Pacific Northwest and Beyond is a Pacific Northwest blog and a travel blog with dashes of photography posts and spots of travel-inspired recipes all rolled into one mixed bag of crunchy random goodness. Think of it as granola…only in blog form.
It’s also a Pacific Northwest event calendar with a focus on the upper left side of Washington State.
This post or page may contain affiliate links. That means if you click on a link that is an affiliate link, and then make a subsequent purchase, I get a small commission, at no additional cost to you, which helps me support this website.
From time to time I feel the need to write a “state of the blog” type post. Here’s the latest.
Where are the featured events?
Currently, with the cancellation of large events, and many smaller ones in our area due to COVID-19, we’ve temporarily removed the list of featured events from this area, but we’re reserving the space for when events start resuming.
Discovering the status of every event on our website and updating it would take a signficant amount of time that we need to devote to other resources. Please keep up to date on the status of event restrictions in your community and recommendations from health professionals.
Thank you.
Pacific Northwest and Beyond (if you haven’t figured it out already is a Pacific Northwest blog, a travel blog, and a PNW event calendar.
But, wait! Who is writing this blog? And why is someone who’s not a nomad, and probably will never be, writing a travel blog?
When I was much younger, the term “digital nomad” didn’t exist, and though I had dreamed of travel as a kid (fervently watching “Big Blue Marble” and participating in their pen-pal program, inflicting my letters on other kids from Bristol to Ghana, reading Earthwatch brochures and dreaming of seeing Orangutans in Borneo)and knew of some people who took off and backpacked through Europe, and had a much-older brother who was an airline pilot, I thought travel was for someone else. Someone more sophisticated. Someone from an upper-class background whose families hosted exchange students and spoke nonchalantly about things like “gap years.” Someone with trendy asymmetrical hairstyles who…well never mind, you get the picture..
Travel got put off for different reasons from self-worth to money (at one point it seemed that even affording a passport was a stretch). My kid had a diagnosis that made travel challenging for her. I couldn’t because…
Some of them real challenges. Some of them just real excuses.
But then I finally got that passport, went abroad, and realized that I could do this — with family or alone. So I started traveling…more. But not always. While I think I could love the travel-all-the-time lifestyle, and my middle years have freed me up to travel more, both financially and temporally, “going nomad” would mean, for me, making decisions I am not willing to make.
But, I think there can be value in posts written by “newbie-ish” travelers who have freshly faced some of the challenges of taking those first steps, just as there’s value to travel posts both written by locals and those visiting an area for the first time who may see some things that a local might overlook.
Where am I a local? Home for me is the Puget Sound area. Coming home after an adventure is nice; there’s plenty to do and see right here in the “upper left” part of the US.
I toyed around for a while with starting a local Pacific Northwest blog, then with starting a travel blog. But when I finally got the time to devote to blogging, I decided that the two should meet, and here it is.
Thanks for visiting.
Who is this site for?
Everyone! Of course, that’s what I want to say. But if you’re someone who has spent a lifetime traveling, the travel tips, product suggestions and the like may not be of interest to you. You’ll probably have visited the destinations I write about.
But I’ve met plenty of people who are like me and say they want to travel, but then never even get a passport. Some barriers to travel are very real. They are not “excuses,” as I’ve heard it sometimes said. But sometimes the barriers to travel are mental ones — fear of the unknown, low self-worth, shyness, for example, are not easy to overcome. However, once you jump that initial hurdle and venture out, you may find that travel gives you plenty of opportunities to challenge ideas about who you are and what you can do.
If this blog reaches someone and inspires them to book that plane ticket, try arranging a trip independently vs booking a tour, or take a solo trip, I’ve done something.
So this site is for people who:
Are interested in PNW Events
We have growing PNW events calendar and plan to keep on writing more posts about local events.
Are looking for things to do in the PNW
We plan to keep on writing local posts in our Pacific Northwest blog — some for people looking forward to traveling to Seattle or other PNW destinations, some for locals who are looking for local activities or hikes, or ideas for that staycation.
Are thinking of traveling to a particular destination or thinking of planning a trip for the first time.
I like to write about destinations I visit, hopefully, they’ll be of help to future travelers. And, in 2020 I plan to start writing more posts about travel tip and products I’ve found useful.
But you’ll also find things here like travel-inspired recipes, photography tips, perhaps language instruction tips, and other things travel, place, or PNW-related.
