I am going on a great big adventure

I’ve always loved to travel. I blame it on genetics – one of many great traits I inherited from my mother.

The problem is that life is short but the world is big and I realized that just squeezing as many trips as possible into my calendar wasn’t enough. I wanted to see more of the world and I wanted to see it now, not at some unspecified date in the future. Trying to balance work and travel has unfortunately meant that work accounted for most of my time and, when I did carve out some free time, I also wanted to go home to see my family, just hang out with my friends, and sometimes I even had to do the chores that I’d been ignoring. It all meant that I just didn’t have enough time available for all the travel I wanted to do.

So I decided it was time to make the leap – quit my job, get rid of my belongings and head off to try to satisfy my wanderlust. It was a really easy decision to make. To be honest I simply realized one day that it was what I wanted to do even though I hadn’t actively been considering it. To make sure that I didn’t chicken out, I started telling everyone I knew. I got an interesting range of reactions but the ones that affected me most were from those people who are going to miss having me around all the time – I love my friends! And that’s why I decided I didn’t want to just head off on a round-the-world trip for x number of years not knowing when I’d see anyone again. So instead I’m going to head off for shorter trips of a month or two and then head home (which is a fairly flexible concept for me – I have at least four places I call home!).

Being a sensible person, I decided that I should take time to save some money and sort things out properly. Unfortunately I’m also very impatient which is why I’m leaving two years earlier than scheduled. Oops. A few things just happened that seemed to signal it was the right time to do this.

The planning was fun but it was difficult to focus on priorities and decide on a logical itinerary, which is why in my first six months I will be visiting four different continents and not really seeing any of them in depth. Sigh. I’m hoping that after this period of manic travel I’ll be ready to slow it down and actually get to see a few places properly.

The countdown is nearly over. In November, I’ll be leaving my home, my friends, my life, and carving a new path. I’m currently equal parts terrified and excited but definitely looking forward to seeing where my great big adventure takes me.