We have always loved to travel, but the more places we visited, the more that got added to our wish list.  Working full-time with just a few weeks of vacation per year, there just wasn’t enough time.  We didn’t want to risk waiting for retirement to make travel a priority.  There are no guarantees of what the future will bring and we started to feel an urgency to make plans for more travel.  And so, Our Great Adventure (OBA) was born! 

Our goal is to visit only countries that we haven’t been to before, and to try to stretch our budget with a mix of less expensive countries to offset some bucket-list destinations.  We’ll also be taking advantage of home exchanges and points/mileage rewards as much as possible. 

This blog is for folks who want to follow along with our experience.  And for us.  It’s a way to record our impressions – the things that stood out to us and the stories we really want to remember.  We named our site ‘Real World Travels’ because we want to share not just our triumphs and highlights, but our challenges and learnings as well.   And as we learn, we’ll share tips with you too.