Virginia Through the Years — Why Our Family Kept Coming Back
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❤️ A Family of Four Footprint
2010–2019 • Road Trips • Theme Parks • Beaches • Mountains • History • Holiday Traditions
We didn't visit Virginia once. We returned to it through different seasons, different years, and different stages of our children's childhood.
When I started looking back through my old photos and Facebook memories, I realized just how much of our family's travel story is connected to Virginia. I found trips from 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017 and 2019—and in some years, we visited more than once.
Virginia wasn't simply another state for us to check off our list. It became one of those places we kept returning to.
There were summer days filled with roller coasters and water rides, beach days at Virginia Beach, an RV adventure to Luray Caverns, springtime in Shenandoah, history waiting around Williamsburg, and holiday trips when Busch Gardens transformed into Christmas Town.
Sometimes we traveled just as our family of four. Other times, friends and their children joined the adventure. We stayed in hotels, used our timeshare, traveled with our RV, and found different ways to make these family getaways work.
Looking back now, I realize those Virginia road trips were about much more than where we went.
They were part of our children's childhood—and part of how traveling together became a way of life for our family. ❤️👣
🎢 The Theme-Park Years
The Pass That Kept Us Traveling
When Adriel and Jael were younger, theme parks became a big part of our family adventures. For several years, we invested in a top-tier annual family pass that gave us access not only to Sesame Place in Pennsylvania, but also to participating sister parks in the same park family across Virginia and Florida.
That included places our family came to know very well—Busch Gardens Williamsburg and Water Country USA in Virginia, along with parks such as SeaWorld Orlando, Aquatica Orlando, Busch Gardens Tampa Bay, and Adventure Island in Florida.
And we certainly made good use of that pass. 😂
In Virginia, Busch Gardens Williamsburg and Water Country USA became family favorites, and we returned to them again and again over the years. The pass made it easier for us to say, “Why don't we go to Virginia this weekend?” without having to purchase four new park tickets every time.
But its value went beyond admission. Depending on the pass benefits available during those years, we also took advantage of perks and discounts that helped make frequent theme-park visits more practical for a family of four.
Looking back, that annual pass became one of our early family travel strategies. Instead of saving everything for one big vacation each year, we could take smaller trips more often.
A regular weekend might mean Sesame Place. A long weekend could take us to Virginia. And during longer school breaks—or when we wanted to escape the New Jersey winter—we sometimes headed south to Florida.
We weren't deliberately building a 50-state journey back then. We were simply finding affordable ways to travel with our children—and all those little adventures eventually became part of something much bigger. ❤️👣
🎄 Christmas Town — A Holiday Tradition
Virginia wasn't only a spring and summer destination for our family.
Our first introduction to Christmas Town at Busch Gardens Williamsburg actually came through close family friends who invited us to experience it with them. We loved it so much that it became another Virginia experience we wanted to repeat. I believe we enjoyed Christmas Town with their family twice, and over the years we returned during the Thanksgiving and Christmas season several times.
We had already experienced Busch Gardens filled with roller coasters, shows, and warm-weather adventures, but seeing the park transformed for Christmas felt completely different. The lights, decorations, holiday atmosphere, and cooler Virginia weather gave a familiar place an entirely new personality.
One visit I was able to trace through my old Facebook memories was December 2011, but that wasn't our only Christmas Town trip.
Looking back, some of our favorite family traditions weren't necessarily ones we planned from the beginning. Sometimes someone introduces you to something special, you fall in love with the experience, and before you know it, it becomes part of your own family's tradition. ❤️🎄
And Christmas Town became one of ours.
🏖️ Virginia Beach — The Beach We Kept Coming Back To
If Busch Gardens and Water Country kept bringing us back to Williamsburg, Virginia Beach gave us another reason to return to Virginia year after year.
During many of our Virginia trips, we found a way to include time at the beach. Looking through my old Facebook memories, I found photos of us swimming there in 2012 and 2013, but those certainly weren't our only visits.
By September 2013, our photos captured more than just another beach day. We explored the Virginia Beach Boardwalk, watched Adriel and Jael enjoy the activities along the waterfront, and simply spent time together by the ocean.
On at least one trip, we stayed at a Fairfield by Marriott in Virginia Beach, and another memorable visit included a beachfront hotel—there's something especially nice about waking up with the ocean right outside. 🌊
And then there was the family surrey bike. 😂🚲
Instead of everyone riding separate bicycles, we rented one of those big multi-person bikes and pedaled together along the beachfront. It was such a simple activity, but years later it's exactly the kind of memory that makes me smile.
We even spent a Fourth of July weekend at Virginia Beach during one of our visits, adding another holiday memory to all those summers and long weekends we spent exploring the state.
Virginia Beach wasn't somewhere we needed to visit once and check off our list.
It became one of those familiar places where our family simply enjoyed coming back. 🏖️👣❤️
🍗 And Somehow, There Was Usually Jollibee
One little tradition seemed to follow many of our Virginia Beach trips—a stop at Jollibee. 😋
For our Filipino family, Jollibee has always been more than just fast food. There is something wonderfully familiar about Chickenjoy, Jolly Spaghetti, and those flavors that remind us of home. Whenever there was a Jollibee somewhere along our travels, chances were pretty good we'd find our way there.
Looking back through our family photos, I realized just how often that little red bee has appeared in our story—from New Jersey and New York to Virginia, Texas, London, Hawaii, and even back home in the Philippines.
Apparently, we've been leaving Jollibee footprints around the world without even realizing it. 😂🍗👣
🚐🕳️ Our RV Adventure & Luray Caverns
By 2012, Virginia was already a familiar destination for our family. We had our favorite places we enjoyed returning to, but we also loved finding something new to experience each time.
On this particular trip, we traveled with our RV and stayed at American Heritage RV Park Campground in Williamsburg, Virginia. Along with enjoying some of our usual Virginia destinations, we decided to add something completely different to our adventure—our first visit to Luray Caverns.
Going underground and seeing the enormous chambers, stalactites, stalagmites, and incredible rock formations gave us a completely different side of Virginia from the theme parks, beaches, and other places we had grown accustomed to visiting.
Apparently, we enjoyed it enough to come back. 😄
On a later Virginia trip, we visited Luray Caverns for a second time, this time together with another family of friends.
That's something I notice again and again as I look back at our Virginia years. Even though we had places we loved returning to, we were always looking for something else to explore.
Maybe that's one reason Virginia never felt repetitive to us. There was always another road to take, another attraction to discover, and another family memory waiting to be made. ❤️👣
🌲 A Spring Break in Shenandoah
By 2017, our Virginia adventures were still going strong—but this Spring Break took us somewhere different.
We headed to Shenandoah National Park, trading roller coasters, water rides, and beaches for mountain views, winding roads, and the natural beauty of Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains.
That's one thing I appreciate even more as I look back at our travels. Whenever we visited a place, we tried not to experience just one attraction. If we had several days, we wanted to see what else that destination had to offer.
Shenandoah gave us another side of Virginia to experience together—the quieter, more scenic side that felt completely different from our familiar Williamsburg adventures.
And even after that Spring Break trip, apparently we still weren't finished with Virginia. 😂 We returned again for Memorial Day weekend that same year.
By then, Virginia wasn't really a destination we needed an excuse to visit anymore.
It had simply become one of those places our family knew how to enjoy. 🌲👣❤️
Looking back, though, those Virginia adventures were becoming part of something even bigger—another family journey we didn't quite realize we were building yet.
🏞️ One National Park at a Time
Our visit to Shenandoah National Park was also part of another journey our family has been quietly building over the years—our goal of visiting all 63 U.S. National Parks. 🌲🥾
We didn't necessarily begin with a grand plan to see them all. Like our 50-state journey, it simply grew from one family adventure to another. Somewhere along the way, we realized just how many incredible national parks we had already experienced—and another goal was born.
So far, we've visited 17 of the 63 U.S. National Parks, each one leaving a completely different footprint—from mountains and canyons to volcanoes, coastlines, deserts, and places filled with history.
And just like our 50-state journey, there are many more stories behind those park visits that haven't made it to this journal yet.
🌲 Our National Parks journey is coming to Faithful Footprints.
Come back and follow along as we slowly fill this journal with the stories behind those footprints. 👣❤️
🏛️ Beyond the Theme Parks — Stepping Into Virginia's History
One thing we tried to do whenever we traveled was experience more than just the attractions. If there was history and culture to discover, we wanted our children to experience that too.
On July 2, 2013, one of those adventures brought us to Jamestown Settlement in Williamsburg. We purchased a 90-minute tour and stepped into a very different part of our Virginia experience.
Looking through my old Facebook posts from that day brought back some of the things that fascinated us during the tour. We learned about the Powhatan people—their crops, their means of living, and the homes they built.
I even posted a photo of the recreated Powhatan houses and wondered how they were made and how their distinctive rounded shape was constructed.
Rather than simply reading about history, we were walking through recreated environments, listening to interpreters, asking questions, and giving our children an opportunity to see some of what they were learning brought to life.
And that's something that became part of the way we traveled as a family:
Have fun. Explore. But whenever possible, learn something about the people, culture and history of the places you visit. ❤️👣
❤️ Why We Kept Coming Back
Looking back now, I understand why Virginia became one of those places our family kept returning to.
It wasn't one particular attraction.
It was the variety of experiences we could fit into one road trip.
One visit might mean roller coasters at Busch Gardens and splashing around Water Country USA. Another might bring us to Virginia Beach, riding a family surrey along the boardwalk and spending the day swimming in the ocean.
At other times, we were underground discovering Luray Caverns, driving through the mountains of Shenandoah, learning about early American and Powhatan history at Jamestown Settlement, or bundled up together enjoying the lights of Christmas Town.
And somewhere between all those adventures were the little traditions that rarely make it into travel guides.
Our favorite buffet in Williamsburg. Staying in different hotels, sometimes using our timeshare. Packing up the RV and making a campground our temporary home. Traveling with family friends. Road trips during Spring Break, Memorial Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas and summer vacations.
Virginia grew up with us.
The children in our earliest Virginia photographs are much younger than the ones in our later pictures. And as I searched through years of old Facebook posts to write this story, that may have been my favorite discovery of all.
I wasn't simply looking at vacations.
I was looking at pieces of our children's childhood.
Back then, we weren't trying to visit all 50 states. We weren't thinking about travel blogs, footprints, or how many states we had already seen.
We were simply a family of four trying to make the most of weekends, school breaks, annual passes, road trips and whatever opportunities we had to explore together.
One trip became another.
One state led to another.
And somewhere along the road, traveling became part of our family's story.
Today, as we look back on 48 states visited with only Alaska and Oregon still waiting, I realize that our journey wasn't built through a handful of spectacular vacations.
It was built through years of moments just like these.
Virginia was one of the places where so many of them happened. ❤️
One state. Many seasons. Countless memories. One faithful footprint at a time. 👣
Virginia wasn't just somewhere we visited. It became part of our family story.
