The Trip List: Shannon Randall

I was just twenty when I first thought about it. How amazing it would be to travel more, to have a job traveling or even be a travel writer. My first real trip out of the country—besides a day's jaunt to Niagara Falls and a boozy high school senior trip to Puerto Vallarta—wasn't really until I was in my last years of college.

It was then that I got my first real passport, packed my bags, and went to the tropical jungles of Costa Rica for a semester abroad. It was that trip that forever changed how I saw the world and everyone in it.

My perfect trip in three words:  Relaxed, warm, nature.

Best solo trip:  Costa Rica 1997. It was my first trip traveling abroad on my own. Sure, I’d been on short trips across the U.S. border to Canada or Mexico. But this was for a few months, all on my own.

Best trip with friends:  Girls trip to Ojo Caliente Mineral Springs in Santa Fe, New Mexico, for a long weekend.

Best trip with family/kids:  Yosemite, staying in tented cabins in Half Dome Village with my husband and 3-year-old son. 

Worst trip:  Definitely to Austin, Texas for SXSW when my band broke up on the way there and I was already going through a break-up. Ugh.

Favorite thing to take on travels:  Notebook, pens and pencils, bikini, scarf, beanie.