Welcome to TrekSimple, where two lifelong friends share our love of travel, stuff we’ve learned along the way and seek to inspire you to explore the world – or at least your corner of it!
Who We Are
We are two 30-something (okay, almost 40-something) women who grew up in a small coastal town in Florida. We became friends in elementary school and have been ever since, through four decades, living in multiple states and cities, through career changes, love and loss. We are those friends who may not speak every day, but can pick up where they left off and have inside jokes for days.
Why Do This
We often hear from friends, family and acquaintances comments like “Oh, you travel so much. Must be nice! I could never travel like you do. How do you do it? Where do you get the time? Was it scary? Is it safe? How do you get by not knowing the language? How do you afford it?” While we don’t discount any of those thoughts or concerns, it’s clear that many people have preconceived notions about travel that are holding them back from seeing the world.
We are not independently wealthy, private-plane-flying, caviar-snacking, Dom Perignon-sipping multilingual jet setters with fat travel accounts and limitless PTO. We have normal, everyday obligations like housing and transportation, retirement savings, utility bills and the like. We also don’t get an exorbitant amount of time off. We do choose to make travel a priority, but it’s really not that hard. We look at the idea of travel a little differently, and work within our own sets of constraints to see the world at our own pace. We “TrekSimple” and hope you will, too.
There’s so much of the world to explore, so much to learn and many of our own misconceptions and fears about travel to overcome. We want to take you along on those journeys with us, learning and growing along the way.
Getting Started
*RECORD SCRATCH*
Who starts a travel blog in the midst of a global pandemic that has brought almost all travel to a standstill? We do! In fact, much of our initial content was drafted back in early January, before we knew how… special… 2020 was going to be. Our hearts truly go out to everyone who has been impacted by COVID-19. We know victims, and people who have lost loved ones. We’ve all had to adjust to changes and inconveniences on some level, but some have lost lives and livelihoods, and there’s no discounting the seriousness of this. What this terrible disease has shown us, though, is that our philosophy on travel – and really on how to live life – holds up pretty well under almost any circumstance.
And, were just about to finally launch this thing when another major shift occurred in the U.S. and the world – a widespread cultural awakening to systemic racism brought on by the murders of Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd. For this reason we held off a few more weeks and have been personally reflective – educating ourselves on how to be better in all areas of our lives. We know firsthand how travel and travel culture can open up the world and bring greater understanding to individuals, whether that means spending money at our favorite black-owned establishments locally and when we travel, visiting museums that tell black stories and traveling to nations where black people are in the majority. We will do better and will do our best to document it here.
With this first post, we challenge you to think about how you’ll “level up” your travel, whatever that may mean to you, when it is safe to do so. If you’ve never explored your hometown, visited a historical site, cultural attraction, great restaurant or natural site in your city, now’s a great time to do your research and plan. What would you take a visitor to see or do? Is there anything you’ve wanted to do in your own town, but have been afraid to try – like getting a meal from a restaurant that serves food from an unknown-to-you culture? If you’ve never left the place you live, it’s time to start researching that first road trip or a weekend away. Never left your state, your region, your country? Other than possible travel restrictions, what’s holding you back and how can you overcome those obstacles?
TrekSimple 