Marrying Your Passions: The DINK Travel and Adventure Podcast

Custom Travel in Costa Rica and Beyond: What We Learned From Explore the Americas Our most recent episode takes us south of the border to talk with Melanie Marsell and Kathleen Hall, co-founders of Explore the Americas , formerly Dive the Americas .  If you have not listened yet, go check out Episode 28 first, then come back here for the details, resources for your next international trip, and a few things we did not have time to cover on the mic. We've loved our time in Latin America and the Caribbean. So, having Kathleen and Melanie on the show to learn more about traveling in the region was a blast.  Who They Are Melanie was born in Costa Rica, moved to Florida around age 10, and went back after college to study tourism at UF and build her career in the region. She is a self described lifelong entrepreneur in the making. Kathleen came to Costa Rica in 2015 to finish a biology degree, told herself she would stay an extra year, and never left. She never planned to run a ...

Montreal, Canada: The Trip That Started It All This post accompanies Episode 27 of Marrying Your Passions, "Montreal Travel Guide: Old Montreal, Mont Royal & Notre Dame Basilica." Listen to the full conversation for the stories, the laughs, and everything we could not fit into this post. Nathan and Alicia visiting Mont Royal way back in 2006. Their first trip EVER together as a couple! Before marriage. Before the 50 state marathon quest. Before any of it, there was Montreal. This one goes back further than almost anything else we've ever written about. Back to August 2006, when we took our very first trip together as a couple, and back again to 2023, when we finally made it back and got to see it all with completely different eyes. Where It All Began It was the summer between Nathan's undergraduate and graduate degrees, and Alicia was already in law school. We'd been officially dating for about five or six months, honestly probably less than that when the tri...

  This post accompanies Episode 26 of Marrying Your Passions, "Tupelo & Heart of America Marathon Reviews: Elvis, Steep Hills, and 26.2 Miles." Listen to the full conversation for the stories, the laughs, and everything we could not fit into this post. Alicia and Nathan after the Heart of America Marathon way back in 2012! Labor Day weekend has always held a special place in our hearts, and for good reason. Back before we had forty plus marathons behind us, before the podcast, before running a marathon in most of the states was checked off, two Labor Day weekend races quietly became part of our story; the Tupelo Marathon and the Heart of America Marathon . These small marathons turned into two of our favorite early memories, and two races that still hold up today. Tupelo Marathon: The Race We Chose Because of Elvis We will be honest, we did not pick the Tupelo Marathon because of the course. We picked it because Alicia loves Elvis, and Tupelo happens to be where he ...

This post accompanies Episode 25 of the Marrying Your Passions podcast . Listen to the full conversation for the stories behind each purchase, our honest ranking, and the reasoning that ties it all together. Nathan and Alicia at Westgate Historic Williamsburg Resort We know timeshares are a hot button topic. There are two camps out there: the owners who've had one for decades and won't hear a word against it, and everyone else convinced it's a scam. We fall firmly into the first camp. We own three timeshares: Westgate Resorts , Hyatt Vacation Club (originally purchased as Welk Resorts), and Disney Vacation Club . This isn't a sales pitch. We don't have an affiliate deal with any of these companies, and what you do with your own travel budget is entirely up to you. What we want to share here is the practical side, the real numbers, the ownership structures, and how each system actually works, so you can decide for yourself whether timeshare ownership makes sense for...