Why Now? And the Plan.

I love to travel and have been very lucky to have done the traveling domestically and abroad that I have been able to do up to this point.  In the past it's been a few weeks here, a few months there.  The type of travel Matt and I are about to embark upon allows for longer, less structured, freer travel.

A lot of people have asked, why now?  What one moment set you off?  Well, for us, we didn't have one distinct moment, no layoff or point of frustration (in the current moment anyways).  We both love our jobs, and live comfortably.  I guess it did start with one of my first jobs out of college, there was a point when I was really upset and I suggested to Matt that we move to South America for a year and teach English.  He didn't let me forget that moment (even when I found a much more fulfilling job), and it has still been something in the backs of our minds.  We both have the strong desire to travel.  I used to believe in the concept of retirement, but no longer for myself.  There are absolutely no guarantees in life, there's no guarantee you'll even make it to retirement age.  My new motto is to do today what I've been putting off for tomorrow (easier said than done most times, but it's a nice catchy thing to aspire to).

There is never going to be a perfect moment in time to do this sort of thing (never the perfect amount of money, there will always be other things going on, etc.), but we decided to make it a priority to do it now.  As it is, we are at a point where it's as good as it gets timing wise.  We are young and adaptable, healthy, without debts, without a mortgage, and without kids.  I do at some point (far, far into the future) would like to have a family and "settle down."  When we made the decision, we were at a point where our lease was coming due.  We have been renting for a good amount of time and it just doesn't make sense to keep renting.  We talked about it, and came to the options of settling down and buying a house, or being nomads for a time and live like gypsies.  We went with the latter.

So, slowly we started downsizing.  Giving away or selling what we could, and putting money away for our trip.  Once we made the decision, everything just felt right.  We didn't know how people would react, so we waited until a few months before we were to leave before breaking the news to our friends and family.  In life, there will always be those people who want to rain on your parade (because they are jealous, or are generally negative, or your actions fall outside of their perceived bubble of "normal," or they are projecting their own personal limitations and insecurities, etc.).  Our waiting to break the news was in part to lower our exposure to such criticism, or unintended negativity.  We've been very lucky in the fact that most people have been really supportive of our decision to travel.

Ok, so here's the plan.  We leave from Atlanta, GA for a 2 week road trip out to the west coast tomorrow.  I would think 2 weeks is a decent amount of time (that's most people's vacation time for an entire year), but apparently our country is huge.  There will be lots and lots of driving for the weeks to come.  We will be spending just as much time in the car as out of it on our 2 week road trip.

We have friends out on the west coast we've been meaning to visit for awhile now, and thought driving would be a fun way of seeing a lot of states in between that I've never been to.  We drive for a day, sleep in MN, then head to Seattle.  A good friend of mine is out in Seattle, we spend a few days with her, then head to Portland, maybe stopping to camp overnight in one of the National parks out there.  Spend a few days in Portland with friends, then head to San Francisco.  We spend a day in SF, then head to Arizona where I have family.  Spend a day in AZ before heading to SC for a wedding.  Of the places we'll be staying in, I've never been to Seattle or Portland, so we'll be spending the most time there.

Then we come back to Atlanta for a few days, and pack the last of our belongings.  We are selling or giving away all of our furniture and large items, putting some things in storage (at the home of one of Matt's generous family members), and taking what will fit in a backpack on our journey.  We're storing Matt's car with family in MN, so from Atlanta we drive to MN and fly out to Sydney, Australia from there.  We have work visas that are good for a year in Australia (the process was not difficult, esp if you fill it out online).  FYI - I didn't learn this until later, but the phone number to the Australian consulate was a 905 number (or something like that), which I guess is in Canada.  I got charged international rates when I called with questions, apparently you don't have to dial a country code when dialing from the US to Canada.  I thought it was just a long distance number in the states, so be aware if you call with questions.

For our travels abroad, we are trying to plan as little as possible (I say trying, because I sometimes have a problem with not planning things).  I'm sure that as we go, we will learn about various opportunities or neat places to visit, and we don't want to get so set in one plan of action that we are blind to those opportunities.  Generally speaking, I would love to go to (in no particular order) New Zealand, China, Thailand, Nepal, and all over South America.  But, who knows?  We might end up staying in Australia for a long while, or end up on an island in the South Pacific.  I am open to the uncertainty of life.