Michigan holds so many memories for me. My mom grew up there and both my grandparents still live there, so we’ve made countless trips up there over the years; and I’ve loved every single one of them.

Growing up with moms who loved gardening, my friend Carrie and I were destined to become plant ladies; and plant ladies we’ve become! I mean, we fangirl over plants. So we certainly saw taking a trip out to Florida Cactus as a worthy cause to brave the heat and (worse yet) humidity of summer.

One of the reasons I started this blog was so I could share what costs are actually involved with travel. Over the years I’ve followed many blogs, some being travel blogs. I have always loved reading their amazing posts about adventurous and breathtaking trips. However, its kind of rare to find a post that actually outlines how much the trip cost, which usually lead me to believe I would never be able to afford it.

Hiking the Grand Canyon from rim to rim has been a dream of Lori’s and mine for a while now. Trips like that take a lot of planning and preparing, but you just have to go for them. It was such an incredible hike; filled with memories I won’t soon forget.

“Camp on a deserted island,” they said. “It will be fun,” they said. Yeah, um, pretty sure that was one of the worst travel nights of my life; second only to night trains through Italy (but that’s a story for another time).