Welcome to Our Changing Lives!

We are Jeff and Crystal, a Baby Boomer couple who love exploring this big blue marble we all call home. After spending the first portion of our lives raising a family, the empty-nest syndrome finally caught up with us. This change has allowed us to spend more time traveling and seeking out new destinations. We developed this website to show how we “Visit Like A Local”.  Our itineraries are designed to get us off the interstates, and into the heart of the places we visit. We believe this will allow our readers to choose a cultural experience, and eventually head home with a real flavor of the places they visit. If you read about a place on our blog, then we actually visited it. Our goal is to give you a feel for each stop along the way. Hopefully, you’ll find some subjects intriguing and go check them out in person.

Meet Jeff:

The author uses various techniques, while capturing history for an article.

Jeff is the founder of Our Changing Lives. He is responsible for the photography and behind-the-scenes work. It is his voice that is heard in most of the articles, and at times he will even inject a little humor into his writings. He takes his research seriously and loves trivia. This is often apparent in the details that he adds to articles.

The sugar pillows of delight are the mainstay of the menu at Mo'Bay Beignets Co.
Staff members take a break from the daily chores to sit and talk with each other.

The miniaturized photography technique, we use at times, is designed to force us to look at life differently. The blurred edges remind us of the mysteries we discover, when we go exploring. Our goal is to inspire you to seek out these wonders on your own and watch the world come into focus.

Meet Crystal:

Crystal is our forward presence. Social media is her domain, and she loves to interact with our readers. She doesn’t take herself too seriously, which helps her make friends easily. Her infectious smile helps us get insider information from the locals. If you’ve kept up with her, you know she also has an uncanny ability to attract animals.

Crystal also serves as our librarian. During research visits, she is responsible to gather details from the people we meet, which we use to build our articles. Without her note-taking, we would certainly forget some important detail from our various visits. Crystal’s patience is amazing, especially when it requires waiting to eat until after photos of the food have been taken.

Wonder Twin powers activate:

Jeff and Crystal share many overlapping duties, which include picking new destinations and developing itineraries. Before launching this new endeavor, they agreed upon a planned path of exploration, which radiates out from their home base of Kansas City. This methodical approach has allowed them to build a travel resource for their readers, which is one of the fastest-growing North American travel blogs. Their destinations are concentrated in North America and offer many great family-friendly vacation ideas. You will find a heavy concentration of the Central U.S., since they believe this region is often overlooked for its vacation potential.

Work With Us!

We enjoy visiting new destinations, near and far. If you’d like to work with us, check out more details about our approach through this link.

Our Aim!

Explore New Sights!

A table filled with delectable dishes is served up at Eat At Syrup, in St. Charles, Illinois.
The food at B&C Seafood Restaurant represents the tastes of the land and sea.

Find New Tastes!

You may have noticed the lack of pop-ups and advertisements on our website. We have chosen to keep an uncluttered look and feel to our pages. To accomplish this, we are primarily self-funded, but may be hosted by the places we visit. While this allows us to expand our trips each year, we do not let it alter our voice. The goal of our articles are to show you a variety of options from each destination. This will help you develop your unique trip itinerary, which hopefully will include some locally-owned stops.

So far, we have visited over half of the states and we have a goal of seeing all fifty. We have also visited six foreign countries in North America. We always travel together and our skills, when combined, make us the perfect travel blogging team. We appreciate you taking the time to visit our website, and hopefully, you will bookmark it for easy reference. Each year we try to add around a dozen new cities to our growing library of vacation destinations. With so many options to choose from, why not start planning your next trip right now?

the authors signatures.