About

Hello! My name is Rebecca, but I go by many different variations of that name—just never Becky. It’s a long story. At any rate, Reba has been my name when I played soccer, when I moved to Kansas City, and for the purposes of this blog.

I took my first international trip to Mexico when I was in college. The first thing I remember is crossing the border and having armed guards board our bus…scary. After they were appeased, we began this amazing trip through the ruins of Mexico. For a first trip, it was spectacular, and I caught the travel bug.

I didn’t immediately strap on my backpack and begin my life of travel though. Instead, I decided to be practical and start using my degree—Elementary Education with concentrations in English/Language Arts, Reading, and Spanish. Okay, well…I started teaching in the outdoors on 1000 acres of campground in my home state of Texas. I was lucky enough to teach students, but my areas of teaching were science and social studies.

It was there, at Camp Allen, where I met my future travel buddy, Jenny. I just didn’t know how fabulous a travel companion she would be until, after a few years apart, we decided to travel to the wedding of our former boss. We got on so well and loved our time together, but travel still did not take over my life.

My family moved to Missouri (yay for landlocked states), and I became a fifth grade math teacher. I missed teaching science so much that I moved to third grade the following year. After seven years in the classroom, I moved to the library and have been an elementary librarian ever since.

When, you might ask, did you begin this life of travel? Well, to be honest, my yearly trips with Jenny began in 2006. We started with Italy. Amazing…they’d just won the World Cup too, so our plane ride was one big party. In the following years we went to France, Peru, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Egypt, and Alaska.

When we visited Egypt, I met a man who would become my husband. In 2012, my trips then started to focus on visiting him in Egypt. He couldn’t come to the states at that time, and being apart was so difficult. I made a total of five trips to Egypt before he eventually moved to the U.S., we married, and we started our life of travel.

Our trips were exciting too…Turkey, Belgium, the Netherlands, Japan, United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Spain, Israel, Palestine, England…the list goes on… In total, we traveled together for twelve years. We learned so many things about each other, and I would say that’s when I felt really comfortable in my traveling shoes.

That brings me to today, 2025. Well, if I stop and reflect on last year, that was the time where a huge chasm split me apart—divorce. To say it was the hardest thing I’ve ever encountered in my life is an understatement. To be honest, I’m still not recovered, and I’m here today to share my journey of finding that love of traveling in the midst of my grief.

Sure, I’m grateful for my new traveling opportunities. Jenny and I have just returned from an African Safari, and I traveled a week later to Maine with my co-workers. However, each trip also comes with a deep sadness because it’s not how I envisioned my life.

To be fair, I’ve cried on every trip since my divorce…not a lot, but in my six or seven trips, I have felt that loss and expressed it in soft, quiet tears—for the loss of the companion with whom I learned to navigate totally new places and learned to love, really LOVE, taking a life of adventure.

Most of my trips in 2024 and 2025 have been attempts at healing. I reconnected with friends I haven’t seen in years, and I spent time with family while allowing them to love me and my grief. Of course, Jenny was one of the best reconnections I’ve had. I am excited to see where our future trips will take us.

So, if you choose to dabble in my life of travel—maybe to learn about new places or maybe to witness my journey of healing—let’s go! I’m so thankful for every trip I’ve had/will have, and I’m ever aware of the gift I’ve been given…the love of adventure!