ABOUT WORTH THE WANDER
HI, I’M CAT. I LIKE GOING PLACES.
I’m a nurse, a veteran, a military spouse, a mom, and apparently someone who thinks being exhausted in a different location qualifies as a vacation.
We’re a military family of three who loves to travel. Military life has taken us to a lot of places, and somewhere between moves, road trips, camping, national parks, cruises, theme parks, and random weekends away, we got pretty good at taking the long way.
We plan some things. We wing a lot of things. Sometimes it works out beautifully. Sometimes it’s a complete bust. And sometimes we discover something we really should’ve Googled before we got there.
Either way, we usually come home with a story.
I WANT TO SEE IT FOR MYSELF.
The world is a beautiful place, and seeing it on a screen has never felt like enough.
I want to stand there. Eat the food. See the view. Drive the road. Get on the ship. Wander around somewhere I’ve never been and experience as much of this world as I can while I’m here.
Have we been all over the world? Absolutely not.
Most of our traveling so far has been around the U.S. and on cruises. There’s a whole lot of world left for us to see—and that’s kind of the point.
I didn’t start Worth the Wander because I’ve already been everywhere. I started it because I want to go everywhere.
BIG TRIPS. LITTLE TRIPS. THEY ALL COUNT.
I love a big vacation, but I also love the easy ones.
Sometimes I want a cruise, a national park, or a week at a theme park. Sometimes I just want to dillydally around a small town, eat something good, poke around a few shops, and see where the day goes.
And sometimes we decide driving several hours to New Orleans and back somehow qualifies as a day trip.
Is that relaxing? Debatable.
Will I do it anyway? Absolutely.
Because the truth is, vacations can be exhausting. I’m 40. I’m tired. Sometimes I see incredible shit and then need seven business days to recover.
Still worth it.
I LEARN THE HARD WAY. YOU DON’T HAVE TO.
I’m a nurse in real life. This is the thing I’m building on the side because I genuinely love traveling—and I’m already the person who comes home wanting to tell everyone what we learned.
Where we stayed. What we spent. What I wish I’d known before we went. The thing everyone said we had to do that really wasn’t worth it. The random thing we almost skipped that ended up being the best part.
So I figured, why not put all of it somewhere useful?
If our trips, tips, mistakes, wins, and occasional questionable decisions help someone spend a little less, plan a little better, or find somewhere they never would’ve thought to go, then this whole thing is doing exactly what I want it to do.
There’s still a whole lot of world we haven’t seen, and I’m pretty damn excited about that. So we’ll keep going, keep learning things the hard way, and keep sharing what we find along the way.
Hopefully, you’ll find something here that makes your next wander a little more worth it.
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