10Best Announces Our White Beaches, White Peaks Giveaway Winner

"I've never won anything in my life!"

That was the incredulous response from Carey Gates – wife, mother, and office manager of a dental practice – when she learned that she had, in fact, won 10Best's White Beaches, White Peaks Giveaway for a four-night, five-day vacation, along with $2000 in spending money.

While users could select Denver, Miami, or Honolulu when they entered the giveaway, Carey knew from the outset that she wanted to go to Hawaii. It was a trip her husband had hesitated to take on their own, mainly because the destination was "too far to fly and too expensive." However, that ambivalence melted away when the expenses became a non-issue, thanks to Carey's diligence. After first discovering 10Best's sweepstakes page, she entered every day for the chance to travel to an exotic locale, and the efforts paid off big in the long-run. Now, Carey and her husband, Durwin, are both incredibly excited about their upcoming Polynesian adventure.

A Pennsylvania native, Carey moved to Pittsburgh after graduating from college and met her husband, a dentist, in the city. Married since 1984, they are celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary in 2009 – a perfect occasion for a well-deserved, fortuitously timed vacation! Honolulu, with its sublime weather, is also an ideal destination for Carey and Durwin, who love to run and bike on local trails and to kayak and travel. Their children – Caitlin, an interior architecture graduate student, and Evan, a soon-to-be mechanical engineering major – have also been schooled in travel from an early age and have visited Europe, Mexico, and lots of the continental United States.

Carey herself was given an early appreciation for travel. As a child, she embarked on a classic "RVing across America" trip with her family, and those memories of the road still make for fond recollections. Besides traveling frequently with her husband and children, Carey maintains close ties with eight high school classmates (some of whom she's known since kindergarten!), and they plan a large trip every five years to celebrate their milestone birthdays. Although they're scattered across the US, her friends take every opportunity to let travel unite them, enjoying fun, boisterous cities like Las Vegas and Key West.

Carey, as the trip organizer, is always on the look-out for resources to direct her to terrific destinations, activities, restaurants, sights, and beaches. 10Best.com is a natural fit, supplying her with great ideas and recommendations, along with first-hand accounts and reviews from users who've been to the places she's curious about. It's also useful for helping her find activities that tie in to her interests in music, books, photography, movies, and the arts.

As a way to showcase her wanderlust and to remind herself to reach out and look for opportunities, no matter how far-fetched they may appear, Carey dots her refrigerator with magnets tracking her best-loved destinations, letting them remind her constantly of the fantastic trips she's taken. Her favorite one, in fact, spells out her philosophy and her effusive approach succinctly, reading "The best things in life are the people we love, the places we've seen, and the memories we've made along the way."

We couldn't have said it better. Godspeed, Carey and Durwin. And aloha!