Wanderlust, Writing, and a Wisconsin Farm Girl – substack.com

Valerie Biel often writes about how her travels inspire her writing. Here she tells about how, given her upbringing, travel has become such a high priority in her life.

I grew up on a Wisconsin dairy farm in Dodge County. In fact, we now live on a parcel of that farm. When the leaves are off the trees, from my home I can see where my mother lives (and where I grew up) as well as my brother’s home about a mile away across the fields, which was the main dairy farm where my grandparents always lived. (It’s certainly ironic that I willingly violated my sassy teenage vow to never live here as an adult—turns out that once you have kids, you have a different viewpoint about where you want to raise them.)

Most of the time our recreational trips were the occasional Sunday afternoons at Green Lake (when hay didn’t need baling), floating on a giant tractor tire inner tube with my older siblings. Our ‘real’ trips were few and far between—as you can imagine with a dairy herd to manage, getting away required a lot of careful planning. But we did take a few memorable road trips, once to Saskatchewan to visit cousins in our 1970s station wagon—you know the kind with the rear facing back seat. Once out to Yellowstone when our at-home family had shrunk to include just my brother and me with my older sisters out of the house. And once to New England for a family wedding where we tacked on a Boston and Niagara Falls jaunt. With a good chunk of my dad’s family in Chicago, we were regular visitors to that “big city.”

My first airplane trip wasn’t until age 16 when I headed to Disney World with my parents. (In true youngest-child form, I had long harbored resentment that in 1972 at age four I had missed out on the family trip to Disney, however, in retrospect that was probably a solid plan on my parents’ part.)

When it came time to pick a college, against the advice of my high school guidance counselor, I chose UW-Madison over smaller schools. Even though it wasn’t far away, I was done with small town Wisconsin! (ha/ha) I rather loved walking into a lecture hall with 300 other students after having a high school graduating class of just 29. And in the fall of my sophomore year, I went to London on my semester abroad. It was terrifying to head out on that adventure knowing no one in my program (although my airport smile hides that well), but it was also glorious to live in a city of that size and travel around Europe with London as a base.

Not sure if that was the start of my wanderlust or if I was born with that desire!

The next couple of years didn’t provide much opportunity for additional travel with jobs and studies, but as graduation neared my roommate and I planned the classic Europe trip that would take us 30 days. (We’d been saving our hard-earned pennies for months!!) In May of 1990, our ambitious route was Madrid-Barcelona-Nice-Rome-Venice-Salzburg-Munich-Berlin(East & West)-Amsterdam-ferry to England-London-Stratford-upon-Avon-Oxford-Bath. Phew! It was great!

A few years later, I was lucky to meet in my future husband someone who loved travel as much as I did. We took trips with and without our kids, depending on the type of travel—often pulling them out of school for an additional week when our plans didn’t fit neatly into the school calendar. (I know that not all of our children’s teachers thought this was ideal, but I don’t think there’s any better education than travel!) We were often asked how we could afford this, but our family budget was all about prioritizing saving money for travel.

We even managed an ambitious 30-day trip to Europe one summer with the kids. Now in their late 20s/early 30s, they still talk about that trip and the impact it had on them. We rented apartments for a few days in some cities and tried to live like local folks by buying our groceries in the markets and such. It was an eye-opening experience for them at age 9, 11, and 17. (Perhaps – in retrospect – kicking off this trip at Stonehenge on the Summer Solstice was a bit too – um – educational.)

Most of our trips were to the usual touristy locations—until my husband founded The World Orphan Fund charity in 2011. Since then, our travels have included a mix of countries off the beaten path where I’ve gained the most insight about myself. Certainly my world view has been greatly impacted from meeting people from all over the globe and learning their hopes and dreams—which are often so very similar to our own.

And along the way, these travels have provided crucial fuel for my writing—for which I’m incredibly grateful! But truly I’m not sure it matters how far you travel. I think any change of scenery and being open to new perspectives can feed our creative brains and provide inspiration. Either way—whether near or far—I love how the people I’ve met and the travel experiences along the way have impacted my storytelling.

LEARN MORE ABOUT VALERIE’S BOOKS

You can follow along with Valerie’s adventures on her Substack Reading, Writing, & Roaming, or on Facebook or Instagram.

Valerie Biel writes books for middle grade to adult audiences–stories inspired by her travels and her insatiable curiosity. Her award-winning, young adult fantasy series, Circle of Nine, was inspired by the myth and magic of Ireland’s ancient stone circles.

She’s also the author of Haven, a contemporary middle grade novel, and Beyond the Cemetery Gate, a YA mystery suspense story. She helps other authors with their book promotion and marketing and frequently teaches writing workshops and independent publishing classes to students of all ages. She’s a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, Sisters in Crime, and the Wisconsin Writers Association. She’s a founding member of the Blackbird Writers, a group of mystery and thriller writers.

When Valerie’s away from the computer, you might find her wrangling her overgrown garden, reading everything she can get her hands on, or traveling the world–often on trips for the charity she runs with her husband, The World Orphan Fund. Once upon a time, she graduated from the University of Wisconsin with degrees in journalism and political science. She lives with her husband on a (tiny) portion of her family’s century- old farm in rural Wisconsin, but regularly dreams of finding a cozy cottage on the Irish coast where she can write and write.

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