Hi, my name is Tykesha.  Wife.  Mother.  World Traveler.  Oh yeah, I’m also a writer and this is my first post for the Momma Wanderlust blog.  Even though, I am a writer by trade, it has literally taken me months to write this first blog.  I did some soul searching to understand why it has been so difficult for me to write about travel with my children and as a family.  

While doing some self-reflection, it occured to me that the reason I haven’t been able to put pen to paper is because of how vulnerable it feels to write about the things I love the most.  Travel has been the love of my life for as long as I can remember.  And then I got married (to my best friend) and had two of the most yummy children in the world.  Well, they are the bee’s knees to me!

But I digress…becoming a momma is an amazing honor.  It can also be all-consuming and after the traumatic birth of our first child, I quickly spiraled into postpartum depression.  It took me two years before I started to feel like my pre-baby-self.  It was then that I promised myself that the next time I had a child, I would work to remain rooted in who I was/am.  This blog is my way to marry the new me (momma of two) with some aspects of my pre-baby life (world traveler and adventurist) that I loved.

As a young, single person with a full-time job, I used all of my extra resources and every scrap of vacation time I had to globetrot.  I was all about snagging great fare deals and traveling “team carry-on” to avoid extra fees during my travels.  A sistah stayed gone!!!  My goals were simple, to see the world and show the young people in my family and neighborhood that travel is not just for the rich.  

My Single Girl Travels

Here are few pics from my travels back in the day:

Camping outside of the Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania

HuangShan (Yellow Mountain), China

Ngorongoro Crater, Africa

Shanghai, China

Versailles, France

Trevi Fountain in Rome, Italy

London, England

Xi’an, China

Grand Canyon West, Arizona

Travel has taught me so much about the world and my place in it.  It’s my hope that by taking our children with us on family adventures, they will learn about the globe and grow up to be sensitive world citizens with a clear view of how privileged they are and what is truly important.

Momma Wanderlust Blog

Now that I’m a momma on the move, my goals are pretty simple: find affordable airfare and accommodations; keep my kids entertained during flights so that we won’t get banned from an airline; make trips fun and memorable for the entire family; and carve out a little me time on each trip so that, whenever possible, I can enjoy an activity alone.

I am an average momma working hard to keep the best parts of me in tact while I work on my parenting and adulting game. That is why, I decided to blog about my adventures (or misadventures) as a traveler that happens to be a momma of two children under 4.  

In this blog, I will share our travel itineraries, preparation checklists and any and all tricks I discover that help to make traveling with children easier.