Oh hey there! We just launched our website this weekend and this is our very first blog post! We are going to make it a goal to do blog updates on the second Sunday of each month. We do have a busy couple of months ahead of us, which you will read more about below, so if we are ever late on our posts you can blame our travel agent, Shane. We just purchased a new video/action camera so we will start taking some video content to share with all of you! None of that fancy ass drone shit @thehikinghusbands — just some down home late 90s dad-on-family-vacation VHS realness.

WARNING: We have absolutely ZERO experience with blogging or vlogging, so this whole thing could very easily crash and burn. Cheers to new adventures and exciting new challenges!

WE’RE PACKING…OUR BAGS

We have a ton of travel coming up this year! With Shane finishing business school in May, this is our last summer to whoop it up before real life begins this fall. We wanted to get the word out so you can send over your recommendations for the trips we are taking. Below we’ll give you the general plan for the spring/summer months and please comment below if you have any recommendations of things to do in the cities/countries we will be visiting. We are so excited to blog because it will give us a more casual outlet to share and connect with all of you! Oh and we can share all of our ugly photos that will never make it to instagram.

HIKING

Next week we are heading to The Grand Canyon and Zion National Park. We rented a big old farmhouse on AirBnb (with a hot tub!) and are going to be spending the week with six of our friends hiking and exploring. If you have any day hikes in the Grand Canyon or near/within Zion National Park that you think are a must, please add them in a comment below.

FAMILY

In April, we will be traveling to Arizona to spend Easter with Shane’s family. His parents have a place in Scottsdale where they spend their winters and we always try to make it down for Easter. We can’t wait for warm sunshine and LOTS of pool time. Taylor will be extending his stay to hang out with Shane’s family. Arizona has so many great day hikes and we are going to use this opportunity to work out and get in shape for the honeymoon!

PARTY

In May, we are heading to Puerto Rico with a bunch of Shane’s friends from business school. We will be staying in another big AirBnb with friends. This trip will probably be pretty party heavy, as it is a school trip, so we’ll be sure to bring you guys along for all of the crazy!

HONEYMOON

In June, we embark on our month-long European honeymoon. We will land in Berlin and spend four days exploring the city. From Berlin we will take the train to Prague for another five days. From Prague we will travel by train to Vienna for a quick two-day stay. From Vienna we will take another train to Ljubljana where we will rent a car and spend a week exploring and hiking our way through the mountains of Slovenia. We will then get in the car and drive south to Croatia where we will board a seven-day Dalmatian Coast cruise from Split to Dubrovnik. We will then fly from Dubrovnik back to Berlin and then home!

DENVER

A close friend of ours is getting married in Denver the last weekend of June, so the day after we return home from the honeymoon we are repacking our bags and flying to Denver to celebrate with them! We have a lot of friends/family that live in Denver so we are very excited to spend a couple of extra days there to reconnect with friends we haven’t seen in a while.

BARLEY

We know what some of you are probably thinking…Where is Barley going to be all of this time? Well, the reason we got the Wirehaired Pointing Griffon breed is because Shane loves to go grouse hunting with his dad in the fall. Wirehaired Pointing Griffons are known to be excellent bird hunters. While their breeding does give them some natural instincts, all bird dogs need to be properly trained by a professional gun dog trainer. Barley will be going to a six-week training program with Willow Creek Kennels in northern Minnesota. She will be at Barley Boarding School from the end of May through the beginning of July. During this time she will learn how to point and retrieve, as well as basic obedience training. We are just hoping she remembers us when we pick her up. Alright, we’re starting to tear up thinking about leaving her so we’re going to wrap this up.

THANK YOU

If you are new to @barleysboys or have been with us since the beginning, we just want to say thank you again. The love and support we have received in our first three months on Instagram is truly incredible. We have over 4000 amazing followers and we appreciate each and every one of you. If you have any ideas for future blog posts that you want us to write about, leave a comment below and we will do our best to write about as many of them as possible.

Shane + Taylor

HELLO