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Passports or Pass With Mary And Alicia

In this episode of Passports or Pass, on our Weekend Travel Inspiration, we mix it up a little. Instead of having a couple, we are interviewing Mary and Alicia, two moms that travel together with their families.  Both Mary and Alicia are married to Army men, and they met before they started having children, beginning their travels with weekend ski trips in Colorado. As luck would have it, both ended up here living in Grafenwoehr, and they began traveling around Europe together. They are dedicated travelers who firmly believe that traveling doesn’t stop when you have kids.

Alicia and Mary traveling in Europe.
Alicia and Mary traveling, traveling, traveling. You might be able to recognize them, because at least one of them is probably baby-carrying.

Alicia and Mary – Will You Pass the Travel Companion Test?

Nowadays, they plan with their kids in mind, everything from scheduling the day, to what food they’ll eat, and where they will stay. As young families, it’s difficult to travel and have a night out with just adults, but by traveling together they can babysit for each other. This allows both couples to keep the romance alive, and do some adult activities once in awhile. For example, when they traveled to Finland last winter, they gave each other a special night out. Mary and her husband when out at night riding snowmobiles and Alicia and her husband went out dog sledding. Since the events took place at night, both couples had a romantic night out under the amazing Northern Lights.

The two families in Dubrovnik.
The families that travel together, have so much fun together. Lucky for both Mary and Alicia, sometimes they bring along a Grandma to help with the kids, and the two couple can go out and have fun.
Colorado snowboarding.
Travel friendships begin in a variety of ways, but for Mary and Alicia it was their love of snowboarding!

If you are interested in following their adventures and learning how to win at family travel, Alicia is starting a YouTube Channel and you can find one of her videos here: Groth Family of Three.

As we all know, the more people you add to a travel group, the harder it can be to please everyone, so two families traveling together can be a challenge. Thankfully, Mary and Alicia have worked out a system and they have been all over, from Iceland to Croatia together. The question is, should they travel together? Are they and their families great travel companions? Watch the video and the game show will reveal the truth.

Mary and Alicia’s Family Travel Tips

  • Plan together, each family should have input into the trip, don’t just put it all on one person’s shoulders.
  • Give the children time to play, if there’s room to run, let ’em loose (with supervision of course).
  • Pack light, but don’t leave behind the essentials like a baby carrier.
  • Have a picky eater? Bring along food you know will satisfy and then use it wisely making sure some will last through to the end of the trip.
  • Traveling with another family and trading off babysitting duties allows the adults to experience some of the night life.

Wouldn’t you love to be on our game show? Do you think you can pass the Travel Companion test? Give us a holler, we’d love to have you in the hot seat at “Passports or Pass”!

Author Bio: Corinne Vail is a travel photographer, food lover, and a perpetual traveler who has been travel writing for over 14 years. For many years she lived overseas in Germany, Japan, Turkey, South Korea, and the Netherlands teaching the children of the US. military. She’s visited over 90 countries, and she’s not stopping anytime soon.

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Traveler game show with Mary and Alicia.