Hey, i'm Miranda, The Everyday Explorist
Resident travel addict and wordy web-mistress here on our little corner of the interweb. A few facts about me:
- Favorite state visited: Wyoming
- Favorite National Park: Grand Teton National Park
- Underrated U.S travel destinations: Newport, Rhode Island, coastal Michigan and Cincinatti, Ohio
- Favorite U.S foodie city: Memphis, Tennessee
- Favorite U.S food eaten: Joe's BBQ, Kansas City
- Favorite travel activities: hunting funky street art, touring cool capitol buildings and libraries and well beaches are cool
Meet Orlando, The Everyday Explorist Hubby
Orlando is the lucky gent married to Miranda, patient driver and tech support here at The Everyday Explorist. A few fun deets about him:
- Favorite U.S road trip: New England
- Underrated U.S travel destination: Coastal Michigan and Bayfield (northern) Wisconsin
- Favorite travel memory: renting a big beach house in Myrtle Beach for a large family vacation
- Favorite U.S food eaten: I'm Your Huckleberry Burger at the Burger Dive in Billings, Montana and Dyer's Burgers, Memphis
- Favorite travel activities: slow crawling walkable areas eating and hitting up local breweries, doing adventurous stuff
Meet The Everyday Explorist Kiddoes
One of the best parts of our travels is sharing our passion for travel with our littles: teenage daughters Amelia and Lucy, and Joaquin, the king of our castle. A lil about our best buddies:
- Amelia is our family dare-devil. She never turns down the chance to zipline, parasail, zorb, jew-ski and hopefully soon, skydive. She's also a super adventurous eater who will try anything once.
- Lucy is our middle kiddo who loves chatting up new people but mostly their dogs. She really hates it when we go camping.
- Joaquin loves taking pictures of himself by cool street murals and ordering mac n' cheese every single place we go. God help us if we don't have mac n' cheese.
Oh hey there!
I'm Miranda, The Everyday Explorist.
Welcome to my travel blog. Come stay a while, and let's talk TRAVEL!
Hi! I’m Miranda — just an everyday girl from the Midwest on a mission to explore the great United States. Born and raised in Wisconsin, with an inability to sit still and a child-like (…and highly irritating) sense of curiosity, I stumbled on my love of travel. 45 U.S states (and counting) later, and i’ve learned just how transformative a life of exploring can be. I’m here to share my journey, and help others explore more everyday too!
Many of us want to travel but feel it isn’t possible or don’t know how to start. Oh, have I been there! I spent years not traveling for those exact same reasons until a random weekend trip to St. Louis, Missouri changed my life. Nearly (10) years ago, I planned a short trip to St. Louis after a near death experience with a ruptured ectopic pregnancy. Few things will teach you to start living your dreams like nearly dying, so I reached for my previously shelved travel dreams and hit the road. Not only did that trip help me heal, it taught me that despite limited travel time, budget and my many commitments, that I, and anyone really, could make their travel dreams a reality.
I returned from that trip with a renewed outlook on life, feeling inspired by the impact of just one low-budget, 4-day road trip to the American Midwest. My trip was a wake up call that there was so much fun, learning and adventure to be had even on limited time, and with a relatively small budget just travelling within the United States. I realized that no matter how bad life seems at times, that there is ALWAYS good to be found in the world. From that moment on, my travel romance was born and I decided to dedicate my life to “hunting the good stuff,” by exploring as much of my country as possible every day, and to help others to do the same.
I created The Everyday Explorist as a blog by an everyday traveler, for everyday travelers. I plan to use my little corner of the internet to help inspire anyone with a deep desire to travel to get moving and make those dreams a reality!
Happy Exploring, friends! I’m so glad you’re here.
XOXO, Miranda
Why trust me? Because i’m likely not all that different from you.
Here are a few facts about me:
- I’m not an influencer. I mean, maybe I am a little bit if a curvaceous, big-mouthed, middle aged 40+ slowing losing her mind travel mom is a category? Mostly I am just a normal person with a job and responsibilities (some of which I am neglecting as I write this, sorry kids…)
- I’ve been married for a long time which means I too have a spouse I need to talk into my travel shenanigans. And no, he’s not my sugar daddy.
- I have three monster kids I mostly haul on trips. Two angsty teens who do nothing without epic eyeball rolls and complaining, and an elementary age kid who I bribe with technology and fruit snacks. Yes, I am THAT mom. And we still travel.
- I have a normal 40+ hour a week professional gig. I mostly like it, but it involves humans. And problem solving. And it so conveniently almost always rages like a wildfire immediately before I am scheduled for a trip. There’s also that tricky PTO thing to figure out.
- We only have 1 car so that’s fun.
- I am mama to two all-star athletes who practice what feels like eight days out of the week and travel (9) months out of the year (and not to fun travel places BTW, sorry Schaumburg, IL more on that later)…so we have like less than no free time or money.
- Basically I am a super average human writing a blog full of adventures all across America while telling you, yes you, that you can do it too. Come along and let me be your travel BFF as I share the tips, tricks and insider deets to make you a traveler too.