Welcome! Meet Me (Us!):
Me and my favorite travel companion, my husband. Taken at lookout point by the Columbia River.
In all honesty, the about me intro was the hardest thing to write (type?). What do you say that makes you different from any other travel blog? That I’m honest? I guess just start with the basics. But recently I went to San Diego, and it was definitely one of the most problematic trips I’ve ever taken. It helped me figure out and find the initiative to write this.
Hi! I’m Elizabeth and I live with my husband in the Belltown neighborhood in Seattle. We walk to work and are so close to everything you’d typically do if you visit Seattle. We are originally from North Carolina and spent the years before we moved here traveling a good chunk of the South East. If I’m not going somewhere every 3 weeks, I get bummed out. Maybe it’s a problem, but traveling is one of my favorite things to do. But after San Diego, I wasn’t sure I felt like planning new trips other than what I’ve already booked. Then a friend said she was going to Vegas for her birthday and asked if we’d like to go. I’m glad it happened, it pulled me back into trip planning. Which I do actually enjoy, my husband would rather tell me where he wants to go and I just plan it and he can enjoy(and pack us). So far I have made it to 23 states and 24 countries and counting!
A bit about the type of travel blog this is going to be: Everything you see on my blog (unless specified) I experienced and more importantly tasted or completely ate and drank. San Diego brought clarity about how “influencers” sometimes just do things because it’s photogenic and don’t bother to actually experience the moment. This cannot be that! This is a place to collect my thoughts and organize my trips that I have taken with friends and family. Everything is experienced by me and I won’t spend 40 minutes taking pictures of my food and then allowing it to get cold.
This all being said, I rarely travel alone. My husband prefers to be with me than to stay home alone and if he’s going somewhere…. I’d rather be going to the place, too. I’ve traveled with friends and family, each travel buddy is different.
Additionally, my travel style varies from bougie to budget. That’s where the name Pizza & Oysters came from. I can’t always splurge on a vacation, but sometimes I can! I will always try to do things as cheaply as possible without having quality suffer. For the past two years we have done a lot of weekend domestic trip and massive(10+ days) international cruises. We are shifting our focus in the later part of 2020-2021 to focus on traveling to Europe and maybe Northern Africa.
All of these articles will be post-trip, occasionally I will add in experiences I wanted to try and may not have had the time to do it. I tend to plan a trip with the mindset of: “If I never go back, did I experience the place fully?” That doesn’t always happen, but we do our best. I’m also the queen of the last minute trip, both international and road-trip.
How Do I Pick Where I Want to Travel?
There is really not a huge process to this, but as a typical millennial, I don’t have cable. I spend a lot of time (probably too much) watching YouTube travel videos when I am looking for information to see if I want to go. Some of my favorites are Kara & Nate, Mike On the Move, for cruising: Don's Family Vacations, this guy is a hoot and generates tons of real time content and Affluent Journeys, if I’m trying to know what a cruise cabin/ship looks like. For food I follow WillFlyForFood, in fact our Hong Kong food excursion was based off their video!
What Can You Expect from Me?
I’ll always be authentic and give credit to where I pull ideas from. This blog is going to be initially set-up into four parts: General Travel Tips and Tricks, Daytrips/Weekend Trips, Domestic US Travel and International Travel. I’m going to try to post semi-monthly. I expect this should last me quite a while, I have plenty to say and have been so many places, with even more trips planned through May 2020(New York City). I’ll also be uploading our edited videos of us in different countries to our Pizza & Oysters Youtube Channel over the next few months. If you want to keep up with the travels in pretty decent real time follow the instagram here.
If you’ve made it this far:
Thank you for reading this and I can’t wait to share my travels with you. Expect to see articles about the following places (in no particular order):
Chicago, Las Vegas, Seattle(Budget and Bougie), New York City, Key Largo, Key West, Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, San Francisco, San Diego, Vancouver and Victoria, BC; Portland, OR; Orgeon Waterfalls, Leavenworth, WA; Austin, Texas, Tuscaloosa, Spokane, Kalispell(Glacier National Park), Seaside, OR, Alaska Panhandle(Southeast Alaska), New Orleans, Charleston, SC; Raleigh, Durham, Asheville, Washington, D.C; Burlington, VT; Champlaign, NY; Nashville, TN; Roatan, Honduras; Cartagena, Colombia; Costa Rica; Panama City, Panama; Grand Cayman; Yucatan Peninsula and Cozumel, Mexico; Singapore; Hong Kong; Vietnam; Bangkok, Thailand; Taipei, Taiwan; Aruba; Curaçao; Belize City, Belize.
Cruise Lines and Airlines I’ll review:
Celebrity, Princess, Holland America, Delta, Southwest, Virgin, Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, United Airlines.
Hotels and Services I use for Lodging:
Marriott, Hilton, Boutique Hotels, and Airbnb (You get $40 off your first stay, I will get $30 once you complete your stay as a referral for this) .
Happy Traveling!
“I don’t know the question...... but travel is definitely the answer. ”