A Salt Lake City travel blogger who entertained thousands of social media followers as she explored the world with her three daughters has died.
Elise Smith Caffee died Wednesday, March 12, at the University of Utah Hospital’s burn ward, six days after she was critically injured in a car crash in Cancun, Mexico. She was 45.
Caffee was “a true light” and a “great friend,” Salt Lake City-based food blogger Maria Lichty wrote on her @twopeasandpod Instagram account Thursday. “She took the time to truly understand people, and her thoughtfulness shone through in everything she did.”
For nearly a decade, starting in 2016, Caffee has documented her family’s global adventures on her blog, 3 Kids Travel, and its related Instagram account, which had more than 45,000 followers.
Caffee not only showed off the sights her family visited, but shared travel advice — from what gear to pack to finding family-friendly ways to get around Paris or Cabo San Lucas. Her last blog post, on Feb. 3, listed ways to “create your own escape without leaving town.”
“We had our first baby and all of our friends told us we’d have to stop traveling so much,” Caffee wrote on the website. “Our life did change a lot when we had our first baby, but we vowed to not let it get in the way of our love of travel.”
On March 6, Caffee and her husband, Dan, flew to Cancun, Mexico, for a friend’s wedding, according to a post on a family Instagram account created last week to update fans about her medical condition. On the freeway from the airport to the hotel, the Chevy Suburban they were riding in was part of a 10-car pile-up.
A truck carrying hot asphalt hit and flipped the Suburban, trapping Caffee inside and pouring asphalt into the wrecked vehicle and several other cars. The driver of the Suburban died at the scene.
The crash occurred in front of a hospital, the Instagram post said, so Caffee was treated almost immediately. She was sedated and intubated, and flown the next day to Salt Lake City, where she received surgery and more medical care.
“She held on for so long and fought so hard against an impossibly difficult set of circumstances,” a message posted Thursday on the family Instagram account read. “Absolutely everything that could have been done for her was done and we are so grateful that she was able to make it back home to say goodbye to her family before leaving us.”
Caffee traveled from an early age. According to the 3 Kids Travel Instagram account, she and her twin sister were raised in Short Hills, New Jersey, and moved to Japan with their family at age 9.
“My twin sister and I rode our bikes and took the subway as 10-year-olds and explored Tokyo on our own,” she wrote in 2020, adding that they traveled to China, Thailand and Singapore on school breaks.
“We learned to view ourselves as part of a global community and made friends all over the world,” she wrote. “I only hope I’m giving my kids a similar experience as we travel the world together.” As a young adult, Caffee wrote on her blog, she also lived for a time in Spain and Israel.
She met Dan Caffee in 2005, at the beach in Santa Monica, California. He also had spent his young adult years living abroad in Germany, Russia and Honduras, she wrote. The couple married on Nov. 24, 2007, in Salt Lake City.
“We are almost complete polar opposites (aside from our love of travel), but over the years I’m learning that we’re perfect for each other,” Elise Caffee wrote in a 2020 Instagram post, marking their 13th anniversary. “We made a pact that we would be a travel family — and we’re still making that happen.”
Their oldest daughter took her first plane ride when she was 4 weeks old, Caffee wrote, and then saw the beach. At 3 months old, they took her to camp overnight at Yosemite. A month later, they took her to Mexico.
“Over time, we added two more girls to our family and we kept traveling and adjusting to life as a family of five,” Caffee wrote. “Traveling became our way to connect and bond as a family.”
In 2016, the Caffee family took their first international trip, a three-week tour of Europe, with stops in Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Malmo, London and Paris. The girls were 7, 5 and 2. The next year, the family went to Vienna, Bratislava and Budapest. The year after that, they went to China. (On Instagram and in her blog, Caffee carefully avoided listing her daughters’ names.)
Caffee’s interest in writing wasn’t limited to her travel blog. In 2022, Caffee and Utah author Tiffany Rosenhan launched Jumelle Press, an independent publishing company. The name comes from the French word for “twin,” because both Caffee and Rosenhan were each born as a twin.
Jumelle Press published its first book, Maria Lichty’s cookbook “Let’s Eat Cookies,” in October 2023. Last year, the company released two children’s books and one on home design, “An Intentional Home” by Caitlin Creer. The company’s 2025 slate is set to include “A Promised Vengeance,” a young adult “romantasy” novel by Utah author Sara B. Larson, as well as a travel-themed children’s book by Caffee and Rosenhan.
Lichty wrote on Instagram that, as a publisher, “Elise was organized, dependable, and always on top of every detail. She always remained calm and collected, offering clear, thoughtful guidance. She was positive, encouraging and so supportive. She gave everything her all.”
Earlier this week, the Smith and Caffee families launched a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for the family of the driver, identified as Luis, who was chauffeuring the Caffees in Cancun when the crash occurred. As of Friday morning, the campaign had raised more than $67,000, which is aimed at paying Luis’ funeral expenses, possible legal fees, and support for his wife and three children.
Caffee is survived by her husband, Dan, and their three daughters. As of Friday, a complete list of survivors had not been made available, and plans for memorial services had not been announced.
