“When did you decide to travel the world?”

This is the most common question we have gotten about our plan for long term travel (along with variations like: Have you always wanted to do this? Have you traveled a lot before? How do you manage logistics for a year of travel? Are you crazy? And other things like that).

The answer always feels less impressive than this event deserves. There should be a story of a dramatic life altering decision full of drama and debate and uncertainty. As we sit today two weeks before our departure and surrounded by moving boxes, it feels like that’s the kind of decision we made for sure. But at the time, it was just one of those periodic conversations you have musing about the future with your Spouse. It was about 10-11 years ago when Brian and I would walk our new puppy around the neighborhood meeting people and chatting with each other.

Most dog walking conversations were not memorable but on one particular day we were talking about whether we would ever live outside the United States. Neither of us ever had done it and both of us had opportunities through work to pursue it if we really wanted to. What started as a fun hypothetical turned into a discovery that we had exactly the same desires – not to live long term outside the States but to take a year and see the world as a family once our not-yet-born kids were old enough to remember it. And in that moment, it was done. That was the day we made the decision to travel the world. To be fair, there were several follow up “Are we really going to do this?” conversations over the years, but turns out the answer was always “Yes.”

Thanks for reading – Tiffany