Tom and Kristi Manus are freelance travel writers who find the next road trip irresistible, whether in the United States or elsewhere in the world. They are passionate about exploring culture, history, and nature by road trips on backroads and two-lane highways. Their favorite roads are off the beaten path, and they enjoy sharing these experiences, hopefully inspiring others to go out and see what’s around the next corner. They want everyone to see how easy it is to find beautiful locations and fun things to do in and around small towns.
Tom and Kristi believe spontaneous travel without agendas leads to extraordinary experiences. For example, a peaceful picnic lunch alone with a grazing elk herd in -18° temperatures inside Glacier National Park, discovering a path only known to locals resulting in an experience alone on an Iceland glacier, and arriving as the season’s first hikers to a lake below Maine’s Mt Katahdin, then watching scores of moose meander to the lake. Along with international travel, Tom and Kristi have visited 48 states, with only Hawaii and the elusive Rhode Island remaining.
They recently moved back to their home state of Wisconsin after more than twenty years of living in different regions across the United States. Tom and Kristi are the authors of Secret Wisconsin by Reedy Press, published in 2023. They are members of the International Food, Wine & Travel Writers Association (IFWTWA), the Midwest Travel Network, and TravMedia. Along with Small Town Plus Size and various publications, they write for Travel Awaits, Food Wine Travel Magazine, and Wander With Wonder.
“Two roads diverged in a wood and I – I took the one less traveled by” – Robert Frost
“A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to it’s old dimensions” – Oliver Wendell Holmes
“The life you have led doesn’t need to be the only life you have” – Anna Quindlen
“Our happiest moments as tourists always seem to come when we stumble upon one thing while in pursuit of something else” – Lawrence Block
“Not all of those who wander are lost” J.R.R. Tolkien
“You don’t have to be rich to travel well” – Eugene Fodor
“One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things” – Henry Miller
“Once in a while it really hits people that they don’t have to experience the world in the way they have been told to” – Alan Keightley
“Travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living.” – Miriam Beard
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