My first travel blog :)

Hey everyone! If you don’t know me already, my name is Madison Foster, and I created this blog to share my passion for travel. Now, before we dive any deeper, you must know that while I love travel, I haven’t been all over the place (which would seem odd for someone that seems to love travel so much, no?). I want to create this blog to connect with other travelers and create a community of people that love seeing the world and want to bond with each other over their experiences in various parts of our planet. Below, I’ll lay out somewhat of an itinerary for my first few posts, and to let you know what I’ll be primarily talking about on a day-to-day basis. I hope you all enjoy!

First: What sparked this blog?

To keep it simple, I never knew I’d want to see the world as much as I do until about a year and a half ago. Throughout my life, I’d been to quite a few places in the U.S. (mostly for baseball in high school and college), but it was typically the same places because our teams played in the same tournaments every summer, with the exception of 2 or 3 (we normally played 8-10 tournaments). I remember a trip to the Bahamas when I was in 8th grade (gorgeous), and my wife and I went to Jamaica for our honeymoon (also gorgeous, as long as we stayed on the resort). Outside of that, I wouldn’t exactly call myself an experienced traveler, but hey, I’m only 26; I have plenty of time 🙂 . However, there was one trip that really opened my eyes to the beauty and awe of what the rest of the world has to offer: Ireland.

During the winter of 2018, I had a professional singer friend that visited our church, and after I sang with him as part of our praise team, he invited me to go with him and a small group of singers to perform at a worship conference in Ireland (Trabolgan Holiday Village to be more specific). This was my first trip to Europe, and while I expected it to be somewhat similar to the U.S., the travel bug just hasn’t left me since I came home. The hills of Ireland were comparable to the most gorgeous parts of the States, and every single person I met welcomed me with arms open and a warmness that I’ve only found in the Midwest. As soon as I came home, I asked if I could be considered to go back with that friend for the next conference. Although I wasn’t able to go in the summer of 2019 (the group wasn’t able to go due to scheduling conflicts), the passion I’ve felt to return grows almost daily. Maybe the next time I go won’t be as awe inspiring, but I’ll never know until I go!

Fortunately, I was kindly offered a spot as part of the group for the summer of 2020, and I accepted! Unfortunately, the destiny of the trip is up in the air at the moment, due to ailments that I’m sure you’re aware of (I don’t want to type it on here after finding out that some friends of mine had their posts taken down when referring to said ailment by it’s actual name). While I’m hoping for a miracle so I am able to return to Ireland, I also understand that the global measures being taken may prohibit a return in 2020. I was, however, informed that the door for that trip remains open indefinitely, as long as the group wants to keep returning to the conference, so this could hopefully become a regular occurrence!

As promised, here’s how my posts are going to work over the next few weeks:

First, I’m going to write a few posts on the places I’ve already visited. The first few will be on places I’ve been in the U.S. (again, predominantly where I went as part of a travel baseball team). The next few will be on my vacations to the Bahamas and Jamaica, and the final post will be a recap of my visit to Ireland. After that, I’ll be posting daily about a destination I desire to go to, and this will also serve as somewhat of a bucket list for me and my family. I can tell you that my first post of this nature will stay in Ireland. My goal is to find different destinations, research awesome things to do there, and write about those awesome things to share with you all. I’m also going to be on Instagram to share photos of the various destinations that I’d like to visit. I’ll definitely be on other social media outlets, but I’ll let you know when those come about!

I hope you all enjoy my posts, and if you’d like to follow along, just subscribe to the blog and follow me on Instagram to get involved! I’m unbelievably excited about this, and I hope you’ll join in my journey, literally and figuratively 🙂

Kindest Regards

Madison