Find Your Next Journey With Us!
We built this site for the vacation-loving adventure seekers that would never let a single hour of vacation time off go unused. This is our passion that we are happy to share with you. So, welcome, fellow lover of the journey. You’ve come to the right place – we’re glad you found us!
About Getting Stamped
We are here to help you plan your next trip, and we have two ways to do it. First, we have hundreds of first-hand guides and detailed itineraries published on our blog to inspire and help you plan your next adventure. Second, we are a full-service travel agency that can help you book a trip anywhere in the world.
Travel Articles & Itineraries
All you are going to find on the pages of Getting Stamped are travel guides, tips, and stories from some of the best places on earth.
Nothing but first-hand, boots on the ground (ok, well, maybe flip flops sometimes) info and guides.
We want to show you the places we have been and help you navigate a new destination, bringing you to the best sights while avoiding the pitfalls we likely fell into.
Travel Planning Services
Short on time, or feeling overwhelmed planning your next vacation? Let us help!
We combine our extensive travel experience with our travel agent resources to help find the best trip for you, from flights to hotels and even excursions.
The Best part is all of our resources and knowledge come at no cost to you!
The price you pay will be the same as if you booked yourself. In many cases, you’ll actually pay less because we have access to more deals, flights, and properties than you can find on consumer sites!
Our Goals
Here at Getting Stamped, our goal is simple: to show you the best travel destinations on the planet in a meaningful way. Our mission is to inspire you through our pretty pictures and videos, but it doesn’t stop there. We want to help you plan and make the most of each trip you take.
Why? Because life is short, and vacation is even shorter, we believe the more people travel, the more they grow, and the world will be a better place because of it. Plus, you’ll get some great selfies along the way, but seriously, it’s more about the better world stuff, less about the selfies.
About Hannah & Adam
Getting Stamped is written by real people, two people to be exact, Hannah & Adam. This is not some big publishing company spewing words onto the interwebs. This is personal, not in an awkward way, but hopefully in a ‘hey, that’s pretty awesome’ kinda way.
Our website started out as just the two of us writing about our travels as a couple and tons of travel guides and tips. Well, we have expanded, and now we also write about family travel, traveling with kids, and review posts too.
Our son Atlas was born in late 2019, right before the pandemic and borders closed. We were able to squeeze one international trip with him in at three months old before we were forced home to wait out covid.
Our daughter Isla came into the world in the summer of 2021. Yep, our two kids are 20 months apart. We sure do have our hands full, but we wouldn’t have it any other way!
We now are traveling the world as a family of four, with WAY more luggage than we used to. But we are having the best time of our lives and making tons of memories along the way.
How did this all start? When was Getting Stamped born?
This site and our crazy life of travel started in late 2011 because of a chance conversation with total strangers. We both had been working our careers for nearly a decade, and the ripe ole’ age of 30 was rapidly approaching.
A series of events lead us to question, “Is this all there is to life?”. We had a nice house, good jobs, you know, living the American Dream – but something was missing. Maybe you can relate.
Back to that life-changing conversation with those random people… Have you ever had one of those moments that very clearly defines your life? A moment that you know you’ll never be the same again – ever!
We had one of those moments on a small boat in Central America. We were on a bumpy boat ride heading to an island off the coast of Belize during one of the week-long trips we took each year.
We started talking with the couple next to us, not knowing the words we exchanged would alter the entire path of our lives. Over the course of the 45-minute ride, they told us they had just sold everything they owned and were traveling the world for the next year or so. To which we responded, “but you can’t do that!?!” (actually, it turns out you can – and we did).
After returning home from that trip, we found many inspiring travel blogs, which led us to create our website to inform and inspire the next generation of travelers. Getting Stamped was first a place for us to document our journey around the world.
We bought one-way tickets to Belize, leaving on June 29, 2013, the place where this idea all started, for what was to be a one-year trip. Our Round the World Trip (RTW trip) went from one year and turned to two years, then turned into over ten years now. Travel has completely changed the way we live our lives. Now Getting Stamped is a place for journeys big, small, and everything in between.
Maybe we can be those random people for you, and we hope we are. However, if that’s not what you came here for, there is nothing wrong with that. No matter what you came here for, let us help you plan the trip of a lifetime together.
Things you might want to know – Getting Stamped FAQ
What’s your favorite country?
While we generally despise this question, since you asked nicely, the places we would never hesitate to buy a plane ticket to are the Philippines, Namibia, or the Maldives. Every place holds special memories for us, and it’s just too hard to pick a favorite.
Cities are easier to pick favorites – we’ll always love Prague and Budapest in Europe, Bangkok is a love-it-or-hate-it place, and we love it. Surprisingly, our hometown of Milwaukee is actually pretty cool!
How many countries have you been to?
Some people think counting countries is arrogant and douchey – well, we think the same of them. We’ve been to around 80 countries, and while we haven’t gotten around to writing about them all, you can find stories and information on most of them here on our destinations page.
We made this site for those people who truly believe in Susan Sontag’s timeless travel quote, “I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my list.”
What’s the craziest trip you’ve ever been on?
Camping in Africa while driving from Nairobi to Cape Town was pretty crazy, in the best ways possible, of course. We’ve spent a total of 100+ nights camping in 11 countries in Africa, and it’s something we recommend to everyone looking for a truly amazing trip. Read more about this trip here.
Another crazy trip was when we drove our homemade campervan from Wisconsin to Alaska. Our daily driver is a 2006 Honda minivan (jealous, I know) that we ripped out all of the seats and made into a camper. In the summer of 2017, we drove to Alaska in it. Read more about that here. In 2015, we took our van on a 3-month road trip in the US and Canada.
We also hiked three days through remote villages in Guatemala – more on that here.
Dove with Great White Sharks in South Africa – read more
And even got tattooed by a monk in Thailand – read more
How do you guys afford to travel so much?
The simple answer is because of this website. However, the full story is much more complicated than just owning a website. This website is our job. We spend way more than 40 hours a week times two people, plus we contract help to keep all of the internet wheels spinning.
Sometimes, destinations or travel brands send us places so that we can experience them and share them with you. Sometimes, we go places paying full price just so we can go, and we will write about them for our website or other publications, which generates money keeping us traveling.
You may also see some adverts here and there, but we hope you see that as a minimal price to pay for literally thousands of pages of free content and guides. Well, ‘cause plane tickets aren’t free, and contrary to popular belief, we do still pay for a bunch of our own travels.
How do I do what you guys do?
Most people think we have the best job on the planet, and they are probably right. However, there is a lot of work and even more coffee that goes into the backend of keeping this site and our social media running with high-quality content.
Most travel bloggers will sugarcoat it while trying to sell you a course on how to be a blogger. The reality is there is a lot of work that goes into this before you will ever see a dime.
It takes, on average, about two years of blogging nearly full-time to start making enough money to even think about paying your rent from it. We say start doing it because you love doing it, not for the money.
If you put the money first, you’re probably better off working a second job to travel more. The reality is we started ten years ago, and since then, there have been literally hundreds of thousands of travel blogs that have started.
We’re not trying to discourage you from starting your own blog. We’re just being brutally honest with you rather than lying to you just to make a few bucks off your attempt at travel blogging, and we hope you can respect that. It’s not impossible, but just know it’s not all sexy Instagram photos and coconuts on the beach!
Where Do You Live?
We spent four years living out of our suitcases as we traveled the world, but in the summer of 2017, we decided to get a home base back in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Alright, that’s enough about us.
Now it’s time to start planning your next adventure. In case you are looking for some inspiration.
Do you need a beach vacation?
Set your beach towel down in Belize, Playa Del Carmen & Tulum Mexico, Thailand, The Philippines, Maldives, or Aruba.
Looking for some culture?
It’s customary to check out Thailand, Morocco, Guatemala, Cambodia, Vietnam, or India.
Need some adventure in your life?
Get your adrenaline pumping in New Zealand, Namibia, or even an Overland Safari.
Nature and Wildlife?
Go wild in Canada, Tanzania, or the Galapagos.
Honeymooning soon?
Put these on your list: Thailand, Aruba, Maldives, and Costa Rica.
Eric Stellmacher
Monday 26th of February 2024
Great travel blog article on the Falklands! I was fortunate enough to visit Port Stanley a few years back but only for one day… certainly not enough time but we squeezed a lot of wildlife viewing, history and local ambiance into a 12 hour period. Of the four cruises with that our cruise line sailed that season only one was able to launch tenders to the island. We were that cruise. So fortunate! I’d love to go back and spend several weeks there as you did. In just a little over a year I’ll be selling my home in Montana and all my belongings to start the next chapter of my life: living aboard a 40 ft sail cat in the Caribbean. Thanks for the great blog site and best wishes to your family and continue to have happy, safe travels! Eric
Janie & Brian
Saturday 3rd of December 2022
We've bought a 2005 Mazda MPV in New Zealand that we're converting into a self-contained campervan. Do you have step-by-step information (or video not in fast motion) on how exactly you built the bedframe in this post? https://www.gettingstamped.com/diy-minivan-camper-campervan-conversion/ Really appreciate any details you can send our way! Thanks!!
Adam
Sunday 11th of December 2022
Our van floor was all different heights under the bed area so I started by making supports across the van at all different height to get the platform to a level surface. Next I built supports down the center from front to back to connect the other supports. Then supports at the sliding doors again connecting the across-van supports. We just just 2x4"'s and 2x2", probably more 2x2" to leave more room for storage. Then set a sheet of plywood on top cut to fit tightly around the contours of our van, ake sure these are tight so when you drop stuff it dosen't go all the way down. we left 7" of space under the frame to fit platic bins that just slid in. We should have went higher for more storage we realized, but it worked. I think on my next build I will use some drawer sliders for better access to storage. For sure I am going to do that in the kitchen and have the whole kitchen (already setup) pull out with a long slider like this one https://amzn.to/3FS74dr.
I hope some of that helped, we should write some more detail about our design at some point. Good luck with the build, and have a great adventure!
Maharanie Singh
Thursday 7th of October 2021
Hi! Thank you for all of the useful information. I would like to visit Playa del Carmen in January, but I read that the beaches have a lot of seaweed. Is this true of all the beaches? Any help would be appreciated!
Hannah Lukaszewicz
Monday 11th of October 2021
The seaweed in Playa del Carmen is such a wild card and comes and goes so quickly. In the past few years, the seaweed becomes more of an issue starting in March but again that could change.
Jolene Terrones
Saturday 21st of December 2019
Hello! I am also from Milwaukee (south side)! We are leaving for Holbox, Mexico in a few days and really appreciate the recommendations. One thing I can't seem to find is advice about ensuring we have filtered water on the island. I have read that they have basically banned single use plastic. Are there other options or would you recommend we try to bring some sort of purifying system? Thanks again for the tips :)
Adam
Sunday 5th of April 2020
Hi Jolene,
We hope you made it and had a great trip to Holbox! Sorry, we didn't catch this question in time with all of this craziness going on these past few months, good to hear from another Milwaukeean! What did you think of Holbox?
Charlie A Macaranas
Tuesday 28th of August 2018
This is so inspiring. :)
Hannah Lukaszewicz
Monday 3rd of September 2018
We love to hear that!