2011 World Trip - Introduction
Trip Start
Feb 12, 2011
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144
Trip End
Nov 19, 2011
Seattle, Washington
Friday, February 11, 2011
A few years has passed since our wedding and despite the burdens of our careers, a new business, and our finances we have still managed to travel, visiting Tahiti in 2008 and South Africa in 2010. We expected 2011 to be no different, as we had saved our airline miles for a trip to Thailand and Bali with our friend Kristen.
With the pressure of a new lease for our café and slumping sales due to a major construction project in our neighborhood along with a desire to move to a sunnier & more affordable location, we began to envision not coming back to Seattle after our trip. Throughout the fall/winter we had visited Denver, San Diego and Phoenix all providing an incredible reprieve from the dismal Seattle weather and in January we decided we would get on the flight to Bangkok on February 12th and not come back.
The next few weeks were arguably the most stressful ever, scrambling to put our lives in a box and pack them away in a dark basement for at least six months. Doors were closed and loose ends tied up, all the way up until our flight out of Seattle. By the end of January, we had closed our business, moved out of our apartment, and Erica had sent in her resignation to her job. By the time we got on the flight to Bangkok, we had no careers, no home, no car, and no cell phones.
It’s an incredible amount of work packing your life up and the emotional strain is tremendous, neither of which we could have done without the help and support of all of our friends. Many people have asked how we could pull this off after closing a business that essentially never made us any money. Well…we live below our means, own very little, carry no debt, and most importantly we are always pushing the envelope to pursue new endeavors. A trip around the world, or anywhere for that matter will never happen if you don’t believe it can…We hope that by sharing our travels you will be inspired to reconsider everything that you think is important at the moment and balance those things against your true priorities in life.
For us, travel isn’t about the fun and glamorous parts such as laying by the beach, drinking pina coladas with little umbrella’s while getting a 2 hour massage in an exotic location, or taking helicopter rides with wealthy strangers or staying up all night drinking beer with a Kiwi rugby team. It’s about putting our own lives into context and experiencing firsthand the things you are told about by other people. It’s about expending our own perspective instead of relying on others to form our opinions for us.
While studying architecture at the University of Oregon, I always found it odd to write a report about a building I had never been to. It wasn’t until I travelled Europe and stepped inside St. Peter’s in Rome and Hagia Sofia in Istanbul that I fully realized the suspicion I had in school. Nothing can replace the experience of physically exploring the architecture of a building versus reading about it in a book. As our society moves closer and closer to a virtual world the act of grabbing a handful of dirt from a far off land will only become more precious.
This blog is an attempt to document our travels around the world over the next six months…with no real itinerary other than to experience places we have not yet seen. We are starting in Bangkok and Bali and from there you will have to read on as we collect more stones for the pendant...
It’s been a whirlwind week packing up all our belongings, and closing our business. With the help of several friends (you all know who you are) we were able to lock everything away by 5pm on Friday evening. With some last minute changes to our packing configurations thanks to suggestions from friends, we said goodnight and had a fitful 4 hour nap before takeoff.
