Hi- I’m Kait!
I’m a wife, mom of three, registered nurse, daughter, sister, auntie, child of God, obsessive trip planner, dessert finder, history lover, animal lover and the person in my family most likely to say:
“Okay…but what if we just went?”
I’ve been with my high-school sweetheart for more than 20 years, and together we’re raising three kids, juggling careers, school, sports, activities, seven dogs and the approximately 4,000 other things that seem to come with having a family.
Our life is busy.
Really busy.
And that’s actually one of the biggest reasons I love to travel.
I Put Myself on the No-Fly List 
Here’s the slightly unusual part:
I don’t fly.
Not I prefer not to fly.
Not I only fly when I absolutely have to.
I mean…
I put myself on the No-Fly List.
Thankfully, it turns out there’s an enormous world you can explore without ever stepping onto an airplane.
So instead of asking:
“Can we get there without flying?”
I’ve started asking:
“Okay…so HOW can we get there?”
Sometimes the answer is a road trip.
Sometimes it’s a train.
Sometimes it’s a cruise.
And sometimes the journey becomes one of the best parts of the vacation.
Why “Tiny Train Traveler”?
Well…
the tiny part is fairly self-explanatory.
I’m 5’1½” (yes… the 1/2 matters!) in a family that apparently decided height was going to skip me entirely.
My husband is 6’3”.
My son is around 6’.
My youngest daughter is already about 5’7”.
And my oldest daughter and I are holding strong around the five-foot mark.
Someone has to represent the bottom shelf.
The train traveler part came from realizing that not flying didn’t have to make my world smaller.
It just meant I had to get a little more creative about how I reached it.
And once I started looking at travel that way, I discovered something:
Getting there can be part of the adventure.
There are trains that simply GET us there 
…
and trains that ARE the adventure. 
I love both.
We’re Just a Regular Family Who Really Love to Travel
We’re not full-time travelers.
We don’t have unlimited vacation days.
We aren’t homeschooling our kids from a villa in Italy while working remotely from a laptop by the pool.
I’m a nurse.
My husband works in construction.
Our kids have school, sports, practices, activities and commitments.
We have bills.
We have jobs.
We have dogs who believe our entire existence revolves around them.
And we have a limited number of days every year when everyone can actually go somewhere at the same time.
So I’ve become very good at figuring out how to make those days count.
If we can travel overnight and wake up somewhere new?
Perfect.
If we can leave after work and protect an extra vacation day?
Even better.
If a destination is within about six hours?
We’re probably driving.
And if it’s farther?
I’m already looking at the train schedule.
Use the journey to protect the vacation.
That’s become a big part of how I plan.
I Don’t Travel Cheap. I Travel Intentionally. 
I’m also not really a “budget traveler.”
I like a nice hotel.
I like really good food.
I will absolutely pay for an experience that I think my family will remember forever.
But I’m also not interested in spending money simply because we’re on vacation.
I’ll eat breakfast in our hotel room if it means we can spend that money on an incredible dinner later.
I’ll bring snacks from home.
I’ll compare hotel prices.
I’ll money-tuck for months.
I’ll use a tax refund or work bonus for the big upfront expense and slowly save our spending money.
Because my travel philosophy is pretty simple:
Save on the things that don’t matter much to you.
Spend on the experiences that do.
Food Is Absolutely Part of the Trip 
I LOVE finding local restaurants when we travel.
Give me the place that’s been there for 100 years.
The restaurant inside an old house.
The little seafood place the locals love.
The steakhouse with a story.
The bakery that makes something I can’t get at home.
I want recognizable food—I don’t need every meal to be a culinary dare —but I’ll happily try something unusual as an appetizer.
And there will be dessert.
There is always dessert.
I have an egg allergy, which makes finding sweets a little more complicated, so when I discover an amazing bakery, doughnut or dessert I can actually eat?
You’re going to hear about it.
Welcome to the Tiny Traveler Sweet Stop. 
I Love History, Too
I’m fascinated by places that still feel connected to the people who came before us.
Old houses.
Historic hotels.
Battlefields.
Cobblestone streets.
Old train stations.
Architecture.
Little towns with stories.
I don’t just want to know what something looks like.
I want to know:
Who lived here?
What happened here?
Why does this place matter?
If there’s a historic building somewhere, there’s an excellent chance I’m going to make my family stop and look at it.
My husband has accepted his fate.
And Animals…
Animals are another guaranteed way to derail my itinerary.
Dolphins?
Yes.
Manatees?
Obviously.
Horses?
Absolutely.
Aquariums?
We’re going.
Random animal encounter I didn’t know existed until 20 minutes ago?
How much does it cost and when can we do it?
We also have seven dogs at home, and two of them frequently travel with us.
So you’ll occasionally find dog-friendly adventures here too.
Our Kids Are Getting Older—and That’s Part of Why I’m Doing This 
This is probably the biggest thing behind The Tiny Train Traveler.
Our kids aren’t little anymore.
And I’m very aware of it.
For years, family travel felt like something we’d always have time for.
Another summer.
Another spring break.
Another Christmas.
Another year.
And then suddenly you look around and realize…
there aren’t that many of those left before everyone starts building lives of their own.
Our kids have school.
Sports.
Activities.
Goals.
Friends.
Responsibilities.
And yes, sometimes we let them miss school for a trip.
They may never bring home a perfect-attendance award…
but they’ve written some pretty amazing papers about places they’ve actually stood.
I want our kids to know that who they are is bigger than a grade, a sport, an award or an accomplishment.
I absolutely want them to chase their dreams and set goals, but taking some time to get away is good for the soul.
I want them to see places that are different from home.
Meet people who live differently.
Try foods they can’t pronounce.
Stand in places they’ve learned about in school.
See how big the world is.
And know that there’s always more to discover.
Travel Does Something for Our Family
Travel doesn’t magically make busy seasons disappear.
It doesn’t eliminate stress.
It doesn’t fix every problem.
But it gives us something good to look forward to.
It gets us out of the routine.
It gives my husband and me time to remember that before we were Mom and Dad…
we were us.
We try to take at least one adults-only trip every year too, usually while the kids are at summer camp.
And when we travel as a family, it gives our kids time together without practices, homework and everything else pulling them in different directions.
Some of our funniest family stories have happened while traveling.
Usually when something has gone slightly wrong.
I’m Also Not Fearless
This is probably important to establish now.
I’m afraid of heights.
I don’t particularly like enclosed spaces.
I’ve gotten stuck in an elevator before, so elevators and I are no longer friends.
I’m prone to motion sickness.
And obviously…
airplanes aren’t happening.
But I try not to let fear automatically make every decision for me.
I’ve swam with sharks, I have been a passenger in a racecar, I have ziplines through the trees in the Great Smokies, I have whitewater rafted down the US Olympic course, and I even took a ride in a hot air balloon (never again though lol).
I’ve learned to ask myself:
“Do I genuinely not want to do this?”
or
“Do I WANT to do this…and I’m just nervous?”
If it’s the second one, sometimes I push myself a little.
Not because I think everyone should conquer every fear.
But because I don’t want fear making my world smaller.
My Faith Travels With Me, Too
My Christian faith is part of who I am, so naturally it affects some of the choices I make when we travel.
There are experiences I personally choose to skip—things like fortune telling, palm readings or certain ghost-related activities.
That’s not a judgment about what anyone else chooses to do.
It’s simply part of how I travel.
And I think that’s one of the beautiful things about travel:
We can experience the same destination differently.
I Plan…But I Leave Room
I LOVE planning.
Ask my family.
I will have the reservations.
I will know the parking situation.
I will have researched the restaurant menu.
There will probably be screenshots.
But I’ve also learned not to schedule every minute.
Because some of our favorite memories weren’t on the itinerary.
An estate sale we accidentally discovered.
A restaurant we hadn’t planned.
A conversation with a stranger.
A beautiful road we didn’t know existed.
A random stop that turned into the thing everyone remembers.
So now I try to:
Plan enough that we don’t miss what matters.
Leave enough room to discover something we didn’t know mattered.
What You’ll Find Here
The Tiny Train Traveler is where I’m documenting the places we’ve actually been, the things we’d genuinely do again and the lessons we learned along the way.
Road trips.
Train trips.
Cruises.
Family vacations.
Adults-only escapes.
Hotels.
Restaurants.
Desserts.
Animal encounters.
History.
Travel with older kids.
Accessibility experiences from our own family.
What things actually cost us.
What I’d skip.
What I’d absolutely pay for again.
And the occasional story about something going completely off the rails.
Pun absolutely intended.
I’m not interested in pretending every trip is perfect.
Sometimes the hotel is amazing except for the trash chute outside the room.
Sometimes you discover your vacation house apparently exists in two time zones.
Sometimes your children look like they’re reconsidering their entire existence on a roller coaster while your husband looks delighted.
And sometimes you drive directly toward a hurricane while everyone else is evacuating.
Those are usually the best stories anyway.
Why I’m Writing It Down
Someday our kids will be grown.
They’ll have families and trips and stories of their own.
And I hope they’ll still occasionally sit around a table together and somebody will say:
“Remember when we…?”
And everyone starts laughing before they even finish the sentence.
That’s really what this is about.
Not checking off destinations.
Not collecting perfect pictures.
Not seeing who can travel the farthest.
Collecting the “Remember when we…” stories while we still can.
So if you’re another regular person with a job, a family, a limited number of vacation days and a long list of places you’d still like to see…
welcome.
We’ll figure out how to get there.
Preferably without an airplane.
Tiny traveler. Big adventures. No airplanes required.
