Our Story: Two Small Potatoes, One Big Adventure

Travis is the cute little tyke on the right. Carrie is the one rockin’ the bowl cut on the left. Mom, what were you thinking?!

Hi! Looking for more info about us? We’re Carrie & Travis, two small potatoes from Idaho, transplanted to Switzerland as expats in search of adventure. Now “ex-potatoes” living in Germany, we write about what it’s like uprooting your life to move half way around the world.

We share lots of helpful guides for future expats looking to make the leap, but we also just love to travel in general, so you’ll find even more content about incredible places to visit in Europe and beyond.

This is our story.

We firmly believe that travel isn’t a luxury only some can afford. Travel can be possible if you love it and make it a priority.

If you don’t have a ton of money or time to spend in Tahiti or the Himalayas, explore what’s right beyond your own backyard! You’d be amazed how many times we’ve moved somewhere new or visited an attraction only to have locals tell us they’ve lived there their whole life and never visited/tried that exact place or thing we’ve come to see. 

When you adopt the attitude that you’ll go anywhere or do anything, the whole world becomes filled with travel opportunities.

Dream big, but if you can’t make those dreams happen just yet, start small.

We know it’s possible because that’s exactly what we did.

So what’s our story? Who are we?

Waaayyyy back in the day, the two of us were born at home at different cabins in the boondocks of northern Idaho less than 60 miles apart as a crow flies.

Though we wouldn’t meet for a few years yet, we’ve known each other since we were knee-high to a grasshopper. We spent the endless long hot summers swimming in the Saint Maries River and traipsing through heavenly scented pine forests.

After moving away to attend different colleges, we realized two small potatoes were better than one.

Travel, a need for adventure, and a love of the outdoors are the glue that bind us together.

Together we share a love of travel, adventure, and the outdoors.

True to our roots, we typically do it on a shoestring budget. If we won the lotto, we’d still prefer camping in the tulies in grizzly-infested woods with grizzly-sized mosquitoes to any 5-star hotel.

Sorry Paris, the Hilton’s just not for us.

Moving overseas once you’ve put down roots is insanely hard, but it can be done. You won’t regret it.

Probably.

After living for years in Washington State, several months in Alaska and Costa Rica, and then a spectacular year in the Southwest, we landed in Oregon. We spent nearly seven years glorious years there while Travis completed his PhD in cell/molecular biology.

We bought a house, put down roots, accumulated pets, and spent all our free time kayaking, camping, and exploring the outdoors from the Canadian border down through California.

If you haven’t been to Oregon and you love the outdoors, it should be on your list.

Seriously, what are you doing right now? GO to Oregon!

*sniffle*

We miss you, Oregon.

After Trav graduated in 2013, we spent three weeks traveling from Sweden to Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, and the UK. He had lined up five job interviews for post docs, one in each country.

It was a crazy whirlwind trip!

In May, he accepted a job offer at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland – land of chocolate, wine, and cheese. 

I resigned from my job of almost seven years as a social worker, we put our house up for rent with no plans to move back to Oregon, sold our cars, all of our furniture, and most of our belongings, packed up a few boxes to be shipped, said goodbye to friends and family, and crammed what we could into two suitcases and three pet crates.

Some sad times are in store for Two Small Potatoes.

Once in Switzerland, we found a beautiful home in the countryside to rent, furnished it with secondhand items, started learning French, and made some life-long friends.

Then, after less than nine months in Switzerland and just when we’d adjusted to life with the constant tinkling of cow bells, Trav’s boss informed him he couldn’t afford to pay him after all.

Suddenly we were Two ‘Unemployed’ Small Potatoes In Switzerland.

Germany comes to the rescue.

Luckily Travis found a new biology post-doc research position at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen.

With a mixture of sadness and excitement, we tearfully said goodbye to Switzerland and relocated again, this time just across the border. 

We’re again slowly adjusting to life in a new country with a new language (why couldn’t we have been living in the German-speaking part of Switzerland?!), new laws, new food, and thankfully, a budget more akin to ours in Oregon.

So that’s it in a nutshell, that’s our story.

As the dust settles on this new big change for us, we’re looking forward to returning to doing what we’ve always loved to do: road tripping, staying at unique and rustic lodging, seeking out adventure travel of any kind, exploring wilderness areas – both on foot and by kayak, and sharing our experiences to inspire others to live their own adventure.

Hopefully if you’re reading this, you’ll see that if Two Small Potatoes from a tiny logging community in North Idaho can move to Europe and travel the world, you can too!

Wondering why the name of our blog sounds more like it’s for a cooking website than a travel site?

You’re not the first.

To find out why we decided Two Small Potatoes was the perfect name for our site, check out Two Small Potatoes Genisys.