About Me

My name is Amanda Shook. I'm from the proud state of Texas. Where it's hot as hell in summer and mild in the winter.

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What I am not: An expert. A local of any of the places I’ve travelled to. A writer.  A photographer. An English major, spelling expert or grammar expert. A foodie, although I love to eat! Fancy, rich or classy. A fan of crowds. A professional blogger. Glad I got all that out of the way.

 

What I am: obsessed with vacation and making the most of each trip. I mean really. I am obsessed. I will research until my eyes are crossed and I can’t remember what I was looking for.  I look for experiences, beautiful and unusual places and adventure. I will scour the internet, read books, blogs and anything I can get ahold of. Now that podcasts are a thing, I look for ones about places I’m interested in visiting. I follow any Instagram or Facebook page that is associated with my next destination. I contact people who live there and ask them all my random questions. I am a list maker. Obvi. Did I mention obsessed? Yeah, that too. Oh and YouTubing all the locations I want to see! My teenage daughter hates it when I say YouTubing. She says it’s not a word, but clearly it is because my iPhone auto-corrected it to capitalize the Y and the T so I’m right and she’s wrong and this is the argument that never ends.  I almost forgot TripAdvisor, Yelp and AllTrails! I read the reviews to exhaustion.

 

Why do I do this? I’m glad you asked.  Short answer: Because I like it!

 

Long Answer: I actually spend months and months and months researching and looking into a destination.  Not just because I don’t want to miss anything about the next vacation spot, but because I don’t have enough money to travel more frequently then once or twice a year! If I did, I wouldn’t spend so many months looking into said place.  Also, because it’s fun and I like it and I don’t have a spontaneous bone in my body! I am a planner. Not always the best one, like the time I booked the wrong night for our halfway point on one of our trips. That’s a story for another time. I don’t like to show up somewhere and wing it.  I admire people who do. The ones who randomly pick restaurants and order things they can’t pronounce. Or go on road trips last minute. Those people who book the last minute super cheap flights and just go, I admire you. Even if I wanted to be that type of person, I have two kids and two spoiled rotten dogs so it’s not that easy. I don’t watch much t.v., I don’t read a lot of books, my only hobby is working out and planning vacations. And I am okay with that.

 

Basically, I decided to start a blog because, well, I was bored.  My husband is in nursing school and works full-time as a tech in the ER so if he isn’t studying, working and going to school, then he is sleeping.  My two teenagers are doing their on thing. The other major thing that happened in my life was a second herniated disc.  When it happened to another disc then I suddenly had a lot of free time.  I figured now is as good a time as any to share some of the trip details and maybe someone will find them helpful. If not, I have a really cool journal for myself lol. Enjoy!