2023 is full of NEW ideas, and I'm here for it

Welcome to the new way I'm doing the newsletter for 2TravelDads. This is going to work better, be easier to get info, and is what the awesome kids are doing.

Thank you for following 2TravelDads through the years

I’m in my ninth year of running 2TravelDads: the Original LGBTQ Family Travel Blog, and it’s turned into so much more than I ever expected it could be. What began as my hobby to break up the monotony of washing and folding diapers has become my full time career and I love it.

I get to actually HELP people on different levels, from planning trips to making family memories to advocating for change in communities. And I get to write and take pictures, which is my fave.

I’ll be publishing to this Substack several times a month going forward. I’ll be using it to share what’s happening in our travel world and family events, but I’ll also be publishing here to share the my thoughts about what’s happening in the world, including LGBTQ+ issues, which I strangely don’t tend to write about on the blog. So stay tuned!

Reintroducing 2TravelDads… in case you don’t remember me

I know that I’ve subscribed to newsletters or used my card at a Square register one too many times, so I get notes from people and businesses I’m unfamiliar with. So let’s fix that! **PS: if you subscribed to “Road Trip. Kayak. Dad life.” you have been moved over to THIS serial.

2TravelDads is my passion project and it’s grown as our kids have gotten older. We travel, both on our own and in partnership with destinations, and share our stories, recommendations and in general promote being visible and proud.

We take every opportunity we can to show our kids the world, even when it’s just beyond our small town of St Augustine, Florida. Local travel, road trips and experiencing the nature is our jam and that’s what I write about.

In addition to 2TD (my original blog) we also have a podcast that we’re in our third season of recording. I really love it, because even though I’m the one that does all the website and social media stuff for the blog, Chris (the husband) is involved in recording podcast episodes.

It’s how people get to hear his side of everything we do. I often joke that 2TravelDads is an epic chronicle documenting Chris Taylors adventures with his kids, because I’m the one behind the camera and doing the writing, so having Chris do the podcast is awesome.

And yes, we do sometimes travel without our kids. It’s not often, but it happens. Thanks be to grandparents for making opportunities for us to enjoy time on our own every now and then. We got to do a project with TripAdvisor in October and it took us on some unforgettable adventures around Hawaii (and we’ve got podcast episodes about it!).

More new ideas and building a business

It’s really funny to talk to new people and they ask what I do, and then I tell them and they either don’t understand what blogging is or they think I’m like Emily in Paris, influencing my way through life. Well, I guess it’s a little of that, but I don’t dress as adventurously. What I DO do with blogging though has been morphing.

In stead of just writing about family travel, I’ve been growing other outlets so I can really dig into the places we spend a lot of time and, without sounding terribly cocky, places I or we are experts on. And having friends all over the place that totally get what it means to run travel websites, I get to work with them on projects for all the new local travel blogs I’ve started.

Okay, go with me for just a sec and I’ll explain what I’ve been working on and why:

PaddleYourState.com StAugustineExplored.com TravelOlympicPeninsula.com

SavannahExplored.com MaineExplored.com Washington-Explored.com

TheKeysExplored.com BirdsExplored.com GlobeExplored.com

Here’s the scoop on why I’m working on these. With each website, I get to focus on the tiny things that I love and share detailed info and really specific experiences and recommendations. And I get to do this with friends!

Ultimately, the goal is to grow each of these sites into a successful, sustaining business so the Chris can retire from corporate America, but for now it’s just building a base and having fun along the way.

What to expect in the coming months

We have a few really fun projects in the works, both as a family (yes, the kids participate and totally have say in the group trips we take) and me on my own. We’ll be venturing to the Florida Keys, the Caribbean, exploring dinosaur county in Wyoming, and more.

Of course we’ll be active in our own community here in St Augustine and writing about it on our StA site, and the save with Savannah and the Keys, but I’m really excited for some of the solo projects too.

My bestie of nearly 20 years (OMG, time flies), Kelly, has been working with me on our sites and being a part of the travel experiences where Chris and the kids can’t join and she and I have a few realllllly cool adventures happening.

The first we’ve got coming up is so different and is going to be beautiful. Kelly and I are exploring British Columbia and Alberta with the Rocky Mountaineer luxury train. More to come, but it’s going to be breathtaking, unique and the perfect BFFs trip. We were just on the Big Island of Hawaii last month, so we’ll see how it compares. ;)

I’m so thankful to have a buddy that both is fun to have adventures with and totally gets the business of travel and storytelling. We have so much more to see and do together in the coming years!

And now: Latest on the Blog - Winter in Maine

Yes, I do indeed have a dedicated Maine website, MaineExplored.com, that Kelly and I run together, as she lives in MidCoast Maine, but we (the Taylor family) were invited to experience all that Maine has to offer in winter through Visit Maine (the tourism board). We had such a great time and really, it was a very different experience than summertime in Maine.

From cross-country skiing to visiting some of our favorite lighthouses, winter in Maine was beautiful and there were NO CROWDS anywhere! Yes, it was cold and our Florida blook may have flowed a bit slower, but we loved it.

And just a quick shout out to the beautiful hotels we stayed at, because where to stay is probably the most common travel question I get. In Freeport (by the HUGE LL Bean complex) we stayed at the Harraseeket Inn, which was perfectly Maine. We got to enjoy the LL Bean Guesthouse which was very on-theme for Freeport.

In Rockland, up in MidCoast Maine, we had beautiful accommodations at the Samoset Resort. We’d only ever visited the Samoset for brunch and stuff, so staying there and having a gorgeous view of the Rockland Breakwater Lighthouse was epically Maine. And yes, there are blog posts coming about each and a few podcast episodes too. Just be patient.

Wrapping up for now

Thank you so much for supporting my hobby-turned-career over the years. Even if we never interact on the blog or social media, I can see when people are reading the stuff I write and listening to the podcasts we record, and I appreciate it all. Even though things like website visits and downloads are just numbers, those numbers are encouraging and I value each and every one.

Check back for more news, travel ideas, word vomit about the state of the world and more. Thank you again, and I’ll talk to y’all soon!

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