One Year Later

For an update on this post, check out Two Years Later One year ago, we spent the last of 400 days of travel by treating ourselves to a Hilton Hotel and a steak dinner. What awaited me back home was totally unknown, and wasn’t even contemplated in my head. Travel had taught, or forced me,…

Dear Anthony

Dear Anthony, I’m currently sitting in the back of a bus next to a Buddhist monk somewhere in southern Laos. It feels like I’m a million miles away from home, in distance, surroundings and in comfort, but for some reason as I stare out the window at the bright full moon in the sky, I…

Italy on a Backpacker Budget

Can you travel to Italy on a backpacker budget? Is it possible to maintain a daily budget and travel Italy all while having a good time? Backpacking through Italy for 6 weeks in the peak season of August must be crazy expensive.  This is something that most people would think, but it all depends on…

Rome is Burning

Rome wasn’t built in a day, but for us, it didn’t take much longer than a few days to start feeling like we were ready to move on.  While in Rome we walked a TON.  The temperatures were over 100F every day we were there, peaking at 105F (40-41C…still working on mastering these conversions).  We…

It’s Go Time

Somehow over a year has flown by since we made the decision to leave everything to travel.  Somehow we are 2 sleeps away from taking off to Rome, and beyond.  The realness of this has increased a notch with each passing day.  After saying goodbye to work 2 weeks ago, Nick and I tried to…

Down the Final Stretch

After over a year in the making, I gave my two weeks notice to my job today.   It felt like a load was taken off of my shoulders. This is a company that I used to work for during summers in between college and I have been involved with for almost a third of…

Bidding Farewell to a Dream to Set Sail on Another

I’m giving up a lot for this lifestyle, including what I thought was my dream job… Today I will resign from store manager at the largest on-mountain snowboard shop in the world, a position that has been so rewarding and has helped me build life long friendships through snowboarding.  Having your office at the base…

Traveling the World While Life Back at Home Goes On

One of the fears or concerns that I’ve dealt with since making the decision to travel the world is all of the “what if’s” pertaining to life back at home.  From the “what if one of my plethora of cousins is getting married?”  That would be something I would hate to miss.  To the more…

A True Gift to Travelers: The Couchsurfing Community

We both were aware of Couchsurfing for a while now, although we didn’t know too much about it besides its existence and basic function.  However, last summer after we decided to take a trip around the world, we both began to research more about it.  We signed up, got verified and decided to invite some…

The Day We Chose Freedom

July 4th is recognized as the day America declared its Independence.  The date represents freedom, which can be described as life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  In 1776, the founding fathers of America gathered to sign a document that would change the course of all human lives forever.  The likes of Franklin, Jefferson and…