About Us
Who We Are
Pete & Susan
We are empty nesters who love to travel domestically and abroad. We reside in Florida with our Australian Shepherd, Rusty. After raising our three beautiful children, we realized we wanted the focus of our free time to be centered around seeing this beautiful planet.
All of our kids are adults now and living their own lives in other parts of Florida. We are incredibly proud of them and enjoyed that time of our lives tremendously. Now it’s fun to get to know them as people, without the day-to-day pressures of parenting. We’ve even been blessed to travel internationally with all three of them.
Some Stats
While we believe it’s not about the numbers, sometimes the numbers can be fun. Here’s a bit about us.
Those numbers are mine (Susan). Of course, each of us visited certain states and countries before we met each other. For example, Pete spent a year in South Korea as a linguist for the US Air Force, but I’ve never been. Likewise, I visited the Dominican Republic, the Bahamas, and Washington State before we met.
Have you ever heard of this term? Unlike a traditional bucket list, a “reverse bucket list” focuses on gratitude. It’s all of the things you’ve accomplished or are thankful for. We have so many, but I’m going to focus on some of the travel-related entries.
See Puffins in the Wild
I love puffins! We tried to go to Machias Seal Island (off the coast of Maine) in 2021, but our trip was cancelled due to a bad storm that came in. Instead we took a harbor cruise and saw them at a distance. But in 2026, I got to see them up-close-and-personal in Iceland!
Experience a Full Solar Eclipse
In 2017, South Carolina was in the path of totality for a solar eclipse. That happens to be where I grew up, so we visited my parents and made a party of it. Some dear friends from Florida joined us, along with a big group of locals. It was amazing!
Ride a Funicular and a Gondola
We checked off both of these items in Italy in 2023. The gondola ride was in Venice (obviously, I guess!) and we took a funicular on Capri.
Stand Up on a surfboard
This probably sounds easy since I live in Florida, but I haven’t tried to surf since shortly after I moved here in 1996. I was never able to actually stand up back then. But in Costa Rica in 2023, I did! What a thrill.
Compete on Jeopardy!
This is something I wanted to do since I was a teenager. In 2012, I got the opportunity! I didn’t win, but I think I did fairly well. I’m proud of that experience.
Drive in a Foreign Country
I’ve checked this off a few times now, but it all started in Costa Rica in 2023. Since then, I’ve also driven in France, Iceland, and the Cayman Islands. Cayman was particularly interesting because they drive on the left side of the road. I scraped the car up on a bunch of sea grapes. But it was a clunker and we got full coverage insurance, so no harm no foul (at least for us).
We have a few big things still unchecked: going on safari, seeing Phish live at Madison Square Garden, seeing the Northern Lights, and a few others. I hope we’ll get to check those off and truly enjoy them, but I want to focus more on what we’ve already been blessed with.
The Origin of It’s Boarding Time Somewhere
We’re both lifelong Jimmy Buffett fans. Right around the time of his unfortunate passing, we realized we wanted to completely change our existing travel blog into something more of a travelogue just for ourselves and (maybe!) friends and family. We were brainstorming a new name while on a road trip, when “It’s 5 O’Clock Somewhere” started playing on Radio Margaritaville. We decided to make a spin on the name and voila! our new site was born.