TravelTales: Leaving Our World Behind To Find Our World Ahead
We’re off! First stop? Norway
Daniel
7/16/20264 min read
Louisiana, Georgia, Norway. Yes, please
I'm not sure exactly how to describe the feeling of going from an idea a year ago to sitting in an airport lounge not two hours out from our flight to Norway. It wasn't real when it was 6 months away and we were still working. It wasn't real at two months away while still living on the boat. It wasn't real a week ago. It's not real now. But it's happening. The grandiose thought I can't seem to wrap my mind around is not immediately coming back. You get a dog sitter. Someone waters your plants and empties your mailbox. You normally have plans for your all-too-soon return. A house. A job. A routine. Not us. Not this time. We're outta here. The current plan is 18 months and 35-ish countries. We aren't sure how, or where, it will end. The last country we have on the spreadsheet is Africa. No idea where we'll go after that, or if we'll make it that far before our fun travel fund is depleted altogether. I just hope you’re still around to find out!
Two weeks ago we landed in New Orleans and ended up north of St. Francisville for some frolicking in the woods at my parent’s new house. A week later saw a short stint in Covington before an emergency brought us up north of Atlanta five days early. Now we are sitting here in the Atlanta International terminal not two hours from taking off on our “trip of a lifetime”. The first stop is a quick layover in Frankfurt before our jump over to Norway and Sweden where we'll spend the next 40 some odd days learning a new language, running from polar bears near the 80th parallel, eating our weight in salmon every day, and hopefully hiking and swimming enough to melt away the extra 15 pounds around my midsection I was able to acquire from southern food in a mere two weeks. As creatures of change, we couldn’t be more stoked for this next new adventure.
A NEW THOUGHT FROM A NEW COUNTRY: Norway
I can only speak for what I’ve seen after traveling extensively across the US. People often seem to like mowing their grass every Saturday. Washing their same clothes in the same wash room. Folding them the same way and putting them in the same drawer. Their minds go on autopilot for the same route they've driven to work a thousand times to park in their same spot and stare at the same screen dealing with the same bullshit until it's time to go home and do it all again the next day. Most of us truly are creatures of habit. I'm in the hopefully expanding group of people that don't like the word "same". I've always clung to the phrase "the only constant in this world is change". Changing lifestyles. Changing days. Changing languages. Changing horizons. There is one constant I couldn't live without. She's the "same" that I'm happy to change with. Lauren and I are hurtling through this world hell bent on shredding societal norms together and hopefully inspiring at least ONE other person along the way. I never liked the influencer mindset. I'm not here to produce more content just to have you or some company pay me to continue traveling and tell me where or when to go based on what we put on Instagram. We're what we like to think of instead as inspirationalist with a few run-on sentences up our sleeves and poor grammar in possibly every paragraph. We won't be doing this with any influencer backed Patreon begging or even a bank account any larger than yours. We just want you to follow along on this 18+ month, carry-on bags only journey we've started and see if you don't want some inspired change yourself!
So hitch your sled to this pack of huskies as we stumble our way through foreign languages and try to eat our bank account into submission around the world. The following list, as of now, is just a guideline from another late night crafted spreadsheet dreaming of our freedom to roam. Like everything in life, it is ALWAYS subject to change. Cheers to new challenges and living outside our comfort zone. We'll see ya when we get back...IF we come back.
Norway( mainland and also Svalbard)
Sweden
Iceland
Italy
India
Napal
Sri Lanka
Thailand
Cambodia
Japan
South Korea
Taiwan
Philippines
New Zealand
Australia
Indonesia
Vietnam
Singapore
Greece
Montenegro
Croatia
Slovenia
Slovakia
France
England
Scotland
Germany
Portugal
Spain
Morocco
Tanzania
