janiac's VirtualTourist Home Page

Hello! I hope to get many pages up here some day and hope to go to many different places. I love nature and animals, so most of the places I'm interested in are on the wild side.

I was blessed as a child with a mother who loved to travel and who was not afraid to drive her two small children around the US by herself. My father wasn't into traveling, so if she had waited for him, we would have never seen Canada, Yellowstone, the Redwood forests, the Grand Canyon et cetera. Because of her, I, too, am not afraid to travel without my husband. So many women I talk to only take trips if a man is with them. I find that so self-limiting. It is not that we don't take trips together, but there are certain things I'm interested in that he's not. And his idea of a vacation is to go to the same places and do the same thing over and over again. My idea of a vacation is go to new places, see new things, as many as God is willing to let me see.

After several years of only so-so traveling, it was finally time to hit the road again (or air in two cases). Went back to L.A. to see some friends and show the kids the sites they had forgotten about. Then to my dream vacation of Australia! Though it wasn't exactly what I had thought it would be, it was a lot of fun.

The trips I have planned right now are places I want to share with my children before they get too old to want to go with me. One of the saddest things for a mom is realizing that the time period for traveling with your children and sharing those special moments is really very short. From about six and before they are too young to really remember that much. But don't let that stop you from traveling with them. I took my son when he was less than one to Cancun and so many moms on that trip came up to me and said they had wished they brought their children with them too.

Then sadly, too soon they get too old -- they are too busy with sports and camps, or they would rather not be with mom and dad. Right now, my kids are still of a good age where they will happily travel with me (unless they think I'm trying to trick them into an educational trip).

I hope to share with them as much as I can of this gorgeous world God gave us and hopefully they will grow to love its creatures and beauty as much as I do.

THE PLACES I WANT TO TAKE MY KIDS IN THE NEXT FIVE YEARS:

ITALY
ALASKA
GRAND CANYON
ATLANTIS, PARADISE ISLAND
HAWAII

Places that my elderly mom who loves to travel wants to go to that I hope to accompany her some day:

Patagonia
Iceland

Places I would love to go some day to (excuse any spelling errors, too lazy to look them up right now):

Iguaza Falls
see the Wildebeast migration
see the Caribou migration/Ngorogoro crater
see polar bears
Costa Rica
Maine
see the great apes/chimps
China (maybe)
Thailand
Maldives
Bali

Wildlife I hope to see in the near future in the wild that I haven't seen yet:

Wolves
Bighorn sheep
Caribou
Koalas
MUCH MORE

Wildlife I'd love to see in the wild, but probably never will:

Tigers
Pandas

2001 -- Africa trip, wonderful amounts of wildlife including hippos, giraffes, zebras, lions, warthogs, sable, elephants, monkeys, more, more, more

2002 -- black bears in the Smokies (haven't seen wild bears since I was a kid)

2003 -- Sanibel, Everglades, FL Manatees! And long neck turtles, lots of living shells (conch, sand dollars), et cetera! Also on this trip these animals I had seen before, but always a joy, raccoons, alligators, many birds

(P.S. poor beautiful Sanibel, I hope Hurricane Charley hasn't hurt you too much!!)

2004 -- Austrailia, in the wild -- kangaroos, fairy penguins, fruit bats, cockatoos,
At an Australian zoo, aquarium or sanctuary, but still interesting -- platypus, echidna, wallabies, koalas

2005 -- flying fish and humpback whale mom and baby! Fantastic, utterly breathtaking