#MomDotInScot
Welcome to #MomDotInScot - A travel scrapbook made by a mother and daughter who celebrated their 60th and 40th birthdays with a Rick Steves tour of Scotland
#MomDot in front of Loch Ness. (No Nessie sighting, but we never gave up hope!)
Meet the Mom and Dot of #MomDot
Hello!
We are a mother and daughter pair who took the trip of a lifetime in 2025 - the Heart of Scotland in 8 Days Tour by Rick Steves Europe. A bit about us:
Nicole Raden (the "dot") - I am a Washington-born but California-residing gal with a scruffy rescue pup named Fred. I work for a non-profit organization dedicated to economic empowerment as well as my local church coordinating the children's ministry. Prior to this trip, I have done a pretty good amount of traveling, mostly with church and service trips, but never a guided tour.
Laureen Jobe (the "mom") - Since I'm the one making the site, I get to describe her however I want. :) My mom is one of the greatest people in the whole world! She is a mother of 4 and grandmother of 6. She works as the office coordinator at an accounting and tax preparation firm. She has dedicated her whole life to taking care of people and had never traveled outside the country before this trip.
A bit of explaining
Why this trip? Why a Rick Steves Tour? Why Scotland? and what is #MomDot?
Urquhart castle ruins on an incredibly beautiful Scottish day.
WE TOOK THIS TRIP BECAUSE...
long story short, we wanted to do something really special to celebrate our 40th and 60th birthdays. Long story long, we originally were thinking of doing a whole family trip, with my dad and brothers and nieces and nephews etc. but that quickly became super complicated. So we lovingly uninvited all of them and decided to do a girls trip, just the two of us!
WE CHOSE RICK STEVES BECAUSE...
we're from the Pacific Northwest and, let's be honest, Rick Steves is one of the greatest treasures of the great PNW. When I took my first-ever international trip as a 20-year-old, my grandmother (an enormous RSteves fangirl) bought me one of those little purses you can keep your passport in under your clothes from the local Rick Steves store and gave it to me. From that moment, I understood that when it comes to travel, Rick Steves knew his stuff. We considered other tour companies but the reviews just didn't compare.
WE CHOSE SCOTLAND BECAUSE...
... have you seen it? We watched all of the little promo videos for the various trips and were just wowed by the images from Scotland. Plus... highland cows. Not gonna lie, that was a big draw.
#MOMDOT...
is an inside joke that we love. She's the Mom. I'm the Daughter. Together we're Mom and Dot. When hashtags became a thing we made some joke at some point and then we just kept saying it for the past 15 years and now, here we are.
What We Found in Scotland
When my mom and I chose this Heart of Scotland tour to celebrate our 40th and 60th birthdays, we thought we were planning a fun getaway. We hoped this trip would be meaningful — and it became that in ways we never expected! It was a journey that gently reminded us both how precious shared time is and how much deeper travel can be when it’s grounded in the stories, history, and people of the places we visit. Especially when you get the privilege of hearing it from the people themselves.