It was on a napkin, in a dimly lit eatery in Nashville, that Oliver and I first dreamed this trip. Maybe it was the mind-blowing deliciousness of the food (Urban Cafe – shrimp and grits – no regrets) or the infatuated high of our new romance, but we sat there on the same side of the booth with stars in our eyes, and imagined exploring the world together. What would it be like to farm in France, to chase the Northern Lights along the fjords of Norway, or study permaculture in Bali? How might we be changed by opening ourselves up to a multitude of people, cultures, and whatever may come along the way?We don’t wish to linger at the surface of the classical tourism world travel, we want to dive into experiencing places. Which means spending more time, in fewer places, and scouring the amazing resources nowadays for different opportunities: working, volunteering, and searching out companies doing things we are interested in and want to learn from. It’s seriously incredible, with AirBNB you can stay at people’s homes throughout the world, potentially giving you a unique opportunity to connect with local people. With WWOOF’ing you can work on organic farms, stay with the farmer, and acquire new skills. If you have a particular passion a few internet searches can lead you to organizations around the world doing inspiring work and a simple email might open the door for you to connect with and learn from them. We certainly did not exhaust these resources and I would consider this more an attempt at striking a balance between floating on the tourism surface and digging our hands into the dirt beneath it all.

The hardest part for me in looking at a world of opportunity, is deciding what not to do. Oliver and I tend to think we can do it all, like thinking spending our last week in the US moving out of a house in Seattle and an apartment in Portland was a completely reasonable thing to do. In case you are wondering, it’s not. So in planning this trip a lot of intention and deliberation has happened. We decided to make two legs of it, the first starting in August, ending in November, and the second starting in January, ending in April. Europe seemed a less intimidating start to the trip, with both of us being more familiar with traveling there. While we may be adventurous, I would say we are also cautious, okay, Oliver is cautious.

So, with all the excitement out there for us to dive into, why this blog? Surely there are plenty of travel blogs, I know, I used them to help plan this trip. We had many friends and family ask us if we would do one. They want to follow along, live vicariously, or just make sure we are still okay, and at the end of the day, that is why. I enjoy writing, I have a stack of journals to prove it, but I hate sharing it. That’s why I journal – you don’t have to show it to people and they can’t judge you for it or hold you to whatever you say in it. While the perceived anonymity of the internet encourages some people to write like they aren’t accountable for what’s spilling from their mouths/keyboards, it terrifies me to put into a semi-permanent, open space this many of my own words. But, a dear friend helped focus me by simply saying “keep it about the process”. That stuck with me, I feared that I would need to make this finely polished product that showed our travels like some special feature Patagonia sponsored. It was not only something I didn’t want to do, but inauthentic to us in general. But, the process – just sharing the experiences, our emotions, ridiculous stories, un-edited photos (maybe a few unskillfully edited), that was something I could do. It is exactly what I hope this blog will be, and it gives me permission to add in something more.

We didn’t decide to embark on this trip just because we think it’s cool

and fun and amazing, which it is, but because we wanted to set the foundation for our marriage in a different way. We wanted to break outside of the norm of our culture, not in a way where we throw it all out and leave it behind, that takes maybe courage, but not necessarily critical thought. We simply want to shake it up a little bit to allow ourselves the mental space to decide what type of lifestyle do we want to have? Both Oliver and I will be engaging with that internal dialogue during this time, for ourselves and what it looks like for us together. By being focused on the process we can be honest with where we are at in our internal process in what may be changing in us, or what may not. But we promise not to linger long on the inner workings of our minds, and will also post many pictures of the amazing places we get to the privilege to experience around the world: first stop being Iceland. I keep telling Oliver I want to go bellyflop onto one of those fuzzy sheep because it looks like leaping on a woolly cloud, but he somehow thinks this is a bad idea. It’s probably a good idea I brought him.

By the time we reached the last bite of that meal, I think my soul knew I would marry Oliver. Where some see limitations, where some want to stay comfortable, or where some are afraid, Oliver dreams with me. And together we take ideas from restaurant napkins and our two stubborn souls make them real.