About what we are doing…

After 33 years of marriage, kids, and career, we have decided to indulge in one of our favorite pastimes of traveling.

Moving through our 50’s and 60’s we feel like we are assembling a growing collection of aches, pains, and health issues, so far minor. We have also had to witness more and more contemporary friends and colleagues wrestle with more serious health setbacks. Others have checked out completely.

So rather than waiting until retirement, we have decided to mortgage that retirement. To travel while we are able, taking a chance that, if we don’t pick up exactly where we left off, that we can get to a place that will keep us off the streets and not surviving on cat food.

We love and are justifiably proud of our careers and the things we have accomplished over the last 35 years. Leaving our work place 5 or 10 years before we otherwise would is no small matter. But in any case retirement will happen eventually and the world will continue to turn though perhaps a bit slower. With the passage of time (hopefully a very, very long time) we will all be forgotten anyway.

And when your dreams include diving the Great Barrier Reef, or hiking the Inca Trail (may have already waited a little too long for that one), or looking over Paris from the top of the Eiffel Tower, then perhaps it is time to put some skin in the game and take the less prudent course, while acknowledging all the while how supremely lucky we are to have this opportunity at all (although our budget is a little scary).

We are lucky that we share the same passions and traveling (along with home improvement) is one – don’t ask me why. We both have prized childhood memories of trips to undiscovered places. We tried to pass that on by taking our kids on long road trips passing through the fascinating cities and landscapes of the US, then moved a decade ago to international travel, taking about 3 weeks every other year to visit India, Spain, Brazil, Italy and Zambia. But with 200+ countries (not all that we want to explore – sorry North Korea) our projected life span is about 200 years too short.

So off we go. We will do our best to keep this updated despite or perhaps in spite of the fact that many yurts (Mongolia’s living shacks) lack wifi. For our friends and families so they know where we were last seen when we disappear (kidding). For our acquaintances so they can join us and travel together with us, as we have done so many times in the past. For everyone at home (who has to cover for us in our absence) so they can share the adventure, at least a little. And if you have dropped into this site at random and this strikes a chord, meet us on the road or find your own.