“I’m going to WrestleMania!” I screamed as I held my tickets to the most anticipated two-night event of the year for every WWE fan. If you don’t know what WrestleMania is, it’s the Super Bowl or World Series of WWE — the end of the season, so to speak, and the biggest, most star-studded event of the year. But let’s backtrack and see how I got here — and how it started a 2,824-mile road trip across the country.

I have been a fan of the WWE since I was about 9 years old. My brothers introduced it to me one night and I loved it. Of course, there have been times when I couldn’t watch, but for the most part, I’ve been watching ever since. When I had children, I introduced them to it as well. When they were younger, we would record it and fast forward past the parts we didn’t want them to see. LOL. The rule was — no moves on anyone or it all goes away.

My children are now grown, and we all still watch, but my son’s dream has been to go to at least one WrestleMania event. Unfortunately, it can come with a hefty price tag.

“Should I go?” he said one day, texting me and his two sisters a screenshot of the tickets he was close to buying. “Yes!” I said almost immediately. Between the pandemic and some other personal issues, including losing my mom recently, it had been a rough few years for our family. Crawling out of the other side of it, this event would be a great way to restart. If not now, when? My now adult son lives in Arizona and the event would be held in Los Angeles. A quick flight up and he was there. We always wanted to go as a family, but unfortunately, his sisters couldn’t attend.

However, they responded to the text, encouraging him to buy. So, he did.

And then there was me.

What he didn’t know was that I was already on the ticket portal looking for seats right near him. They go fast so I had to act quickly. The closest I could get was one row behind him on the opposite side — not bad! We could see each other during the show.

I took a screenshot and then sent it to the kids and said “How about I go with you?” They were shocked and loved it. I was going to WrestleMania with my son!

But how? Fly? Drive? Both? As the Virgin Traveler, my last trip was to Chicago pre-pandemic. I had gone away locally once, but not like this. I missed traveling and I wanted stuff to write about. But a cross-country road trip was going to be pricey, plus the WrestleMania tickets. But it would also be an incredible opportunity to do so many things that I’ve wanted to do for years.

So that’s what I did!

After six weeks of planning, I drove (with my significant other) from New York to Phoenix via part of Route 66 — hopping on and off — and met my son. We then went to Los Angeles and enjoyed the show of a lifetime! It was soooo worth it! If you’re into wrestling, check out my article on Wealth of Geeks where I share my Top 10 best moments of the show! Personally, my favorites were seeing Rhea Ripley, Roman Reigns, and Sami Zayn/Kevin Owens win. The crowd was absolutely electric and doing the You Can’t See Me with John Cena and 80,000+ WWE fans was truly amazing. The best part — sharing it all with my son!

Then, I drove back to New York. Throughout the entire three-week road trip, I made many, many stops, including the Pro Football Hall of Fame, Casey, Illinois — the small town with the big stuff, Route 66 stops — such as the Will Rogers Museum, Pops Shop, and Winslow, Arizona — stopping at Breaking Bad locations in Albuquerque, New Mexico, visiting the Hollywood Museum, Getty Museum, Hollywood Walk of Fame, Broad Museum, Petrified National Forest, El Rancho Hotel, Stafford Air & Space Museum, St. Louis Gateway Arch, Butterfly House, and more.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be sharing my experiences and tips with you and show you how I put this entire trip together, including the financial side and how I planned it and saved money along the way. I’ll talk more about WrestleMania and you’ll see each of the places I saw and I’ll share my tips on visiting those places too. I had such anxiety before the trip and wasn’t even sure I’d follow through — I’ll talk about that too — but I did and I’m so incredibly proud of myself. I had some bumps along the way — I’ll share — and I would have to regroup a few times. In the end, it was all worth it. No matter what trip you want to take, I hope you start to think about putting it together and making it come true, one step at a time.

Remember, I’m the Virgin Traveler and I’m (finally back to) turning my someday into today.