Who We Are


Hello, Hola, guten tag, bonjour and buon giorno!  Our names are Mayne and Elisa Thiele; we’re married and we have passports!  We love to travel – whether it’s right here in the good ‘ol USofA, or some far-flung country!!

Us at navy pier - great view of the city!  Only took us about 30 tries to get this picture right (I have a big head and I can only stretch my arm out so far for a selfie to include Elisa and a whole skyline).

A Little About Us

Mayne has a background in accounting and finance and Elisa is a pharmacist.  Our family includes two furry adopted children – Nick and Nora – brother and sister dachshund/terrier mixes that keep us constantly entertained.  We currently are paying the bank back for a 1950’s ranch house in Nashville, TN that Mayne purchased from the original owners.  We love relaxing on our backyard deck, working in the garden, and taking longs walks and jogs with the puppies through our tree-filled neighborhood.

How It All Started

Wanderlust for both of us started in childhood with long road-trips through the states, and then grew in college as we gained our own wings and caught the international travel bug from multiple study abroad experiences.  While Elisa was galavanting around India, Turkey, Australia, etc., Mayne was backpacking around Europe, stopping to study in Spain and Italy and then a summer in China.  Our paths finally crossed in 2010 when Elisa was dragged to Mayne’s house in Nashville for a Cinco de Mayo party.  We quickly realized how well our lives meshed.  Since travel was so important to each of us, we spent a month traveling Southeast Asia, living out of two small backpacks, before we decided we were ready to get engaged (unlike most women, Elisa carried a teeny backpack which made a huge impression on Mayne!)

nick and nora (1 of 1)

Why We Travel

We love to experience new cultures, exotic foods and customs, and the glory of all creation!  We are Christians in faith and try to live our lives in humility, seeing the world as through the wonder-filled eyes of children.  It seems too easy and boring to go through life without testing our comfort zone and growing through new experiences, so we reject that lifestyle and substitute our own 🙂

We feel humbled and blessed to be able to travel, especially to be able to walk the world hand in hand with each other.  We want to share the gift of travel with our readers and hope to inspire others to travel as well.

How We Travel

Our chosen lifestyle strategy is to live frugally and travel richly.  At home, we strive to live below our means, avoiding material possessions that seem to serve only to clutter our lives.   We pay ourselves first by investing in retirement and avoiding debt, and we save money by not eating out, not having cable TV, fancy cars, the latest in fashionable clothing, and some of the many other first world “afflictions”.  All that said, we aren’t afraid to spend money on meaningful experiences, and to spend money to avoid shady, unsafe places.

In the spring of 2014 we started into he hobby of collecting airline miles and credit card points, and we’re excited to share how we’ve already saved thousands of $$$ on free flights and hotels with our strategies.

 

We welcome your comments to improve our site and thanks for visiting !!

 

One Response

  1. Becky Evers
    Becky Evers at · Reply

    Hey Mayne and Elisa! Becky Evers here. We miss you! I had you two on my mind last week- prayed for you when news of that crashed plane in the Mediterranean Sea came out! Didn’t know where in the world y’all were. God does though, and I hope you sense His presence as you travel. I hope you meet some brothers and sisters in Christ in some of the places you visit. It’s nice to have family around the globe. : ) The Spot gang is growing and hey miss you. Learn to play an instrument befor you return because they are shaping up to be a pretty great worship band! : D
    The Lord bless you and keep you,
    Becky

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