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We’re so pleased that you have come to visit Trip Meets Travel and headed over to our About Page, to find out more of what we are about and what we can do for you.
Trip Meets Travel was created by me (Sam), my hubby Dom, and our three kids Kyle, Sofia & Jorge. In a nutshell we love our days out, we love to travel, and we have a huge bucket list of places we want to visit, that we want to share with YOU!
The idea for trip meets travel happened when we were on holiday at The Moon Palace Grand In Cancun Mexico. We had planned the holiday well and done our research before we went and had perfectly chosen what travel accessories to take with us.
We were sat in the pool drinking our cocktails when we found ourselves sharing everything we knew about the hotel and where to eat and what to do, when the people we were speaking to said, “they had visited many times and didn’t know even 10% of what we knew”. This happened time and time again during our holiday.
We also told stories of other travel adventures and we realised we had a wealth of travel knowledge to share and that running a travel blog would be just as exciting as the holidays, day trips and meals out we could simply have the enjoyment of sharing them with you.
Back in the UK after our trip to Mexico and we set our travel blog plan in motion, and now it is a reality, and I am so pleased you are here to share it with us.
We Used To Live In Portugal
The Algarve (the beautiful southern region of Portugal) was our home from the summer of 2008 to the summer of 2021. We lived 20 minutes away from both Zoo Marine and Slide N Splash. In fact, we had a season ticket at Zoo Marine!
Sofia & Jorge were both born there, and our eldest son is so fluent in Portuguese it is his first language.
Expect plenty of great ideas for holidays in The Algarve among the many ideas we are sharing with you on Trip Meets Travel.
Our Trips
We just love a day trip. Sweets in the car for the drive and then a family day out when we can just relax and enjoy some fresh air.
Our days outs usually involve somewhere special in Yorkshire, as we live in East Yorkshire, and it makes it an easy commute.
We make it a habit to have a day out on the summer bank holiday weekends as well as through Easter, Summer Holidays and of course around Halloween.
Some of our favourite places to take a trip include Flamingo Land (OMG amazing day out in winter too), Dalby Forest, Goathland, Burton Agnes, and William’s Den.
Though through Trip Meets Travel we are going to create a bucket list and visit more and more places and enjoy more family adventures.
We LOVE A Road Trip
Our favourite kind of holiday is a road trip. No waiting for flights or having to get to the airport several hours before the flight, and its much easier for travelling with children.
In the summer of 2018 we travelled from Portugal to Spain to France to England back to France to The Netherlands to Belgium back to France to Luxemburg to Germany more France, then Spain and then back to our home at the time in The Algarve. It was our best family holiday we ever had.
In the summer of 2022 we did two shorter UK road trips. The first going to Wales, to The Lake District and then The Dales. On our second summer trip we did North Yorkshire, Northumberland, Scotland, back to Northumberland and back home.
Also, when we lived in Portugal, we loved to drive across the border into Spain for a cheap summer holiday. OMG so much cheaper without those flights! We would go to Mojacar, Costa Del Sol or just slightly across the border, so that we could say “we are in Spain!”.
Our Travels (So Far)
We have had some amazing holidays so far, from Lapland to meet Santa and see the Northern Lights, to an 8 week European road trip to a 5 week American adventure.
Here are the countries we have visited so far:
- United States (Vermont/Orlando/Boston)
- Mexico
- Cuba
- Lanzarote
- Majorca
- Spain
- Portugal
- France
- Germany
- Luxemburg
- Belgium
- The Netherlands/Holland
- Finland
- Scotland
- Wales
As a kid I have also visited with my parents Skiathos, Gambia, Cyprus, Crete, Andorra. Plus, I grew up with my dad owning a motorhome hire company and we had a lot of weekends away and motorhome trips from Northern England to Benidorm or The Algarve and back.
Dom grew up with the caravan breaks to The Lake District and The Dales and I have loved all the great places he has introduced me to.
Our Travels (Next)
We love to have a holiday booked (or 2 or 3) and have something to look forward to. Right now, we have booked:
- Crete (summer 2023)
- Florida (summer 2024)
Crete was one of my favourite holidays as a kid, which my late grandparents came on to, and I have wanted to go to Crete since about 2012. BUT we lived in Portugal until 2021 and it was the hassle of connecting flights that put us off. But we are finally doing it.
Florida was where we took Kyle when he was 10 in the summer of 2012 and went for 5 weeks. This time we are doing 2 weeks at Disney World’s Pop Century, and 2 weeks to Cabana Bay at Universal. The plan is to share everything with you from the initial planning stage right through to our travels.
Our UK Travels
Because we lived in Portugal for so long, when we did return to the UK, we realised how much we missed about this beautiful area and set ourselves a bucket list on our return.
We visited Center Parcs twice (Lake District & Sherwood Forest), went to Blackpool for our wedding anniversary (we went to Blackpool for our Honeymoon), went to Skegness, went to Butlins, went on some Haven holidays along with many, many weekend aways.
It has just been great fun rediscovering the UK!
Random Fun Facts About Us:
- We lived in The Algarve for 13 years and moved back to the UK in 2021 and had to remember how things in the UK worked after too long away!
- Dom & Kyle’s first time on a plane was to the Canary Island of Lanzarote. It was also Sam’s first plane holiday when she was two with her parents.
- Sofia & Jorge’s first time on a plane was to Lapland in Finland to visit Santa. Because they had done a LOT of road trips before this, it meant this was the 8th country they had visited.
- Kyle’s first language is Portuguese, and he currently lives in The Algarve.
- If we could choose one place for a day out forever it would be Dalby Forest – it’s our happy place!
- We love camping in a tent and loved it so much we went camping around Europe in a tent for 8 whole weeks!
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Love Sam, Dom, Kyle, Sofia & Jorge x