Why We Started S&G Travel Adventures (And Why Our Kids Are the Whole Point)

What started with one little girl's first big adventure to Universal Orlando became something much bigger: a family built around experiencing the world together while our kids are still little enough to see magic everywhere.

Every Butterbeer Selene drank was finished with:

"I think Buddy would love this in his milk bottle!"

Every character meet-and-greet was followed by:

"Buddy would really love a hug from..."

Insert literally any amazing Universal character here.

And after approximately the forty-seventh trip down the pool slide at our Universal hotel:

"Buddy would love this water slide!"

That one might have been a stretch.

Buddy, better known as her little brother Gryffin, wasn't even one year old yet.

But the sentiment hit the mark.

Selene was having the time of her life.

And she couldn't stop thinking about how much better it would be if her little brother were there experiencing it with her.

We didn't realize it yet, but she was planting the seed for what would eventually become S&G Travel Adventures.

The Trip That Started Everything

In April 2022, we decided Universal Orlando was the perfect place for Selene's first big adventure.

We knew approximately nothing about traveling with children.

So we left her baby brother home in the loving hands of a trusted family member, hopped on a plane for Florida, and figured we'd learn as we went.

What we didn't expect was the Wizarding World-style spell that trip would cast over our entire family.

We spent the rest of the vacation having an incredible time with Selene while simultaneously taking mental notes.

Could we do this with both kids?

What would we need to bring?

How would we handle a baby?

Could we make the logistics work?

Could we make the finances work?

By the end of the trip, Mom and Dad had reached the same conclusion Selene apparently arrived at on Day One:

Our whole family needed to come back together.

And next time, Buddy was coming too.

And Then There Were S & G

So who exactly are S&G?

The S is our little red-headed angel, Selene.

The G is our amazing monster-ball of energy, Gryffin.

And those two deserve all the credit for this ridiculous, wonderful ride of a life we've found ourselves on since they were born.

Mom and Dad, Elisha and Cam, are mostly along for the ride.

We wanted to carve out a little corner of the infinitely-sized digital world to act as a scrapbook for their adventures.

A place to preserve the trips.

The funny moments.

The unexpected ones.

The things they noticed that we didn't.

The places we explored together.

The memories that felt enormous while they were happening and will probably feel even bigger when we look back on them years from now.

But somewhere along the way, we realized S&G could become something more than our family's digital scrapbook.

We Wanted the Kind of Family Travel Resource We Were Looking For

When we first started researching family travel, we found endless videos, websites, guides, reviews and highlight reels.

There was plenty of information.

But we kept looking for something more specific:

What is this actually like with kids?

Not theoretically.

Not what the brochure says.

Not simply whether an attraction technically allows children.

What happens when you bring a real five-year-old?

What does a kid actually enjoy on a cruise ship?

What happens when everyone is tired?

Is that attraction worth an hour in line with little legs?

What should we pack?

What wasn't worth bringing?

What happens when the carefully constructed adult plan gets absolutely obliterated because a child discovers something far more interesting?

That's the perspective we wanted.

So we decided to start documenting our own.

💡 THE S&G DIFFERENCE: Our kids aren't the supporting cast of our travels. They're the whole show. Every destination we choose, every tip we share and every story we tell starts with one question: What is this actually like for a real family with real kids?

Not a highlight reel.

Real life.

So with the little insight we had...

Okay, zero insight...

we jumped in.

Small Feet first.

And we've been learning through Big Adventures ever since.

The Kids Aren't Coming Along. We're Experiencing It Together.

This has become one of the most important pieces of S&G.

We don't want to simply bring our children along while Mom and Dad experience the world.

We want to experience it with them.

There's a difference.

Adults have spent years learning what we're supposed to find exciting.

Kids haven't.

A cardboard shipping box can become twenty different things before an adult gets around to recycling it.

A gentle theme park ride an adult might dismiss can become the ride a five-year-old wants to experience over and over and over again.

A bug on a sidewalk can temporarily become more important than the multimillion-dollar attraction twenty feet away.

Kids see the world differently because so much of it is still new.

Travel gives us an opportunity to step into that perspective with them.

Not forever.

Just for this tiny window when they'll let us.

We Built Travel Into Our Family Life

Every adventure we've shared through S&G has been self-funded.

Travel isn't something that magically appeared because we found some secret loophole.

We've deliberately built our day-to-day life around prioritizing experiences for our family.

We work.

The kids go to school.

There are bills, chores, schedules, responsibilities and all the normal ingredients of family life.

But when we're deciding what we want our time and money to accomplish, creating experiences with our kids sits very high on the list.

Because they're only this age once.

Over the last several years, we've settled into a rhythm of trying to venture somewhere roughly once every three months.

Sometimes the adventure is big.

Sometimes it's close to home.

The important part isn't collecting destinations.

It's creating opportunities to be together somewhere outside the ordinary rhythm of everyday life.

From Universal Orlando to the Open Ocean

Since that first trip with Selene, the adventures have gotten considerably bigger.

We've sailed aboard the Disney Wish.

We've explored Utopia of the Seas with Royal Caribbean.

Mom and Dad's experience sailing Alaska gave us one of the destinations we most wanted to eventually experience with the kids, and our family Alaska cruise is now waiting for us in 2027.

And then there's Universal Orlando.

Our home away from home.

Universal checks practically every box for our family and has become the cornerstone of so many of our favorite adventures.

It's where this whole thing started.

It's where our kids have grown more confident.

It's where we've learned an absurd amount about traveling with children.

And it's a place we expect will remain part of our family story for many years to come.

But as Selene and Gryffin have gotten older, something incredible has started happening.

They're realizing just how big the rest of the world is.

And they're making their own list.

Most notably:

Japan.

They discovered there was a Universal Studios park in Japan and apparently decided California wasn't ambitious enough.

Why cross the country when you can cross the Pacific?

Fair point.

Japan, here we come.

Eventually.

The Small Feet Perspective

S&G started because a little girl couldn't stop thinking about her baby brother while experiencing her own first big adventure.

That's still one of our favorite parts of the entire story.

Selene didn't come home talking about how much the trip cost.

She didn't care about our flight schedule.

She wasn't evaluating hotel value or transportation logistics.

She remembered Butterbeer.

Characters.

Pool slides.

Magic.

And through all of it, she kept thinking:

Buddy would love this.

That's what children do so beautifully.

They strip an experience down to the part that actually mattered.

How it felt.

Who was there.

Who they wished could have been there.

And whether they wanted to do it again.

Maybe that's part of why we've continued traveling so much since then.

Our kids keep reminding us what the whole thing is actually for.

If You're Nervous About Traveling With Kids, We Get It

Maybe you found S&G because you want to travel with your little ones but haven't quite taken the leap.

Maybe you're imagining TSA with a stroller, backpacks and children moving in seventeen different directions.

Maybe a car ride longer than twenty minutes currently sounds like an extreme endurance sport.

Maybe you don't know where to start.

We understand.

We had those same thoughts.

And we'll never tell you traveling with children is completely stress-free.

It isn't.

There will be tired kids.

There will be changed plans.

Something will inevitably be forgotten.

Someone will probably need a bathroom at the exact moment when finding one is least convenient.

That's family travel.

But those moments have become tiny footnotes in much bigger stories for us.

The memories have always been worth the hiccups.

That's why we're building S&G Travel Adventures.

We'll share what worked.

We'll tell you what didn't.

We'll show you the incredible moments and talk about the bumpy ones.

We'll share the tips we've learned through airports, cruise ships, theme parks, road trips and wherever our little adventurers pull us next.

Not because we've figured everything out.

But because we're still figuring it out too.

Take the First Step

Our children are only little for so long.

Eventually they'll grow up, build lives of their own and start having adventures that don't require Mom and Dad to pack the suitcases.

But today?

We get to come along.

So take the first step.

It doesn't have to be Japan.

It doesn't have to be a cruise.

It doesn't even have to involve an airplane.

Start somewhere.

Go somewhere new together.

Let the plan change.

Let them notice the weird bug.

Ride their favorite ride one more time.

See what happens when you stop bringing the kids along for your adventures and start experiencing the world alongside them.

That's what we're trying to do.

That's why S&G exists.

And we have no idea exactly where these two little humans are going to take us next.

Small Feet. Big Adventures.