My Travel Story (a summarized version)

My mom and me, on my very first trip to Disney World.

I remember, as a young girl, sitting in the backseat of my mom’s car and telling my mom, “God didn’t make this great big world for me to not see it all.”

My love for the world never changed, and as I grew up, I went on a handful of trips to memorable places such as Disney World and New York City.

Me in New York City my freshman year of College.

Then I became a parent, and I wanted nothing more than to travel the world with my children. So, while my kids were all young, I moved my family to Orlando, Florida to follow my love of the travel industry and Disney. I worked at Walt Disney World in a number of roles and enjoyed the perks of bringing my children to the parks (for free) often!

In 2014, the travel bug hit me HARD, and I took my kids on a 18 day road trip where we traveled 20 states (in the shape of a heart) and did over 1000 acts of kindness. I didn’t want them to just see the world, I wanted them to see the good in the world.

My family on the first day of our 18 day road trip across America!

in 2015 I welcomed my last child into the world. I was now a mom to four boys, and my family was complete.

My son Elijah.

While on maternity leave, I often dreamed of giving up my dream job at Disney and buying an RV.

I wanted to jump in and travel fulltime.

But sometimes, we don’t listen to our dreams enough, and unfortunately, I never made that leap.

And what happened next is where my life turned upside down…

Right before I took maternity leave, we had decided we would buy a house. We had the credit (finally), and we had a new baby coming, and it just seemed right. So, we moved out of our rental and spent the summer with my mom, out of state. When we returned to Florida, we stayed in hotels, while we looked for a place to call our home. But then, suddenly, and unexpectedly, our youngest son passed away.

As you can only imagine, it was the hardest thing I’ve ever lived through.

And, even though my managers at Disney worked with me to allow lots of time to grieve, I could not handle returning to work the way I had hoped to… and without the income, we ended up losing our ability to purchase or even rent a home.

We ended up living in hotels, moving every 21 days.

It was heartbreaking and exhausting. And there were many times where I thought I just couldn’t go on.

During this time, we traveled back and forth from Louisiana quite a few times. We had another close family member pass away. And eventually it just became too much for me to bare, and we were running out of money. I thought the answer was moving back to Louisiana.

So, we took a detour to Georgia on our journey back “home,” and visited family and waterfalls. And in the next few years, we would take trips to Georgia and several other places to be with family.

And then I bought a school bus.

My husband and my son Julien (on our school bus)… I’ll have to dig for better pictures later. Stay tuned!

The plan, again was to travel “the world” fulltime in the school bus… but unfortunately, the day we brought the bus home was also the last day the bus ever moved. It was muddy, and when the man who brought it to us tried to park it in our yard, one of the wheels came off a rim, and it sunk into the yard.

We never got it to move…. but we did end up living in the bus for quite sometime.

Until my fight or flight got the best of me, and I uprooted my family again… this time to Albuquerque, New Mexico.

We found a nice home to rent, in a beautiful neighborhood, and we really just loved living there.

My kiddos climbing a big rock on my birthday hike in Abq.

The great thing about living in New Mexico, is that is was so different than anywhere else we had lived before, and everything seemed like an adventure. Plus, we were closer to places I had always wanted to visit.

While living there we traveled to Arizona, Nevada, and California. Then when my oldest child, Alex, turned 18 we drove to Yellowstone National Park through Utah and Idaho to drop him off at his first job.

But Covid changed the world, and it seemed that everyone in California was moving to Albuquerque.

My landlord decided she wanted to sell her house. And I found out my mom’s cancer had come back for the second time. And I really didn’t see a choice but to move “home” to Louisiana again…

And I’m glad I did, because I was able to be there for my mom for the last moments of her life.

I remember sitting on the porch next to my mom this day and thinking, moving home won’t be so bad, if I can sit on the porch with my mom… I didn’t realize that the cancer would take her so quickly….

After losing my mom, I was struggling with grief again… and honestly, I still struggle with it everyday. We are coming up on 10 years of losing Elijah and I still feel like I’ll never be the same….

But my travel story still continues... and she has inspired that in a great many ways. Her and my son Elijah.

I try my best, to live my life to the fullest in their honor. I feel like it’s the least I can do…

And I will touch on that later.

Since moving back to Louisiana, we have traveled out of the country for the first time on a cruise. My kids have gotten to go back to Disney World. We have visited family in Mississippi, theme parks in Texas, and even rode a train up to NYC and then Vermont last summer to summer camp.

I have so many adventures to share with you, and I hope you will join me as I explore those adventures, take new ones, and explore how travel can help families bond and connect on a deeper level.

I became a travel advisor, because I know the power travel has to transform lives and bring families closer together.

I want people to see the good in the world. I want them to witness human connections. I want travel to break barriers and build community.

Let’s step out into the world together.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

~Kelly Airhart

My family on our last trip to Six Flags Fiesta in San Antonio. We have another trip to Six Flags coming up soon, and I can’t wait to ride the roller coasters with my kids!