the places you've been or you want to go. Enjoy!

How do you know you're a travel addict?

I've been wondering a lot lately about what makes one a travel addict. Is it the love of traveling and desire for adventure? Perhaps but I feel it's a lot deeper than that. I have always been fond of traveling but lately it has become a passion of mine. I'm constantly working through my finances and schedules to see when I can take my next trip. Anytime I have an extended break from work or school I take a trip.

As a young girl my family did a lot of road trips. My parents didn't make as much money back then so international travel was out of the question. However, we did have one of those luxury vans we used on all our trips. It was pretty awesome. It had a TV, comfortable seats and the back seat folded down to a bed so you could sleep. I tried to sleep as much as possible because it always made the trip go by faster. I miss our van. We've been to Myrtle Beach, Disney World, Utah, South Dakota, Wyoming, Vermont, Connecticut, New York and probably other places too in that van. Good times.

As time went by my older brother and sister went off to college (I'm the youngest) and family vacations became harder because they were away and money was tight while my parents helped out with school costs. My parents decided to sell the van...so sad. When I graduated college in 2004 we started doing more family vacations since we were all old enough to pay our own way (another sad day...when I had to start paying for my own trips). Our mode of travel switched from the van to the plane. We started traveling abroad and discovering more of the world. My Dad's extremely fond of cruises (I'm sure it's because of unlimited access to food) so him and my Mom have been on a lot of those. I like cruises but I also like to get to know the people and culture of the places I visit and a 8-12 hour stop just isn't enough time to do that.

I graduated with my Bachelor's in 2004 and took a little time to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. Now that I'm almost done with my masters degree I've finally figured it out. I want to travel the world!! I have the best job for traveling...I'm a teacher, which means I get summers off and built in vacation time!! Over the past year I started traveling a lot more. I had months where it felt like I was hardly home. I love traveling. I've decided to utilize my vacation time to the fullest. Last year I left the country 3 times and went on a few domestic trips too. Traveling is so my thing!

I still haven't answered my question of what makes a travel addict. This is something I will post on in the future as I come up with more things that make a travel addict but I did discover one thing today. We all have those lovely bills we have to pay for all the time...I especially love those unexpected one's that catch you off guard for a few hundred dollars. When I get those bills and write my check I think "dang it, that's a plane ticket I can't buy now!" If you think like this, you might be a travel addict! Stay tuned for more posts on what makes one a travel addict or feel free to comment with other things that make a person a travel addict.

Upcoming Itineraries!

I'm going on a few trips in the next few months that I'm pretty excited about. The first trip will be a family reunion cruise with all of my Dad's family (9 of the kids are going with their spouses and kids)! I think we will take up half the boat!! We leave out of Miami on March 15 and come back on March 22nd. We're going on the Norweigan Sun cruise boat. We will be stopping at:
- Roatan Island, Honduras
- Belize City, Belize
- Cozumel, Mexico
- Stirrup Cay, Bahamas
I'm looking forward to spending the week with my aunts, uncles and cousins. Look for pictures in March.

My next trip is also on a cruise with one of my girl friends. We're flying to San Juan, Puerto Rico (I love that place) on March 30th to leave on our cruise and returning on April 8th or 9th. My friend and I are going on the Carnival Destiny cruise. We will be stopping at:
- San Juan, Puerto Rico
- St. Thomas, USVI
- Dominica
- St. Lucia
- Antigua
- St. Kitts
- Barbados
We're going to have a blast. I just hope I have a nice base tan from my first cruise so I can lay out even more on this one. Caribbean beaches here we come!

When I come back from that trip I'll be home for a week or so again and then I'm off to Hawaii for 11 days. I'm going to Oahu and Maui. My friend is getting married and I had enough frequent flier miles to go so I thought...why not? I lived in Hawaii for two years while I finished my undergraduate degree and I can't wait to go back. It's been almost for years since I left there and Hawaii has a special place in my heart. I only hope I have the willpower to come back home because I'm sure I won't want to leave!

After I get back from Hawaii I have to work some to make up for all of my travel expenses and if all goes to plan I will be leaving for San Jose, Costa Rica on May 31st for the entire summer. I'm going to be attending a Spanish language academy. I've been trying to learn Spanish for a while now and I really need to be fully immersed in it to finally get it down. While I'm there I plan to visit Panama, Guatemala, and Nicaragua...if money allows. This trip unfortunately is not already booked so it's not for sure. I'll keep you posted. I don't think it will be a problem but you never know, it's still 4 months away and a lot can happen in that time. I look forward to blogging about all my future travels!!

Photos from Past Travels

Who Am I?

My name is Amy and I'm a 20-something single girl. This year I'm approaching a quarter-life crisis...that's right, I'm turning 25. This year is one of those pivitol years in a person's life. I've been reflecting on my life so far and I've done a lot of cool things but there is so much more I want to do. I've always been a lofty dreamer and have a lot of ambitions. I've always loved traveling and learning about other cultures so it's only natural that one of my goals is to travel the world before I die. I would like to make a round the world trip here in the very near future so I decided to start this blog. This blog will be the journey of a single girl trying to travel the world piece by piece...while still trying to live an everyday life (at least for now).


I've been reading some awesome blogs lately that have inspired me to change my own travel ambitions. I love to travel and throughout the last year or so have definitely made traveling a priority in my life. I love to do it and I have the time and resources for it so why not? Most of the blogs I've been reading are about people that have taken the time off to travel for a year or more. My favorite site of that nature is The Lost Girls. Three girls left their Manhattan life behind and set out on a year long adventure. Another site that was great is Six in the World. A family of six left their lives in Atlanta and set out for a 13 month around the world trip. Talk about an awesome family vacation. I'm going to have to do that when I have kids. To date most of my vacations have been only a week or two and this summer I'll kick off my first long-term travel itinery. I'll be heading to Central America for the summer. It's not a year long trip yet but it's a start.

I'm finishing up my masters degree this semester and have already accepted a teaching position for the 2008-2009 school year. I will not be able to start any year long journeys just yet but I will be starting my savings account for it! I have a bunch of trips planned so far this year and will keep up with my short trips until I can fund a year long journey. Plus, I'll be needing to find a travel buddy. I don't know that it is safe for me to travel alone. I think after my first year teaching I might start my round the world quest. My sister and her boyfriend are moving to Kosovo this summer to teach for two years so when I'm done I will probably start there but we'll see. Stay tuned on my blog for future trips and plans :)

Where am I going?

Here's a map of scheduled trips I'm taking as well as a lot of dream destinations!!