Hey Guys, Welcome to Miles Less Traveled!

Miles Less Traveled is our love letter to the world. It’s a travel blog, yes, but it’s also a love story. It’s a story filled with challenges and heartaches, romance and kindness, adventures and–many–mishaps. It’s a story that’s both unique and easily compared with every other traveling love story. It’s cheesy, messy, and a total clusterfuck at times, but it’s ours. Which suits us. After all, we are really into this whole “love each other til death to us part” thing.

As bloggers, we’re focused on couples traveling together. We are experts on traveling the world as a partnership, both thoughtfully and on a whim. We take adventures, but in a gentler, “creatures of habit” kind of way.

Take, for example, that time we hiked a volcano in Indonesia. Instead of roughing it for a bit less money, we booked a higher-priced tour because we wanted chairs and extra snacks. If life has taught us anything, it’s that when in doubt, choose snacks. Fancy tour or not, we still hiked the damn volcano which was hard and epic and has since become one of our favorite travel moments.

And we know a thing or two about this whole traveling thing. Put our experiences together, and we’ve been to 5 continents, 28 countries, and 27 states.

We were born and raised in New Jersey, lived in New York for 5 years, and have been living in Philadelphia for the last 2 years. When we talk about the Northeastern USA, it’s from a local’s perspective.

Ok so we’re married and we travel. But who, exactly, are we?

Alicia somehow straddles the line of being a free spirit and an anxiety-riddled hot mess. Like, she has a spreadsheet for costs of competitive grocery stores in our neighborhood and schedules routine marriage and budget meetings, but she also refuses to book hotels in advance, preferring to see what comes up when we travel. She’s a bit rougher around the edges, cursing and preferring to push boundaries (both hers and others). She’s also ironically terrified of flying and scary movies.

On the other hand, Joe almost never swears or gets angry. He’s softer around the edges and more conservative with his words. He doesn’t talk as much as Alicia (thank God) but when he does, it’s often important. Joe plans our travels more thoroughly, booking in advance so we don’t actually end up so whimsical that we whims our way into nowhere to sleep for the night.

Combining the two of us has been quite the balancing act. Meaning, it’s sort of unbelievable that we make it all work.

But it works! It totally works! And, if we do say so ourselves, it’s awesome. After 9 years (and counting!) together and 3 years of marriage, a lot of what identifies us is now…us.

We’re companions, buds, amigos. We’re also lovers and confidantes. Both on the road and at home.

Which is funny, considering how we met.

Which was while in a drunken haze on the streets of New Brunswick, NJ during Rutgersfest–an all-day music festival that lets all of us classy Jersey kids party in a completely untethered and inappropriate way… don’t tell our parents. Joe had recently graduated and I was in my final year, but we ended up at the same bar courtesy of some mutual friends. 

We immediately connected, in that way you do when you’re young and partying, and spent the rest of the day together. We may or may not have made out later that evening. 

It was love at first Bud Light, if you will.

Later, on our first proper date, we ended up standing in a parking lot after dinner, leaning against Joe’s car talking about travel. Travel became the first thing we found out we had in common.

Roughly 6 months into the relationship we took our first trip together, 5 days in New Orleans and 2 in Louisiana’s Cajun Country. We didn’t know it at the time, but this was the beginning of a long love affair….with New Orleans. Out of everywhere we’ve been it’s the one we’ve been back to the most–Joe is on his 4th visit, Alicia her 3rd. 

But back on that first trip to NOLA something special happened. We hopped in our rental car and took the bridge out of the city. We were blasting music and Alicia was singing to Joe and dancing in the car and somewhere over the water we realized…we had fallen in love. (Cue cheesy romance scene over fried shrimp po’ boys…)

Through the early years of our relationship, we traveled all over the US, road tripping through Arizona, eating our body weight in tacos in Austin, and channeling our we-were-meant-to-live-on-a-beach vibes in Florida.

Later, after we put a ring on it and made it all officially official (wee!), we saved up $27,000 to travel the world on an extended honeymoon. It lasted us 5 months and across 3 continents, to waterfalls in Thailand, driving a campervan across the south island of New Zealand, and a pizza crawl through the streets of Naples.

We finally ran out of steam–i.e., money–and headed home.

In the 2 years since we returned home, we’ve gotten back into the habit of eating our way through local establishments and seeking out the best experiences outdoors, mostly hiking, kayaking, and running nearby.

It turns out that our travel style is something akin to a 7-year-old child: we’re always hungry and are in a constant need to expend energy playing outside.

These days it seems that the tides of travel have shifted once again as we find ourselves newly puppy-parents.

Our perfect, angel-faced, sweet baby, munchkin monkey dog is named “Mortadella” because we love sandwiches and Italian cured meats almost as much as we love her. She’s a bit of an anxious traveler–much like her momma–but she’s already spent quite a bit of time on the road with us. We’ve always loved road tripping, but we can’t wait to see the USA through her sweet, puppy dog eyes. Yes, we’re completely obsessed. No, we won’t grow out of it.

All of this rambling to say…what, exactly, is the Miles Less Traveled blog about?

Miles Less Traveled is a travel blog that is here to serve YOU.

Here you will find travel guides for you and your boo, tips to get the most out of your time on the road, food guides, and outdoorsy-focused adventure guides. 

We hope you find our blog useful, interesting, and mostly, we hope you have some fun while you’re doing it all.