Mile Marker 50 Mile Marker 50 Mile Marker 50 Mile Marker 50 Mile Marker 50

Follow my journey with updates and behind the scenes photos from the places I visit, travel hacks I learn along the way and what it’s really like to cram a lifetime of travel into 1 year!

Mile Marker 50 Promo Video

Trip 16: My favorite travel companion

 1024 768 Mile Marker 50

I took my daughter on her first trip when she was just 14 days old. Her Great-grandfather had died (on my ex’s side) and we had to go home for the funeral. Her dad was working as usual and that left me hauling bags and a baby halfway across the country by myself. If you’ve…

read more

Trip 15: Mayberry to Merlot, a Small Town to Love

 768 1024 Mile Marker 50

I grew up in a small town. Home for me is farmers on tractors and playing barefoot. It’s messy ponytails and cute boys in pickup trucks. It’s football games and backroads. My life has taken me from Florida to California and then to North Carolina. But as I travel to 50 places I’ve never been…

read more

Trip 14: Mountain Majesty

 1024 768 Mile Marker 50

There is a reason the word “Great” is in the Great Smoky Mountains. They are truly beautiful and majestic… whether you are seeing them from a summit or overlook, or in one of the small towns they envelop. Bryson City is known as the gateway to the Great Smoky Mountains. It’s a small town that…

read more

Trip 13: A discovery at Tybee Island

 1024 1024 Mile Marker 50

Every place I go reveals a little more about me. One particular discovery became crystal clear on my trip to Tybee Island, GA.  I’ve been to the beach more this year than any other year. Since COVID screwed up my planned itinerary for visiting 50 places I’ve never been the year I turn 50, I’ve…

read more

Trip 12: an ELEVATED trip to the beach

 1024 1024 Mile Marker 50

A trip to the beach is a trip to the beach. I don’t mean that in a bad way, I just mean that the stuff you go to one beach for is the same stuff you go to another beach for… The ocean breeze cools you off the same. The sand gets in places that…

read more

Trip 11: I could live here

 1024 768 Mile Marker 50

In just a few years my daughter will be going off to college. Hold on, I have to take a moment. 3 years is all she’s got left of high school. So I love that this travel journey to visit 50 places I’ve never been the year I turn 50 involves spending a little extra…

read more

Trip 10: The battle of the beaches

 1024 1024 Mile Marker 50

I like what I like. At my age, I don’t always find it necessary to find a new,  insert whatever you want (mexican restaurant, grocery store, beach) if I already have one I love.  That’s been my relationship with Sunset Beach.  I love everything about it. I’ve been going there for 16 years, at least.…

read more

Trip 9: The dreaded Plan B

 1024 576 Mile Marker 50

I’m not a fan of Plan B’s. Actually, let me clarify that. Plan B’s make me nervous. Now, I am getting more comfortable with them since my life has felt like a giant Plan B for the last few years but they aren’t my preference. See, Plan B means something went wrong with Plan A……

read more

Trip 8: Cut short by coronavirus

 1024 1024 Mile Marker 50

When your phone begins to vibrate incessantly at 2 o’clock in the morning it’s usually the precursor to big news. In this case, it was a flood of texts from family and friends determined to let me know that the President had just announced a travel ban and I needed to get out of Europe…

read more

Trip 7: A “pinch me” moment in Paris

 1024 768 Mile Marker 50

I stood there staring at the Eiffel Tower. I had seen it so many times before. It’s an iconic image, the star of travel photos and bucket lists. And there I was, staring at it in real life. It was weird. The wide base almost disguised the height of the structure, making it feel shorter…

read more
Why Mile Marker 50

We all have mile markers that profoundly shape the way we see the world. What matters is how you choose to rise above them. My mile marker was the perfect storm: the end of my 23- year marriage, a change in career, and a daughter becoming a teenager all while I was staring at 50. I needed to set my sights on a better future. Now I’m traveling to 50 places I’ve never been the year I turn 50…

It feels good to have my own dream!
Let’s make reinvention fun!
What will you do with your mile marker?

Follow My Journey
In The News