Most everyone likes to travel, but everyone has a very different idea about what traveling means. So here is the way I see it.

I have traveled as long as I remember myself, having parents who travel a lot. My mom loves the beaches and has many friends in Germany, so visiting Berlin or Dresden was as regular as our summer holiday in a foreign country. My dad worked on international train routes, so he has traveling in his blood and the ability to speak “any language”. When I was little and my teachers would ask about my dad, I could never remember whether he’s supposed to be in Germany, Hungary, Bulgaria or home.

By the time I was 18 and started to travel on my own, I had a whole list of countries under my traveler’s belt: Germany (many times), Hungary, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Austria, Greece and Italy. As a matter of fact, traveling was so normal in my family, that I was completely stunned when I met a 15 year old girl who never saw the sea. Only then I realized what an advantage my parents gave me by saving money each ear to take me someplace interesting.

I picked up the legacy quickly. My first big trip “on my own” was a European tour with a busload of young people and a high school teacher who organized it through his little “travel agency”. We camped along the way, visited cities, mountains, beaches. As a low-budget starter, it was perfect: Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, France, Monaco and back (check out the pics).

I’m not physically fit enough for mountain climbing, jungle expeditions or wild water rafting, although all these sound intriguing. Being a pale-skinned natural blond, I also can’t lie on a beach for too long. Travel agencies are out of question, as I can't stand having a pre-determined program. So I had to find something in the middle, that suits my need to explore. All this was solved when I met my husband Jim, who feels the same way and … owned a motorcycle. I fell in love – with both.

Click on the country to see the photo albums from our trips:

I focus on the photos here, but if you are interested in reading more about some of these trips, you can visit Jim’s travelogue section of his Praguewriter.com site. He keeps excellent travel journals which may help you plan your own trips.