The origin story of a comfort-first wife, a reasonably adventurous husband, and a baby who is already more outdoorsy than either of us expected.
Here is something I need you to know about me before we go any further.
I am not an outdoorsy person. I never have been. I am the person who, on a camping trip, is already mentally calculating how soon she can reasonably suggest checking into a hotel. I am cautious. I prefer comfort. I once spent forty-five minutes researching whether a particular state park had cell service before agreeing to visit it.
My husband Jose is not like this at all.
Jose is the kind of person who actually enjoys hiking. Not in a “it’s good exercise” way — in a genuine, lights-up-his-face, already-researching-the-next-trail kind of way. He’s adventurous. Reasonable about it, thankfully — he’s not dragging me up anything with a rope and a prayer — but enthusiastic in a way that has, over the years, gotten us into some genuinely beautiful situations I never would have found on my own.
For a long time, our travel life was a negotiation. He’d find the adventure. I’d find the nearest place to sleep that had actual pillows. It worked. Mostly.
Then we had AJ, and the whole system needed to be rebuilt from scratch.
“I didn’t become an outdoorsy person. I became a person who figured out how to do outdoor adventures in a way that actually works for our family — and those are very different things.”
Jose loves being outside. I love the idea of being outside. These are not the same thing, but we’ve learned to work with it.
When we go somewhere with a trail, Jose is already mapping the route the night before. I am asking questions like: “Is there shade?” “How long is it, really, not the website version?” “What is the nearest coffee situation at the end?” These are legitimate travel questions and I will not be made to feel bad about them.
What makes our dynamic actually work is that Jose is genuinely reasonable. He’s not trying to turn every trip into a survival situation. He wants the adventure, the views, the experience of being somewhere wild and real. He just also wants to share it — with me, now with AJ — and that means being willing to plan around what actually makes it enjoyable for everyone.
Which brings us to the part where AJ arrived and immediately became the most compelling argument for planning trips properly that either of us had ever encountered.
The Dynamic, For Context
Our kid is fearless. I say this with complete awe and a small amount of concern for the future.
AJ loves being outside. Loves it. We’re talking about a baby who reaches toward every leaf, who calms down immediately when taken into fresh air, who has absolutely no fear of grass, dirt, rocks, or anything else the ground has to offer. He has tried to eat dirt on multiple occasions. Not accidentally — deliberately, with curiosity, like he’s conducting a taste test.
I did not raise this child to be like this. I genuinely do not know where it came from. (Jose finds this hilarious. I am choosing not to give him the satisfaction of admitting it’s a little bit funny.)
“AJ is a fearless adventure baby who will try to eat anything nature puts in front of him. I respect his commitment, even when I have to redirect it.”
But here’s what AJ’s arrival actually changed about how we travel: everything now has to be planned around making the trip easier, not harder.
Before AJ, the only thing Jose and I had to manage was each other’s preferences — and we’d gotten pretty good at that. With AJ in the picture, the whole equation shifts. Nap schedules. Feeding logistics. What happens when a baby has a blowout forty minutes into a four-hour drive. Where you sleep matters differently when a baby needs to actually sleep there. How far a trail is matters differently when one of you is carrying a small human who may or may not cooperate.
The goal stopped being “the most adventurous trip” and became “the trip we can actually pull off without everyone melting down.” Including me. I’m allowed to be in that category.
The Night I Found the Answer
It was late. AJ was finally asleep. I was doing what I always do when I’m trying to solve a problem, which is type increasingly specific questions into Google until something useful comes up.
“Family glamping near national park.” Enter.
The results were — and I say this without exaggeration — life-changing.
Real beds. Climate control. Bathrooms you actually want to use. Some of them had restaurants. Some had soaking tubs. All of them were positioned near the exact kind of wild, beautiful, genuinely incredible natural spaces that Jose had been trying to take me to for years.
Nature, but with the hassle taken out.
That’s the version of outdoor travel that works for us. Not because we need it to be fancy — though I do enjoy a nice tent amenity, I won’t lie — but because the fewer logistical friction points between us and the trail, the more energy everyone has for the actual experience. AJ sleeps better. Jose gets his adventure. I get a comfortable base of operations. We all win.
It sounds obvious when I write it out. But nobody was writing about it from this angle: the family that wants real adventures, not just sanitized “family vacation” experiences, but also needs the planning to be manageable and the sleeping situation to be something a baby will tolerate.
So I decided to write it myself.
What This Blog Is, and Who It’s For
Jose & Olivia on the Road is an outdoor and adventure family travel blog built around one central idea: you don’t have to be an outdoorsy person to have outdoor adventures. You just have to be strategic about it.
It’s for the parent who wants to take their baby or toddler somewhere genuinely beautiful but needs the logistics to actually work. It’s for the person who prefers comfort but doesn’t want that preference to mean they miss out on incredible places. It’s for anyone who has typed “glamping near [national park]” into a search bar and wanted a real, honest, this-is-what-it’s-actually-like-with-a-kid answer.
Here’s what you’ll find here:
- Honest destination guides — which trails work with a stroller or carrier, where to stay that won’t make the trip harder than it needs to be, what AJ actually did there and whether it was worth it
- Gear and packing guides — the stuff that actually makes outdoor travel with a toddler less of a production, from hiking carriers to glamping packing lists to road trip essentials
- Glamping and accommodation reviews — real assessments of whether a place is worth it for families with small kids, not just “it was beautiful” but “here’s whether your baby will sleep and what the bathroom situation is”
- Planning guides — because outdoor adventures with a toddler require a genuinely different level of planning, and I’ve done the research so you can start from somewhere useful
I write everything from the honest perspective of someone who is figuring this out as she goes, who values comfort without apology, and who has a husband and a kid who are both more naturally adventurous than she is and somehow still have a great time.
“The goal isn’t the most extreme adventure. It’s the trip you can actually pull off — and still want to do again.”
One More Thing
If any part of this resonated — if you recognized yourself in the cautious one, or in the person trying to figure out how to make outdoor adventures actually work with a little kid along — you’re in the right place.
I’m going to keep sharing what’s working and what isn’t. The glamping spots worth booking. The gear that held up. The National Parks that were genuinely manageable with AJ and the ones that required more planning than we expected. The moments that made all of it worth it.
AJ is going to grow up doing this. He’s going to hike trails and sleep under stars and probably eat a little bit of dirt along the way, because that appears to be non-negotiable for him at this stage.
I’m going to make sure we do it in a way that’s actually enjoyable for all three of us. That’s the whole project.
Welcome to the road.
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