Hello! Thanks so much for stopping by. I'm Sarah, a lover of travel who has recently planted roots in Minnesota. But that doesn't mean I don't still have itchy feet and a passion for all things adventure.
In the last ten years, I have traveled to almost 40 countries, and am usually planning my next trip. While I have always enjoyed travel, having grown up traveling around the U.S. with my family, my real infatuation started in 2009.
That was the year I married and moved to Chicago to be with my husband (we had been doing long distance for about 18 months). It was also in the midst of The Great Recession when unemployment was high, and every prominent newspaper was laying off huge portions of their staff or declaring bankruptcy. It was a difficult time to be a journalist recently out of college looking for a writing job.
So, during those months of unemployment, I started rewarding myself; I got to read a travel blog for every cover letter or resume I sent out. I learned about so many places that I hadn’t heard of before. Borobudur, Petra, The Golden Temple in Amritsar, Ulan Baatar. I feverishly added dozens of countries, cities, and sights to my bucket list. (The photo below was taken at Borobudur, the largest Buddhist Temple in the world, as we watched a foggy sunrise there in 2017.)
Seven years later, after a lot of convincing, my very practical husband and I sold most of our stuff, quit our jobs, and headed to New Zealand with a one-way ticket. We felt burnt out in Chicago, working loads of hours at our jobs, and wanted a change. We knew no matter where we went, it would require finding new jobs and new lodging, and we didn’t have any kids, pets, or mortgages tying us down, so we thought it would be the perfect time to hit the road.
That adventure lasted two years, and while on that trip, I came up with the idea for HeirLine Tickets. Kids were the furthest thing from our minds at the time, but I thought it was a clever way to announce a pregnancy. I sketched it out, down to the barcode, and stored it in my mind for several years.
Then, in February of 2021, we found out we were going to be parents. There was no better way I could think of to tell our parents they would be grandparents than inviting them on this trip of a lifetime with us using HeirLine Tickets. Below is a screenshot of part of the ticket I gave my dad when we told them.
We will never forget their reactions.
Even now, I think the idea is clever and unique. So when our daughter was born with some health issues and I couldn’t return to working full-time, it seemed a perfect time for me to try and turn this idea into something others could use, too.
I sincerely hope you love these HeirLine Tickets as much as I do. We would be honored to play a small role in your exciting news. Happy travels!