In March of this year (2013) my wife and I quit our jobs, gave up the lease on our apartment, sold half our stuff and threw the rest in storage to take off on a trip around the world.
I loved my life. I was making great money working in an industry I was passionate about. I had a sweet apartment in the heart of the most beautiful/inspiring cities in the world (even after everywhere I've been). Deciding to leave it all not only seemed foolish, but it was one of the scariest and most difficult decisions I've made in my life; which is precisely why I knew it had to be done.
Travel always seemed like an activity for trust fund babies, hitch-hiking hippies or people trying to escape their miserable lives. For me, none of the stereotypes fit. I have some savings that I worked my ass off for, I love to shower and I certainly wasn't escaping or looking to "find myself"; in fact quite the opposite. My biggest fear was actually losing the pieces of myself I had worked so hard to build. But in the back of my mind I always knew I wanted to see the world. I wanted to see how other people live and discover first hand whether "living the American dream" is really all it's cracked up to be. Instead of waiting until retirement, I'd rather do it now so I could enjoy it more and have the stories and experiences to carry with me my entire life.
For anyone considering going on a similar adventure, here are a few things I had to figure out before we left, a few things I learned along the way and an exhaustive list of the places we went and things we experienced.
Read the rest of the post here...