Inside Travel Family: How to Get the Vacation You Actually Imagined

Vacation shouldn’t leave you whispering, “I need a vacation from that vacation.” Claire Duarte, founder of The Columbia Mom, sits down with Tara from Travel Family Explores, a Frederick County, Maryland mom of three who helps families plan trips that feel calmer, more memorable, and actually doable with kids in tow.

We talk about Tara’s path from DC life and the stress of childcare logistics to a pandemic-era move to Middletown and the moment career uncertainty pushed her into Plan Z: building a family travel planning business. Tara shares what a modern family travel advisor really does, from destination counseling that cuts through decision fatigue to itinerary “reality checks” that save you from overbooking tours, ignoring age minimums, or forgetting the basics like laundry, walkability, and groceries.

You’ll also hear the practical systems that make traveling with kids smoother, including setting a consistent daily schedule, planning downtime, and using kid-friendly experiences like food tours and cooking classes to keep everyone engaged. We dig into the budget side too: why your dates, destination, and price form a triangle you can’t ignore, and how flexibility can open up better, cheaper options without giving up the vibe you want.

If you’re craving family travel that includes good food, real rest, and fewer spirals on your phone by the pool, press play. 

Connect with Tara ✈️
 Mom of 3 + founder of Travel Family Explores 🌍 helping families travel with less stress and more joy.

📱 TikTok: @travel_family_explores
📸 Instagram: @travel_family_explores
🌐 Website: Travel Family

Planning family travel that actually feels good starts here 💛

Transcript

Welcome To Mom Talk Maryland

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey friends, and welcome to Mom Talk Maryland. I'm your host, Claire Duarte, founder of the Columbia Mom. And this is your spot for real conversations, local love, and a whole lot of community. Whether you're folding laundry, running errands, or hiding in your car for some peace and quiet, let's dive in. All right, Tara, right? I want to make sure I get it right. Um, well, I'm so excited to have you here. We're doing a little virtual podcast day on this beautiful Tuesday, but I'm so excited to have recently connected with you. Uh, you know, another fellow mom, fellow Maryland mom, fellow uh Instagram social media mom. You know what I mean? We're we wear a lot of hats, I would say, right?

SPEAKER_03 0:45

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 0:45

Yeah. Um, so I'm so excited to have you here on um on the podcast so we can talk kind of like all things motherhood, all things social media, all things like, you know, I I I kind of love when I, you know, have some other fellow social media like influencers, because then we can kind of nerd out and talk about this world because, you know, it's I I feel like a lot of my job, you know, and I'll say job because it obviously is, it's my full-time job, um, you know, is explaining, you know, what it is that I do or explaining um marketing, explaining social media, explaining influencers. We have to like it feels like education comes with everything that we do, even though like the large majority of the population knows what social media is and um and influencers and things like that. But ironically, I have a corporate training later today where I'm doing coming in and going to be doing the same thing, and I'm gonna be teaching these their uh like a it's a group of real estate agents, like how to use Instagram, how to create reels effectively. Um, you know, so it's kind of ironic that uh how the tables have turned. But, anyways, to take it off me, um to get started, Tara, um I I love an origin story that's frankly like how and why I've kind of got even started with a Columbian mom because I had um been in the area and formed some really amazing friendships with some local business owners. And I mean, obviously they were good friends, but I've learned like along the way that I um obviously I do tons of features you know all over the county and beyond. And I think one thing that has always interested me, I'm like curious like how people got started and why their their their origin story. Um, but curious to know again, your your why and your passions, because I think the ways in which we get here to this point, you know, at least for me, it was absolutely a crazy road. It's very unexpected, it wasn't planned, it wasn't on purpose. And for some people it is, and that's really cool. It doesn't even matter. That's just my point is like I'm so excited to kind of get to know you more. And and again, get to have your, you know, our followers and our viewers and listeners that are you know listening in to get to know you more too. So hats off to you, Tara.

SPEAKER_01 3:05

Awesome.

DC Roots And A Teen Daughter

SPEAKER_01 3:06

Okay, so um I'm Tara. I live in Frederick County with my husband and three kids. Um, and a little bit kind of about how we got here and how we started our company travel family. Um, so my husband and I, I guess we'll kind of go from day one. We're both from um Pennsylvania. We're from the Brandywine Valley, which like if you've ever seen, they've had commercials weirdly lately. It's where Longwood Gardens is. Oh, we've been to Longwood. That's like exactly where we're from. So um we are both from this town and we met in high school band, very nerdy and embarrassing. I love that. Um, and then we both ended up going to colleges in DC um and started dating and got married right after college. Like we had no business getting married at 23, but we did. I know.

SPEAKER_02 3:55

So we actually just all of college.

SPEAKER_01 3:57

Uh no, we were just like friends and then dated at the end of college. And then we were like, where do we go from here? You're already my friend. I guess we're just getting married. Um just getting married. I love that. 23 year olds, go ahead. And we were right, exactly. Yeah. So we actually have been married now for 15 years. We just celebrated our anniversary. So we have lived many lives together. So I will tell you a little bit about our many lives. So we were like in college, we got married literally the week after I graduated college. We lived like the immediate post-college DC unpaid internship lifestyle together. Then we were you guys. Sorry. What'd you say? Go ahead. Where in DC were you guys? Oh, we've lived all over. So we our first apartment was in like upper northwest DC in the Palisades, okay. Which was so beautiful, but like it took us like an hour to get downtown.

SPEAKER_00 4:53

Isn't that funny? Yeah, I have a cousin um or my my aunt and uncle used to live there. Well, my aunt still does. Um, I mean, yeah, it's a beautiful area, but it's like it's like just over the DC line. And you're right, I still feel like it's so far removed. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:06

So we lived there. That was our first apartment. Then we got jobs. Um, and then we were like, let's do something different. And we moved to Northeast DC, which is basically the opposite of the Palisades. Um, we lived right over the Northeast Line in a neighborhood called Eckington, which is like NOMA. It's very like trendy. Um it was like up and coming. Um, so we lived there for a little while. That's where we brought home our first baby, who is our daughter. Um, she's 13 now. Oh my god. Oh my god. So I officially have a teen daughter, which is not as terrifying as everyone thinks.

SPEAKER_00 5:43

So I just want to throw that out there and we can totally and it's a firstborn. So firstborn, I mean, I'm a daughter and firstborn, I'm kind of a terror, but um but there's something about firstborn daughter energy, because I I am one and I have one, so I get that.

SPEAKER_01 5:59

She's just like a really pleasant roommate who sometimes has emotions. And we're just like, okay, like this is reasonable. You know, I was and like based on what everyone says about teenage daughters, I was expecting like all hell to break loose, but that really hasn't been our experience. Like she's just been awesome, and we go on like mom and daughter date nights. Like, she's it's it's a dream. It's really not as bad as everyone's.

SPEAKER_00 6:22

Well, that's also a reflection of you guys.

SPEAKER_01 6:23

So but it's like really not as bad as everyone says. I was like totally freaked out. So we have her. Um, then we moved to even deeper into Northeast, like on 8th Street, which was um, it was awesome to have like the restaurants and everything nearby. But then it got time to be like, okay, now our kids need to go to school. So we had to do the DC pre-K lottery, which if you I haven't heard about that.

SPEAKER_00 6:49

One of our friends still lives there, and I thought they were um moving out to the county um because I'm pretty sure she already started kindergarten. Anyway, so I guess they're figuring part of it out. Um, but yeah, no, I heard it's it's a lot.

SPEAKER_01 7:04

Honestly, nothing will ever be as stressful in my whole life as the DC pre-K lottery. So you can list up to at the time it was like 12 schools, you list them in order you want. And then there's like this algorithm that kind of takes into account all of your preferences. So, like if it's your neighborhood pre-K, you don't have a guaranteed right because it's not kindergarten, but you get like an extra preference point. If it's a younger sibling, you get like a preference point. So, anyways, there's this system that takes into account all of these things. You rank them in order. If you get into like number three, you're waitlisted on one and two, and you're dropped from four to twelve. Anyways, so the year that she was supposed to go into pre-K, we had this like very cute neighborhood school picked out. And it was like they changed something with the preferences, and we lived right over the border of the preferences. Anyway, she didn't get it. So DC pre-K is a million dollars. I mean, the whole area is extremely expensive. Oh god, right. Um, but we were paying basically $2,500 a month for one kid, which is a mortgage.

SPEAKER_02 8:07

Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:09

And she was like one of the only kids that didn't get it. And I was like, what are we gonna do? You know, I like I didn't know what to do. And so, anyways, we ended up buying the tiniest apartment in northwest DC, like on earth. I'm talking like 600 square feet. We were like, Wow, we were like, we're gonna make this work because we need like a reliable school, we need a reliable school for her. So moved, we bought this tiny, tiny apartment for like 295k, which is like in DC is nothing. Um, and I was pregnant with our second kid, so it was us and my huge wow.

SPEAKER_00 8:47

Wow, that's but you were gonna have four people up in there, granted. A newborn, but it's not like yeah, baby. No, but newborns need all the stuff. Yes, yes, all the stuff.

SPEAKER_01 8:58

Yes, so it was exhausting, but like it was the best neighborhood. We lived like six blocks from the zoo. Like it was incredible. So we live right next to Rock Creek Park, so it was wonderful. And my husband and I were both working at the time. We had started working um in international aid, which no longer kind of exists. Um, and then once I got pregnant with um my second one, I decided to switch to local government. So I was like, I'm gonna work for the DC government because childcare is such a nightmare and it's something I feel so strongly about that I want to kind of use my brain and what I know to work on this issue. So I applied for one job in DC government, got it, and then I started working more domestically while he kept working more on the international side of things. Um, so that's kind of how life was going until the pandemic.

Pandemic Pressure And A Move West

SPEAKER_00 9:48

Until the pandemic. Don't until the pandemic. Yeah. Don't we know it? Don't we know it?

SPEAKER_01 9:55

And I had like just gotten the oldest, like into her like sweet neighborhood public school, like everything was going really well. The baby was at like his, you know, wonderful daycare, which was an arm and a leg, but like at least we were like happy with it and we could walk there, etc. And then cue the pandemic, and we're in the 600 square foot apartment with two kids. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 10:16

And trying to do Zoom and how would you not assume that the story was going? I like kind of forgot about not forget. How did I not assume that of course COVID was gonna like you know, it's like a roadmap gonna be right to the 600 square apartment?

SPEAKER_01 10:30

Right in the tiny because the whole thing about the tiny apartment was like it's manageable if you're out of the house all the time.

SPEAKER_00 10:37

If you're at work, that's the point of city living. You can you get the rinky, you know, you pay more for a location, which means you're probably getting in a smaller place, but then you have all the amenities because it's all there.

SPEAKER_01 10:48

You have the public parks, you have the zoo, you the kids were at daycare in school, and we were at work all the time. So we were only there to like sleep and eat. So it was really reasonable, and then it was like, and this is a nightmare now that we're stuck literally all the time. And that you owned.

SPEAKER_00 11:03

So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:05

So then I was like, at that point, we had been doing day trips up to Frederick County like once a month at least. We just loved it. We were like, okay, cute small town, hiking. We used to come up to Howard County too. We would do like the Tapsco, like we were always doing day trips because we had to get out of the tiny apartment. Um, we were doing day trips all the time. We were coming up to farms and little shops and whatever. And then I was like, okay, we need to figure something out. I think we need to buy a house like out of the city, and we can buy it as a second home. If we have to commute, let's keep our apartment for now in case we get called back to work because my office was at Union Station and his office was in Rockville. So DC was the only place that made sense for both of us to get to work and get home before like 9 p.m. Right. Um so we started looking in Frederick County, and it was it was the fall of, we're talking the fall of 2020. It was a nightmare. It was like oh god, the market was insane. It was crazy, and everyone was wearing masks, and you had to have these like social distance viewing, and people were buying real estate like over Zoom. And I was like, this is crazy. We got so sick of the apartment that we moved in with my parents in Philly for the summer, and I was like, we're just gonna like be here, which says a lot because living with your parents and your kids is uh is exhausting, right? But I was like, but we're gonna be here for the summer because like I need more space, I need other adults to watch the kids while we're working, like we need help. Oh my god, yes, all the time. Yeah. So we did that, and then I mean, I think we put offers in on five different houses in Frederick and a couple like right over the line in like Clarksburg, like Montgomery County. And then I was like at my wits' end, and finally, um, our real estate agent was like, There's this, there's this house that came up in Middletown, which was originally where we wanted to live. It's the home of South Mountain Creamery. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was like, okay, that's really where I wanted to live, but I wanted to live in an old house, and Middletown is like 95% developments. Um, and we were worried about an HOA and like it commuting back and forth to DC and people not liking that. So I was like, okay, it's gotta be a historic house. Found this one historic house, it's a hundred years old. It was owned by the family that originally owned Main Cup downtown, the main family. Um, it was an ice cream shop at the time. It just had like this really cool history. It had a big porch and it was across the street from the park. Somehow we got our house. Okay. This is like October 2020. At this point, we moved to the house, but we're like still prepared to get pulled back to DC. Right. So nervous about that. Yeah. Exactly. So because it's like it's a long commute. So we were like, okay, worst case scenario, we can like go to a mark train, like we'll figure it out. But the kids are doing like Zoom school and it was awful. I mean, my daughter was in her whole, I think, second grade year was on Zoom. Oh my god. So we were like, okay, we'll try to finish this up. And my poor, of course, the kid that gets into universal pre-K is on Zoom.

SPEAKER_00 14:22

Of course, because that's that's how it goes.

SPEAKER_01 14:25

That's how life works. Um, and I was working for DC government, and DC government was kind of hinting that we were gonna have to come back. And then I got a job offer in January 2021, and it was a federal contractor, and they were like, Do you want to come work here? And I was like, Can I be remote forever? And they were like, Cool. Um, and then my husband's job transitioned to remote forever. So then we were like, Okay, let's sell the apartment and just stay up here. God bless. Yes. So it worked out, and we picked it because that was the plan eventually. We liked the schools up here, etc. So that's like our long story of how we got to Frederick County. Um, but we really love it here. It's a really good mix of like there's nature, there's creeks, our kids have good schools. Um we can also go downtown and get really good food. Yeah and like parking is like $2. Oh, yeah. So I mean, after you've lived in a city, everything seems cheap.

SPEAKER_00 15:20

Oh, for sure. I know when you're like raving about parking, you're like, what? And I guess and even hearing you say that, and I was like, Why are you talking? But I was like, I mean, we lived in Baltimore. I mean, but again, Baltimore to DC is also completely, you know, apples to oranges because it's also like Baltimore is dirt cheap compared to um compared to DC, but but still.

SPEAKER_01 15:42

Yeah, you're like, and like you can go somewhere without needing a reservation. Like it's so those things, those that like small town like small town, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:52

It's isn't hasn't Frederick been called one of like the biggest small towns kind of.

SPEAKER_01 15:56

Yes, it's it's so Frederick County is the fastest growing county in Maryland, and I think a lot of it is due to people like us who came like in 2020 during the pandemic, just looking for more space. The we live in western Frederick County, the eastern area I think has grown even faster, which is like Urbana, Mount Erie.

SPEAKER_00 16:14

I was gonna say because Mount Erie is right on the cocoa line. Yeah, and it kind of depends on where in Mount Erie you are, because like I have, you know what I mean? It's whether you're on the east or west side, because we kind of like obviously mostly grab Mount Erie, but it you know, um so it's funny, but I agree. It's like I feel like Frederick has become I don't I don't think it's necessarily the new Howard County, but it's like Howard County was like the new MOCO because it was like you know, Howard County was like more farmlandy, you could get more space, the school schools were great, but you're not too far west, like Frederick, you know what I mean? And you're just saying you're still close to metropolis, like with Baltimore and still not all that far from DC. But then the cost of housing, you know, with in in all the years too, it's like it's been moving everybody west.

SPEAKER_01 17:07

So I've just completely have a lot in common. Um, and that is what uh Frederick County gets mad sometimes. The the people that have been here a while, they say, we don't want to be another Montgomery County, don't turn us into another Montgomery County. And we're like, no one's trying to do that.

SPEAKER_00 17:23

Um no, trust me, the people that are in Montgomery County are in Montgomery County. Yeah, like don't worry, they're there. I'm from Montgomery County, so I and you you lived in DC. So you even if you didn't go to yeah, you you know, you know.

SPEAKER_01 17:35

Yeah, so it is like a little annoying that we're so far west. But then what is really nice is that when we travel, which we do a lot, we're exactly equidistant from BWI and Dulles. So we can we can go to both, like we're an hour from each, and we're like an hour 15 from Reagan when that comes up, which is not too frequently. I know people like to call it national too. Um, but that's like a really nice thing. So whenever we're deciding on day trips, it takes us the same amount of time to get to Baltimore as it does to DC. So we're just like, oh, well, we can just we can go to the aquarium or we can go to the zoo. Like, what do we want to do? So it's nice here, and a lot of people that live here, um, they commute to one or both, like in the family. Like the husband might go to Baltimore and the wife might go to um DC. Yeah. Um, but our town, I would say, oh, there's a lot of work from home people. Yeah. And there's a ton of federal contractors in Frederick County um that work remotely or commute sometimes or both. Um, so that's kind of like the the vibe. But no, we really like it here.

SPEAKER_00 18:38

Yeah.

Job Uncertainty And Plan Z

SPEAKER_00 18:40

So so now that you're you're established here in Frederick, talk about, tell me about, you know, the social media evolution and what that was like for you, and you know, getting to the creation of your page, and because now you've got, you know, your kids and your um, because I mean, I definitely had a weird evolution with that and how that came about. And um, because even like I said, even for me when I started this, this was not my what my, you know, I wasn't like this is gonna be my job, or I'm gonna create a business out of it. That's not what the intention was, um, or how it's or the purpose, the intention, whatever. Um, it was still, yes, birthed out of COVID for sure. Um, but yeah, so to walk us through that.

SPEAKER_01 19:22

So um we so we were just working here and kind of working remotely, kids were in school. Um, baby number three came along at some point um in 2022, he came along, and then um uh so my husband and I were both federal contractors, and then last year um he kind of got impacted by the USAID closure.

SPEAKER_00 19:43

Um I had cousins um that were, and they were actually like literally like in Africa. Yeah. So you know a lot of people that were probably in similar situations, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:54

Yeah. So um he worked in kind of finance the finance side of things. So he got laid off in April, but then the company actually said, This is like heartbreaking. He said, We actually need to like bring you back because we need you to help close out all of the programs. So he had to like call all the local partners and talk about like withdrawing the support and like pulling the money and like all these people in local offices that he'd like built these relationships with and some he had traveled to a lot of these places too for work. Like, I mean, he had traveled to um in the early days of our marriage, he had gone to Iraq a couple times, he had gone to Nepal, Egypt. Um, so a lot of these are people that he's met in person, and he had to like, you know, talk about kind of you know, the US government isn't doing this anymore. We have to kind of so, anyways, it was awful. And then once that was done, he's also like working himself out of a job, right? Um then he was laid off for good in July. It's June 2026. He is still unemployed. I mean, he's been looking this whole time. There it's so hard. There are so many people looking for jobs right now, and like an entire industry has been, you know, kind of pulled away, right? Um that's like what these what people have done is that they have learned how to use US government money to further US aims in these other countries and support local communities, et cetera. So like that's what we know. So there is like a lot of pivoting that people are doing. Like um, you know, some people have gone onto kind of foundations, some have gone into the federal government, but at the same time, this was all happening. A lot of the federal government was in a hiring freeze. So like that just kind of added, you know, a little bit of complications. So he's been unemployed for a full year almost. And then we're managing it okay. I am still hanging on. Um, I'm a contractor for health and human services, so we weren't sure what was gonna kind of come next and if the axe was gonna come down on my job. So we were like figuring out plan A, plan B, all the way through plan Z, um to just to make sure that like our kids were happy, healthy, and fed and safe and exactly.

SPEAKER_02 21:59

Oh my god, right.

SPEAKER_01 22:00

So then it kind of got to November. There was a government shutdown that impacted my contract. It was the long, you know, the longest one. I think it was the 52-day one. And I we just looked at him and I was like, okay, I want to talk about like Plan Z Z. And Plan Z is like something that I've always wanted to do is start like a small travel agency focusing on families. Because we are the family that, like, while everyone is going to like Disney and cruises, we're like, we're going to a small town in Mexico. See you later. Right. Always have mom friends be like, where should we go? Like, yeah, we want to do, and they would say, like, you know, we have seven days. We want to do a direct flight out of Dulles. We want to pay $500 per person. We want to beach. Where do we go? And I was like, the friend, the mom that you would call to like figure out where are we going? Help me with my itinerary. Because I mean, everyone knows, like, moms are exhausted. Decision fatigue is insane. So when it comes to planning a trip, frequently moms I know are just like, I don't want to do any of this. So we're just going to do an all-inclusive resort. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:11

And yes, I literally feel that. I'm like, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:15

And some people love that. And that is awesome. And I love if you love that, that is great. But what I kept hearing from mom friends is they would come back from the all-inclusive resort and they would go, I hated that. I didn't actually want to do that. I wanted to get out and I wanted to explore and I wanted to try different food and I wanted to do all this stuff. So I kind of thought, I think there's like a space here for me to help moms plan a little bit more adventurous trips. And if they want it, if they want to do all-inclusive, if they want to do a cruise, if they want to do Disney, I'll do that too. But really, kind of like my bread and butter is like the exhausted adventurous mom that wants to travel with her kids and also wants to like have it be restful because you know the saying it's not really vacation if you're going with kids, it's just parenting in a different place. Facts. Yeah. So like facts, but also like, can we make it a little bit better for you? Like, how can we make the trip like not as miserable for you? Can we have like a private chef come to your condo and cook dinner one night? Right. So for me, it's all about like, how am I helping my mom friends plan a better trip? And that's kind of where travel family was born and came from. So we started, we did everything above board. So we have a social media page, but we also like have an LLC and have a registered domain and like so we and we pay taxes, like all of the all of the stuff. So then I just joined an agency about a month ago. So I'm like a full service traveler.

SPEAKER_02 24:41

Cool, okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:47

Like come in and you're like, hey, I booked a flight to France. I need help with the itinerary. Can you help me make it kid friendly? But still, I still want to go to a museum. I still want to eat good food. That's kind of like so. We can do that. Or I have separate services that are just, I call it destination counseling because that decision fatigue of like where to go is so overwhelming for people, especially if we live in a major city. We have BWI and Dallas are pretty big airports. We have a lot of really good options. And and you know, like people are like, okay, I can go somewhere for spring break next year. I don't know where to go. This is what we like. Can you help me find a place? So I also have like destination counseling, like, let's just sit and chat about places. So social media kind of just arose naturally as a way to kind of grow the business and kind of share, like, hey, this is what our family does on trips, and like it's possible. Like my kids are not perfect. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And like we still go to really cool places and have really cool experiences. So, like, how can I help you guys do that if you want to have those experiences for your family too?

SPEAKER_00 25:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:55

Oh my gosh. So when timeline-wise, right? Because you had your third um son or third child in 22. Um, when did you sort of start? What year was it that you started the travel stuff?

SPEAKER_01 26:10

Yeah. So I mean, we've been traveling, like that's always been a thing for us since we got married. I mean, we had our honeymoon in Turkey. Um, we've

Becoming A True Travel Family

SPEAKER_01 26:20

just always like we both studied abroad. Like, I was in Morocco, he was in Ghana. Like, we're just like people that love different food, culture, history, like that connected us. Um, so I would say our first international trip was when our oldest was about 15 months old. We went to Ireland. It was terrible. Oh people are always like, oh, it must have you guys must have had the best experiences traveling. I'm like, I don't, so I'm not sure what was happening in that moment, but like people were not nice, which is really unusual for Irish culture and families. So I don't want to make like any generalizations about our experience. I think we had a very unusual experience. But there was a lot of like oh, like anti-American vibes at the time, and they were kind of like, Are you gonna talk to us about the potato famine? And I was like, no, like they were really like, I don't know if it was an over-tourism issue, but there was something going on kind of that we felt like not super welcome. Um, and our daughter was, of course, we talked about oldest daughter, first daughter energy, perfect, perfect child, perfect baby, giggling, happy all the time. And we would be in public and people would like glare at us at like 4 p.m. at like a pub. I was like, Where why are we not allowed to be here? You know, so it was really unusual. So we had kind of a mixed experience in Ireland. We went home and I was like, I'm done traveling. I'm not gonna travel with kids anymore. I think I'm not allowed to anymore. People don't want parents, people don't want families in the world. I was like so over it. Yeah. And then I was like, okay, let's try one more time. We're gonna try one more time the next year, and we're gonna go somewhere so easy that I don't know anything about. It was 2016, and we went to Puerto Rico. I knew very little about Puerto Rico. I knew that like it was a territory, we didn't need our passports, and that maybe I could speak some Spanish. Yeah, but I was assuming it was gonna be like pretty Americanized. Uh-huh. And we went and we had the best time. We drove all around the island. We spoke Spanish immediately, had to speak Spanish immediately. And that was so fun. And everyone was so kind to our daughter. I mean, we were um at like a restaurant, it was on like a rooftop, a rooftop restaurant on the beach. She had some toy with her and she threw it over the gate onto the flat part of the roof with no gate, right? And I'm kind of like, I'm not gonna get that. Like, I don't want to fall off this roof. Um, and I just said to her, like, oh no, it's gone. And a waiter who wasn't even our waiter jumped over the railing, grabbed her toy, and handed it back to her and walked away. Wow. And I was just like, what? And that was like a metaphor for like the whole time. Everyone was like so kind to us, was like trying to feed her, trying to hold her, like just so like overly welcoming and kind to families. And it was such a special experience. And it kind of like brought back my hope of like maybe we can do this, like maybe we can travel as a family and we can figure this out. We started getting back into our travel rhythm. We went to Iceland when I was pregnant with the second kid. We went to a couple different places, went to Panama, and then back to COVID. Yep. Yep. So then, you know, we're home for a couple years, we can't go anywhere. Uh, there was at some point you weren't even allowed to leave your state, you know, they didn't even want you to leave your state. Yeah, yeah. So, like the biggest trip we could do was go to like Eastern Shore. Yeah. We didn't do anything. And then I remember my um my second, who was like three during COVID, he said to me, He said, Are we not a travel family anymore? Whoa. And we were like, No, we are. So we started making these big plans. We said, when the pandemic is over, these are the places we're gonna go. This is what we're gonna do. So we made more plans than ever, right? That's what we all did during the pandemic. We all sat and talked about what we were gonna do when the pandemic was over.

SPEAKER_02 30:31

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:32

Yeah. So that's kind of where the name travel family came from, is from his little sweet toddler mouth saying, you know, are we not gonna go places anymore? So so and they they do love, they would always love to tell their friends, you know, their friends would say, you know, are you gonna be home during spring break? And they would say, No, we're not gonna be home, we're a travel family.

SPEAKER_02 30:50

Oh, that's so cute. Yeah, so yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:54

So then, you know, pandemic kind of slowed down. Baby three was in 2022, and then we started traveling again when he was about one. And we went to, we started kind of easier. We went to San Diego, which by the way, go to San Diego in October because they have a program that I don't know why everyone doesn't know about this, but they have kids free October. Kids kids free October, and all of the major museums, the sites, the safari park, the zoo, kids are free in October.

SPEAKER_03 31:27

What?

SPEAKER_01 31:28

Yes, and the flights are cheap, and I mean the water is a little cold, but it's the Pacific Ocean, it's always cold. It's always right. Yeah. So we had the best time we ate so many tacos, and we saved a lot of money going to these museums and things that you know otherwise we would have had to pay full price for. Um, so we started light, we went to San Diego, and then where else did we go with all three kids? With all three kids, we've been to Mexico twice to different towns, Puerto Rico. We went back to Iceland as a family. That was something we really wanted to do. We had talked about what are the special places we want to go back with all three kids. Um, and then we just kind of started putting a lot of like rituals and traditions around our travel. Like um we would have conversations beforehand, like what are your must-do's? What are your, we would say, what are your no thank yous? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So we started figuring out like all these things, how to make travel with kids easier. My kids made fun of me because I always have a PowerPoint before our trip. I'm like, this is the food you're gonna see. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't want food to be presented to my kids and my kids to go ew, you know. So I'm like, this this is what we're gonna see. This is what the money looks like, this is what our hotel looks like. This is the this is the travel day. So you're not asking me, what time are we leaving, mom? What time are we leaving, mom? So we would kind of put all of these practices in place. Yeah. Yeah, that that when we started travel family, I was like, oh, let me pull this stuff too. So we do have stuff like we have conversation cards that you can do if you're trying to plan a trip and get your kids involved. We have like my little PowerPoint I turned into a template for other parents to.

SPEAKER_00 33:07

Oh, that's so cute. That's such a cool idea. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:11

So we've turned like all of our little fun things that we have figured out because I think that our trips that have gone the best have been ones that the kids were really excited about because they were prepared for.

SPEAKER_00 33:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:24

They had like some skin in the game. They were like, okay, we're going to Mexico and we learned about the Mayans. Yeah. So they had like a connection, you know, and I'm that annoying mom that like when we get back, I'm asking their teachers if we can like make a project connected to the travel. But like that is, yeah, like that's because you know people go, you shouldn't travel as kids because they don't remember. And I'm like, yeah, but that's our job to reinforce it so that they do remember and show them pictures and connect it to school projects and be like, hey, maybe you don't remember when you were two and we went to Iceland, but like, let's you have a project on the Vikings and I have some pictures. So let me share these pictures with you of you at two in Iceland that you can add to your project. So that's something that we really like to do. Um, but yeah, we love traveling with them. Our last we just went to Costa Rica for spring break, which was so fun. Um, and I can't believe we hadn't been before, but um, it had overwhelmed me because it's a lot of logistics and driving. Oh, yeah. Yeah. But figured it out. We had a really good time. So yeah, we love, you know, we love traveling as much as we can. And I love helping other moms like figure. I'm like, I'm like, yes, you know, I see this post all the time. People go, where should I travel with my kids? And I'm like, okay, I need to know what's your home airport? Do you need a direct flight? What's the vibe? Are we doing beach, city, jungle? Are we adventuring? Are we resting? And then after that, we can like throw around some recommendations. But that's my favorite thing to do is to hear from another mom. Like, we want to go somewhere, we don't know where. This is our budget, this is our dream Saturday, and then we can like match make destinations. That is my favorite thing to do.

SPEAKER_00 35:05

That's so cool, and it's so cool to kind of hear about your like different processes, like, even like the PowerPoint thing. And of course, like my I go like you have three kids, and like and you it sounds like you still have another full-time job, and yeah, and like I'm like, where are you making the time to like make the PowerPoint to like obviously? But you know, of course, it always goes back to like, well, when you love something you're passionate, excited about, obviously. Exactly. Um, well, so then I I love how it's obviously birthed out of you know, your your whole family's um desire and passion for travel.

Travel Planning Services That Save Sanity

SPEAKER_00 35:44

So, how does that translate now? And what does that look like for, you know, I guess not just how you help parents, but like, you know, the actual services and things that you offer for people? Because I want I want people to walk away knowing, you know, um, I mean, obviously, it's you know, obviously very apparent that yes, you can help, you know, parents and moms and and families figure out not just you know, um different trips and to travel and to take those adventures and bring the kids and make the memories and things like that. But what does that look like? What are those services actually are?

SPEAKER_01 36:14

Yeah, so I'm kind of revamping our um services right now, but the main buckets are kind of traditional trip planning, as much and as deep as you want. So you can come to me and you can say, Tara, I have no idea where we want to go. I have like $5,000 for our family of five and we want to go somewhere. These are our dates because of school calendars. Parents always have very restrictive dates. So I always say, this is a sidebar, but I always say, if you want a cheaper vacation, you need to be flexible on dates, destination, or both. If you come to me and you say, I want to go to Italy April 1st to April 10th, it's gonna cost what it costs. Um, but if you come to me and you say I want to go to Europe April 1st to April 10th, then that's really where we can kind of explore and figure things out. So my bottom line argument is that I don't really believe that there are any kid unfriendly places. If there are kids living there, it is a kin-friendly destination. And we can really just about maybe you're not going to the fancy restaurant at 10 p.m. because that would be insanity. But like maybe you're going to the fancy restaurant at 4 p.m., right? Yeah. Like maybe we can figure stuff out. So my services are really I can do end-to-end travel planning, I can book things for you. Or if you say, I don't really, I want it to be in my which it would be in your name, anyways, but I really want to do my own bookings. I can go, okay, cool. Let's let's look at verbo for you. Let's look and let me filter by all of your preferences. And a lot of what I do is kind of asking questions and challenging assumptions that you have, like it's almost like a little bit of therapy because you say, okay, I think I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna look. I'm just gonna do verbo in Rome. And I go, okay, well, hold on a second. Before we do that, do you need laundry? Do you need it to be walkable? Do you need a grocery store nearby? And I'm gonna ask you all those questions that you're not gonna think to look for. And then I'm gonna take your list of 2,000 places and I'm gonna filter it down for you to like five. So really, yeah. So the point is really to help you kind of you don't know what you don't know. And you don't know that, like maybe there's no air conditioning in Rome in the summer, and actually it would be really hot, and maybe you should go to Rome in April. So that's kind of my job is to come in and tell you what you might not know to help you kind of narrow down the huge amount of information. And people say, like, travel agents, like, isn't that so 70s? And I'm like, well, kind of, but now we've come full circle, and now there's so much information that people really get decision fatigue of what kind of rental should it stay? What transport do I need to do, especially in Europe? Do I need a car or a train? Exactly. And and like a lot of people help, you know, they need help figuring out like, can I bring the car seat? That's a huge question. Can I bring the car seat or do I rent the car seat? And I always say, those plane seats, we need to check the measurements of the plane seats. And like, who would tell you that if it wasn't me, right? Like, you need a mom friend that has gone through this that has tried to bring her car seat and has been told it's too big. Like, I will be the mom friend that will help you and will give you a heads up about all this stuff. So it is full service travel planning with a real focus on families, but like family is, you know, however you define it. Like, I mean, I have friends that are, you know, um, single gay friends in Europe that I have helped plan trips because they have their own considerations that they're looking for. Is this a place I'm gonna feel safe? And I'm like, let's figure that out. So maybe that's not my experience, but like I can talk to other friends and I can research that for you and figure that out. So basically, I'm like your research mom friend who is going to make you have a trip that is going to be whatever you want it to be. If you want it to be adventurous and we're trying new foods and we're hiking in the jungle, we can do that. If you want to go sit at the pool while the kids are, you know, swimming and drinking smoothies, we can do that. If you want a combination, we can do that. So, what I kind of try to do is I kind of say, okay, like let's back up from destinations and and you know, must-haves and sites. Put that stuff to the side for a second. Tell me your favorite Saturday that you've had with the kids. That's a cool way to go about it. Yeah. Yeah. So we just back up from all that stuff because people get so I call it destination fixation. People get so focused on like, yeah, I need to see the Coliseum. And I'm like, cool, awesome. If you want to go sit on a beach, it might not be the right time for you to go see the Coliseum. Right, right. So a lot of that. So I do a lot of travel planning, but it's always like a collaboration and we're digging in, we're figuring out what actually is going to be the best trip for you because it might not be, it's probably not going to be what you think. Um, so we do a lot of that, we do a lot of the destination counseling, and then um I like to also just find it like even if you have a fully planned trip and it's 99% planned and you want someone to come and like reality check it, I love to do that. And I love to be like, now that's cool. Yeah, like that's too much very neat, yeah. And I can be like, your kids are gonna be exhausted from this morning walking tour, and you have a booked boat tour in the afternoon. You're probably gonna miss that boat tour. Let's consider moving that boat tour to the next day. So, like, we do a lot of let's lay out a daily schedule, which is another like huge tip for traveling with kids. You need a consistent daily schedule. Yeah, yeah. And for us, that looks like breakfast, big morning activity, lunch, quiet slash screen time. Everyone feels differently about screen time. My kids, my kids need screen time, and if I don't budget it into the day, they're gonna be bothering me all day. Right. And the last thing you want is to be at the Coliseum and have your kids being, can I go back and play Roblox? Like that's the last thing you want to hear. So you so if you tell the kids screen time is from one to three p.m. and then the toddler's also napping, and maybe mom is catching a nap, then like that really helps kind of break up the day and cut down on some of the whining.

unknown 42:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:34

So I love to kind of review daily schedules and help people kind of set that up. Um, I love to find activities that are kid friendly. So people get really focused on booking the excursions. Um, and the excursions are, you know, the boat trips, the day trips, yeah, yeah, yeah. And people love to do that stuff, and I love to do that stuff too, but it has to fit into the daily schedule. Oh, yeah. It has to fit in, and we have to check age minimums because a lot of them are hard to find the age minimum, a lot of them are up. Yeah. Um, so we have to figure that out. And frequently someone will come to me and they'll say, I really want to do this tour, and they'll send me a link, and it'll be like a full day boat tour on a catamaran with dinner included. And I'm like, Oh, this looks great, but this starts at 2 p.m. And you guys are have a big morning at a museum, and I think everyone's gonna be really pissed off if you kind of cut into that lazy time. So I say, why don't we find this one that's four hours instead and starts at 6 p.m.? So, like a lot of let's find shorter ones, let's find more kid friendly ones. Um, one of my favorite things to do with our kids is do a food tour or a cooking class because like immediately they're engaged. If they can use their five senses, that's cool, yeah. Right? If they can taste or smell something immediately, even the toddler is like, I'm in, you know. So that's one of my favorite things to do. Um, so we do a lot of that kind of stuff, but then like also I'm, you know, a human with a regular job and limited PTO.

Food Tours And Feeding Kids Well

SPEAKER_01 44:15

So we're not traveling all the time. So when we're at home, I love to do stuff like um we love to go to different restaurants in Frederick and we do like a little family review of them. So I do that a lot on TikTok. And we love to support like the local businesses. The local business community and the food scene in Frederick is like really strong. So we love to do that. I actually just started a new series where I go and I talk to some of like the small business owners that own the restaurants. Or um, do you guys have like cottage industries in Hoko? Yeah, there are some. Yeah, we have a lot. So we have a lot of people that like they make charcuterie boards at home and they deliver them to you, or they make sourdough and deliver it to you, or banana bread or something. And I found a lot of these people, and like there's a lot of interest in that. So that's something I love to promote. Um, and then also like we're just such a foodie family. So we do a lot of cooking. Um, we like to say, like, we want our kids to be adventurous eaters. And the opposite of an adventurous eater is what we call a butter noodle kit. Um, that's so funny. But I everyone, when I say that, every mom knows exactly what I mean. Our kids have all been through butter noodle phases. Um, and sometimes a kid will come over and you're trying to feed them dinner and they say, Can you just give me butter noodles? Now, no discs, no disses to butter noodles. A lot of kids are neurodiverse and you know they might have special needs. You know, and I have one of those kids too. I have a neurodiverse, my oldest. Um, but like we really try as much as possible to get away from the butter noodles. And we have like curry Thursday every week. Um so I talk, obviously, we do taco Tuesday, but our tacos, I'm difficult. So our tacos, like I'm hand pressing the tortillas because I'm insane. Oh my gosh, yeah. Um, but yeah, so we do a lot of like our cooking adventures at home. Um right now, I mean, everyone's getting ready for the beach. So right now I'm really kind of focusing on how can we help parents like actually cook food that they don't hate at the beach in a kitchen that's not your own. How can you cook food that isn't chicken nuggets and frozen pizzas when you're eating at home, right? So um gonna I'm working on a collab with a local, um, with a local chef in Austin. Um, and I'm super excited about it. We're gonna be talking about like how to cook in a kitchen that's not yours and like easy, like maybe you're going to the local fishmonger and getting fish and making like fish tacos at the beach. And some people might be like, I don't want to do that, Tara. And sorry, you don't have to. You can just, if you want to just do frozen pizza and nuggets, that's cool too. But um, it really helps cut down on cost of like eating out when you're at the beach for. I mean, we go to the beach for two weeks. If we ate out as a family of five every night for dinner, it would be you know, a hundred dollars, I know.

SPEAKER_00 47:08

That's why it ends up going back to like the all-inclusive kind of stuff. Exactly. That's how you go back.

SPEAKER_01 47:13

So we're trying to, so it's not to say that like everything that we do is like travel international focus. There's a ton of like domestic things that we do as well when we're at home, when we're heading to the beach, etc. So um, those are kind of some of the things that I love talking about.

SPEAKER_00 47:28

Yeah. Oh my God. Well, well, and I think that's so fun that you can still like, you know, obviously be the travel fam with all your expertise and all the things that you offer. And I love the thing you said, like the reality check thing too. Cause I think that's a really cool like um feature and sort of offering that you do. Because I feel like for a lot of families, regardless of the age, you know what I mean? Like my kids are getting, you know, older and more independent. So it's, you know, getting easier to travel and do things. Um, but you know, for people that want to travel, especially when their kids are younger, I feel like having some eyes on all of that um and their goals and desires and wants, you know, is so important because it it definitely gets tricky when they're when they're younger, but definitely doable. You know what I mean? It all depends on what what you want and what you want to make happen and things like that.

SPEAKER_01 48:15

Um, the difference between older and younger, right, is that the youngers are physically harder and they have more stuff, but they have less opinions. Um Right. And as we get kind of like my I know my older ones, my kids are 13, 9, and 3. And the 13 and nine-year-old, they have so many opinions on where are we going to dinner, what food are we trying, you know, what um, I don't want to go to that museum. So it's like they're a little more, and that comes up too. So I sometimes have I have one client who had kind of two teen boys, and her teen boys are very involved in the planning, and rightfully so, because otherwise she's gonna go on a trip and they're just gonna complain the whole time.

SPEAKER_02 48:54

Yeah. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01 48:55

Yeah, you know, at all ages, I would say it's it's there's definitely pros and cons to traveling with kids.

SPEAKER_00 49:00

Oh, of course, yeah. There's always something, you know what I mean? Like the hard things get easier, but then the hard things change. Exactly. That's exactly right. Yes. Um, well, Tara, this has been so awesome to talk about, like, you know, and really get this whole glimpse of you know what you do and everything like that. And obviously, you know, I love hearing like, you know, your DC origin story. Because again, like I have a lot of family that lives in DC is from kind of the DC area. So um, and again, I feel like it's such a DC thing. Like when you soon just say, like, oh, we love travels. I feel like everyone in DC like that much. Yes, you know what I mean? Yeah, that's just kind of a DC culture. So I'm not surprised. Absolutely. Um, but you know, again, like as soon as you're talking about like, you know, uh how much you love to like share the local like food scene and things around like you know, your your hometown of Frederick, I was like, oh, that's so like, you know, obviously like near and dear to my heart, because obviously I love doing all of that too. And but I feel like it it goes so well with everything that you do, even if it's like, you know, like you said, um, I mean, yeah, you're a

Budget Reality And Flexible Destinations

SPEAKER_00 50:00

foodie, but you know, you're showcasing things that you know and love and in your area, um, in addition to all the really cool travel stuff. So, and I think there are a lot of parents, you know, again, we are out of COVID, we're out of that. I mean, obviously we've been out of COVID for years. I just mean, you know, for the longest time, people like obviously weren't traveling and weren't doing things. Exactly. Like, we're getting, I mean, granted, like the economy is a whole crazy different thing, but you know, I think from the conversations I've had with other people too, is that you know, another I wouldn't say fear of traveling, it's more of like, okay, well, I don't, you know, feel like uh, you know, budget is is a massive thing. Like, oh, well, I don't really have much of a budget, so therefore I can't I can't really do these things. And and I admittedly, I I feel like I fall into that category a lot of times because I'm like, oh, well, I don't I don't know, you know, I mean it's like e it's either time or money, it's kind of both, you know what I mean? I work from home, but my husband doesn't, you know what I mean? So I have more flexibility um than he does, you know, something that that you know limits us of availability, but then and then it comes back to budget because it's like, well, okay, you know what I mean? Because then you two flights times four, and then depends on what we want to do.

SPEAKER_01 51:06

Flights times four is exhausting, but you know, it's so funny because like we travel, people say, why do you travel internationally so much? And I say, actually, because it ends up being cheaper than domestic. Because I mean, like, even if we're I mean, we're gonna drive to Outer Banks for our summer vacation, and I mean it's five thousand dollars a week, yeah, is usually what you see. And I mean, at that rate, like I could get a house in Mexico, you know, for cheaper. So then you add in the flights and it still ends up frequently being cheaper. But I do hear that from people a lot of like, the budget is this, and I'm like, tell me the budget, give me a hard number to start. Don't tell me Paris and $3,000 for a family of five in peak season because it's not gonna work, right? So, like if you have this budget, if you have dates, that's where destination is gonna have to be flexible because that's like your little triangle of your trip, right? Yeah, yeah. Um, so kind of mapping that out with moms is just something that can be like, no, like we can do this, we can figure out I I like, you know, that's really cool.

SPEAKER_00 52:08

Cause I mean, like, I feel like obviously, you know, big weeks are like um, you know, obviously spring break that goes without saying summertime and you know, week that like we are trying to play with more, but it's also challenging. But it's like that in between Christmas and New Year's that like 26th, the 30th, 31st. When it's the most expensive times to travel. No, exactly. Of course, it's like it's good because it's like, you know, yeah, most people are off, but also like everyone's traveling then, so it's challenging. Um but you know, yeah, I think it's like you know, you can still like approach it with like, okay, well, these are the dates. What are my potential options, you know? Um exactly, you know, so I think that's a really cool lens to think about it.

SPEAKER_01 52:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:53

So it's kind of just, you know, backing out, rethinking it, and and then kind of diving back in because, you know, for I'll tell you this story, I know we're kind of wrapping up. I had one client that really wanted to go to Germany this summer, and then the prices just kept going up and up and up and up, and then they were worried about kind of the war going on. And she said, she said, okay, let's stop everything. Is there another thing that we can, is there another place we can go domestically? And I said, Okay, forget Germany. What do you want to do? And she said, Well, we really love nature and kayaking and museums. And one of my kids really wants to go see whales. And I said, Oh, Pacific Northwest. So we found her super cheap flights to Seattle, and we just redid the entire trip because we were able to like zoom out and say, What are you wanting to do? And now she has an awesome trip planned with like $300 flights to Seattle instead of $1,500 flights to Germany. And yes, she will go to Germany. We will do Germany another time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. Exactly. It's just it's about what trip is working for your family in this moment and and what's going to be restful. And that's like what I am so excited to do.

SPEAKER_00 54:00

That's awesome.

Where To Follow And Final Takeaways

SPEAKER_00 54:02

Well, so where can people find you, follow you, so that they can either well, A, obviously to stay tuned with all of your adventures and all your fun sharings and highlights and stuff like that, but also where can they um you know learn more if they want to, you know, whether it's asking you questions, advice, or just, you know, yeah, like hire you to kind of help them with their trips. Where can they find you?

SPEAKER_01 54:25

So um our handle is at travel underscore family underscore explores. So travel family explores with underscores in between. Um, and that's on Instagram and threads and tick tock. Um those are the big ones. And then our website is travel dash family, travel dash fam.com, and I'll make sure that you have all of those links. Yeah. Um, but I mean, like honestly, it's like any which way, like DM me, you'll any more is correct. We will get you to the right place. Like, you will see me yapping on threads about all of the things that I love and you know, parenting and that's could almost be your slogan.

SPEAKER_00 55:01

We'll we will get you to the right place.

SPEAKER_01 55:03

We will get you to the perfect, right? We will get you to the right place. I like to say my little like slogan is like, we plan so you can be present, is what I really like to do. Because I don't want moms, I have been the mom that has been sitting there on my dream vacation. We're at the pool, I should be relaxing, and I'm I'm searching what's the next boat tour we're doing and what's the expedition. And I just I don't want people to there are people like me that are crazy and we love planning, but if that is not restful for you, I don't want you to be doing that. Like I want you to be at the pool enjoying your time with your kids. Vacations are expensive, they are an investment, and I don't want anyone coming away from them going, I need a vacation from that vacation. Oh my god, right. Yeah, no, I feel like that's the worst feeling when you get back.

SPEAKER_00 55:46

I know, it's ain't that the truth, right? Especially as we are coming into vacation season, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 55:52

Exactly. So I hope everyone has just a restful summer and is able to actually take a break on these vacations and not just quote, do parenting in another location. Well, it's hard to get away completely from that, but yes. Yes, I mean we do still have to parent our kids, but hopefully there's some opportunity for like connection and rest. Exactly. I love it.

SPEAKER_00 56:11

Well, Tara, thank you so much for being here today. I'm so glad that we could chat about all now. I'm like, oh, you know, it's getting the bug, but like luckily, come on, right? I know, I know. But the good news is it's like the good weather helps now, right? That to get more excited about things.

SPEAKER_01 56:28

And I mean, even like right now, we're talking a lot about like your summer bucket list. It doesn't have to be a trip, it can be like we're gonna go try snow cones at a new place. Oh, I know, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 56:38

My the other origin story of my business, right? Exactly. Yes, so well, you know, follow along at Travelly Travel. Ooh, I was mixing family and travel, same thing. Travely, that's actually kind of cute. Um, travel family explores, um, to follow along with Tara's adventures and obviously to get um all your help, advice, and tips on making your next um trip with the family. So thank you so much for being here, Tara. So great to meet you, talk with you, and I'm excited to follow along with more of your Frederick adventures too. Yeah. All right. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Mom Talk Maryland. If you loved it, leave a review, share it with a friend, or tag me at the dot ColumbiaMom on Instagram. I'd love to hear what you think. And don't forget to follow the show so you never miss an episode. Until next time, keep showing up, keep supporting local, and keep being the incredible mom, woman, human that you are.