HELLO AND WELCOME TO MY BLOG!
My name is Tatiana, I am a busy mom with two wonderful kids and a husband who absolutely LOVE to travel. When I was growing up I wanted to be an interpreter and a travel guide working on a cruise ship (even though my home town is located nowhere near a cruise port and I have a horrible motion sickness 😉 ).
I started on the right track studying foreign languages at the university but then I got side tracked into business and legal fields because there was no such phenomenon as blogging when I went to college – oops, I think I just dated myself 😉 But I never gave up my passion for travelling. So finally I made a “full circle” and came back to my childhood dream by means of travel blogging.
I am not a digital nomad, both me and my husband work 8-5 five days a week, we do house work, grow a garden, our kids have schools and clubs, so we are very much like you. Where our lives may differ from yours is that we strategically plan to use as much of our vacation and weekends time as possible for travel. Every year we take 4-5 week-long trips, at least 1 full weekend getaway a month and 1 day trips the rest of the weekends. Travelling is not hard, strategically planning it IS. It requires time, effort, knowledge and money. Here is where Family Road Trip Guru comes in to help you make your travel planning quick and simple.
I create travel itineraries that are fun, educational and easy on the effort and family budget, which cover predominantly North America with a focus on California.
Where does my knowledge come from? I have been an avid traveler all my life. I have visited almost 30 countries and 26 U.S. States + D.C. so far. We have been living in California for the past 5 years and before that we spent 10 years in Illinois. Prior to my marriage I lived in London, Budapest, Switzerland and Russia. Here is a map of all the fun places I have traveled to so far:
How can I manage planning so well? I am a planning guru: I start planning my trips at least a year in advance and do a really thorough in-depth research on-line and off-line. But that’s what I LOVE to do, it’s my hobby, my passion and obsession 😉 I do all the leg work so that you don’t have to. You can simply download or print out any of my itineraries, pack and GO!
HOW MY BLOG IS DIFFERENT COMPARED TO OTHERS:
1.Most of travel blogs are focused on “top ten” routes, attractions and locations. My family road trip itineraries cover locations comprehensively, sharing with you the variety of options depending on your interests and time you have at hand. I am an expert in California travel so whether you are a visitor or a local you will always find lots of new things to explore on my blog. Who else would provide you details for a fun and educational family road trip itinerary to visit Fremont, CA or has several distinct itineraries for Sonoma County, CA that are not focused on just wine?
2. I have a cool collection of exciting family road trip itineraries that follow in the footsteps of famous books and/or movies which will give you a chance to re-live on-screen and on-page adventures.
3. Another favorite category of trips on my blog is called Adventures under $10. Although all my itineraries are budget conscious, these specific ones highlight trips where your travel budget doesn’t have to be more than $10 for the whole family on all attractions combined. Most of these itineraries include attractions that are absolutely FREE.
4. How about Time Travel? I have options for it as well. These are itineraries that immerse you in a certain historical era, teach a valuable history lesson and generally make history exciting. Some of these itineraries take you back in time 100% of your trip (these you can find in Time Travel CATEGORY), others just have a time travel element within the itinerary (these will be TAGGED as Time Travel and you can find them through either search option or a tags cloud in the Footer of every page on my blog)
5. I have a section on my blog called “Expert Opinion“ where I post interviews with travel experts on topic that are of greatest interest to my readers.
6. I try to publish a new itinerary once a week so that you never run out of adventures. In addition I post valuable travel tips an hacks that help you keep your sanity and save time and money.
DISTINCTIONS AND CREDENTIALS:
1. Member of Bay Area Travel Writers association
2. Awarded Top 20 California Blogs to follow in 2019 by Feedspot
3. 1st Prize winner of Spring 2020 Writing Prompt Contest
4. Featured on GoTravelBlogs, a site about leading travel blogs from around the world
One more important thing to know about my blog: if I recommend something in my posts, such as hotels, restaurants, attractions, books, etc. I do it not just because someone paid me to do so but because we tried and and we liked it and I believe this information will be helpful to people. If coincidentally a post generates some income I plan to use it towards covering costs of hosting and maintaining this website as well as future travels so that I can bring back more exciting itineraries, tips and ideas. Any compensation that may be received by me through affiliates programs is at no cost to you.
