Traveller of the Month: Adrienne from Destinations & Desserts

Welcome to May’s Traveller of the Month! Each month I’m featuring a fellow world traveller to showcase their travels, introduce you to a new writer, and share a little love in the travel blogging world!

Please give a warm welcome to May’s Traveller of the Month, Adrienne!

And if you missed last month’s, check it out here!

Introduce yourself! What’s your travel story?

I live in West Lafayette, Indiana with my husband, 5 year old daughter and our chihuahua mix. My parents are the ones who inspired my love of travel. They took me on lots of amazing trips as a kid, including big adventures to Australia, New Zealand, Korea and Japan.

While travel has always been a major part of my life, I work full time, so I fit my travels into vacation days and weekends and am a big believer in having smaller, local experiences in between the big international adventures. These days I’m mostly focused on family travel with my daughter.

When did you start your travel blog and what sort of stories do you share there?

I started my blog in 2015 and am blogging regularly again now after breaks for new motherhood and the pandemic. My blog is mostly focused on family travel, particularly travel with little kids, since that’s the phase of life I’m in now. But we travel to a wide variety of places and I write about everything from European adventures to all-inclusive beach resorts in the Caribbean to weekend road trips here in the Midwest.

What do you do when you’re not travelling or writing about travel?

I work as a science writer for Purdue University, communicating the exciting research done at the university. In my free time, I like to spend time with my family, read, bake and plan my next trip 🙂

What’s your best travel memory of the last five years?

Our trip to Tuscany in March 2022 was really special. Like many people, we had a long pause on travel during the pandemic, and when we resumed travel we stayed closer to home for a while. So that was our first international trip as a family in almost three years, and it was our first family trip where my daughter was old enough (4 at the time) to really understand what was happening.

It was so fun for me to see a new place through her eyes and to see her try gelato and pick up a few words of Italian. We mostly stayed in Florence, eating incredible food and soaking up the city’s amazing art and architecture, but we did a day trip into the Tuscan countryside for a kid-friendly pasta-making class at a wonderful agriturismo and a tour of the medieval city of San Gimignano and that was a highlight for all of us.

If you could go on a worldwide trip, visiting just one city on each continent, which cities would you pick?

This is such a fun question! I’m going to go with Singapore, Melbourne, Quebec City, Buenos Aires, Marrakesh and Istanbul.

What is still on your travel bucket list? What have you recently checked off?

#1 on my list is Antarctica, which I remember wanting to visit as far back as elementary school. I think that trip is a ways down the road for us, but some other bucket list destinations we hope to visit as a family in the next five or so years include the Maldives, the Galapagos Islands and South Africa for a safari.

Some of my favorite bucket list experiences so far include chartering a sailboat in the Caribbean to celebrate my mom’s birthday, snorkeling with manta rays on the Big Island of Hawaii, seeing brown bears up close in Katmai National Park in Alaska, and visiting Havana, Cuba on a special trip with my dad.

What food instantly transports you back to a favourite travel memory or place?

Cacio e pepe automatically takes me back to Rome. I’ve lived most of my life in small college towns and generally prefer mountains and beaches over cities, but I fell head over heels for Rome and the food was a big part of that.

What destination would you go back to over and over again? What destination would you never go back to?

I go to Downeast Maine (near Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park) almost every summer. My grandparents lived there when I was growing up and my husband and I got married there, so it’s a place that has a lot of sentimental value for me. But it’s also one of the most beautiful parts of the United States with great food, hiking, boating and lots to do with kids.

I can’t really think of a destination I categorically wouldn’t go back to, but Copenhagen is one of the few places that left me underwhelmed (I visited in January though, and would be open to a return trip in better weather).

If you could live abroad, where would you live?

Italy. I’m visiting the country for the fourth time this year, but I can’t get enough and have at least half a dozen more regions on my “must visit” list. I love everything about it – the food, the wine, the history, the art, the scenery, the people. I’m slowly trying to learn Italian and I really hope to live there at least part-time in retirement.

What is the best accommodation you’ve ever stayed in? What’s the worst?

Le Meridien Bora Bora was the best. Bora Bora is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been, with incredible snorkeling, and the experience of staying in an overwater bungalow and listening to the waves as you fall asleep is so unique and special. The service at that property is off the charts as well.

I’ve been fortunate to not have too many bad hotel experiences, but we once brought home bed bugs from an O’Hare airport hotel so I have to go with that as the worst.

What travel experience is over-hyped? Under-hyped?

Over-hyped: I think luxury hotels can be overhyped, especially if it’s the kind of trip where you don’t plan to spend much time at the hotel. I see the upside to paying a premium for an incredible view or at an all-inclusive resort where you plan to mostly stay on the property, but in a city where you’re going to spend most of your time exploring, I generally just care about the accommodation being clean and well-located.

Under-hyped: Taking kids to playgrounds in new places. Not only does it give your kids a chance to burn off energy, it’s a great way to meet local families and get a glimpse of the culture.

What do you want to inspire other travellers to do?

I hope to inspire people to travel more with their kids, especially babies, toddlers and preschoolers. Many people seem to feel like they need to wait until their kids are at least in elementary school to start tackling their bucket lists, but there are so many destinations that are really doable with little kids. I would love to show people that you can really have fun family adventures in that stage of life.

What destination is calling your name in 2024?

Australia! We’re planning a family trip there in May/June 2024. I went as a kid, when I was a little older than my daughter will be then, but I’m excited to return as an adult, see new parts of the country and share it with my daughter.

Lastly, where can we find you online?

destinationsanddesserts.com
https://www.instagram.com/destinationsanddesserts/
https://twitter.com/DestAndDesserts
https://www.pinterest.com/DestAndDesserts/
https://www.facebook.com/destinationsanddesserts

---

Thank you for joining my Traveller of the Month series, Adrienne! Head on over to Destinations & Desserts to hear more of Adrienne’s family travel stories near and far, and stay tuned for June’s Traveller of the Month!