Chris + Melissa = A midlife couple on the move
We met and married in midlife. A few years later, our suburban home felt empty. What to do? Since we both love travel, food, and creating content, we decided to start Chris + Melissa — a YouTube Channel dedicated to leisure-testing in a variety of destinations.
We started our travel channel a month before the pandemic hit, so we spent a few months doing at-home and close-to-home adventures in Minnesota. Then, we came up with the wild plan to move to Vancouver, British Columbia so Melissa could go to film school and so we would have a new area to explore for our channel. After school wrapped, we sold our Minnesota home and spent the next 12 months living in 12 different cities.
After we finished that journey at the end of June 2022, we decided to cross the pond and explore Europe. Before 2022 came to a close, we spent three months living in Ireland, traveled to England, France, and Iceland, and moved to Portugal — where we lived for a year and a half. Now, we’re back home in Minnesota.
Why embark on such a journey? We have a few reasons:
- To do in depth leisure testing in a variety of locations, so we can help you spend your leisure time well. After all, leisure time is limited.
- To see if we prefer having a home base, or not.
- To overcome that “grass is always greener on the other side” mentality. If we spend a month or more living in enough locations, we thought we might uncover where and how we want to live. We’re closer to sorting that out than we were before our nomadic adventure.
Meet Melissa
First and foremost, Melissa is on a mission to help you travel like you dream it—especially if stories inspire your travel dreams. Why? Well, this bit about her might explain it well:
I love literature, theater, and films. When I’m not traveling, I can be found at a bookstore, theater, or fabulous restaurant, dishing about what I’ve recently read or watched.
Professionally, I’ve written for newspapers, magazines, literary journals, and small businesses. So far, my coolest writing gig has been a piece about Finland for Travel + Leisure: I Traveled to Finland to Take Its Masterclass in Happiness — Here Are the 8 Most Important Lessons I Learned.
The last time I graced a stage was when I was 36 (over a decade ago). I played Fraulein Kost and Frenchie in Cabaret at the Rochester Civic Theatre (a community theater). Olivia in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night was my most challenging and only professional (very small-time professional) stage role. Now, I much prefer sitting in the audience.
My life roles include wife, mom, stepmom, and grandma. Although, my wise husband, children, stepchildren, and grandchildren call me Glamma.
Whether it’s with the information we provide here or through my travel agency, Travel Like You Dream It, I look forward to helping you achieve your travel dreams.
Meet Chris
Chris runs his own IT / software racket by day and is a content creator the rest of the time. He’s created a comic strip, a satirical publication, and has written a few screenplays that he hopes to work on further someday. He’s also dreamed up umpteen different business ideas and has written a lot of business plans to go with them that now rest in his idea junkyard. He is the father to six children, a step-father to two more, and he’s a grandfather! Chris dreams of being exceptionally fit some day, but he enjoys tacos and donuts a bit too much for that.