When we announced to our family and friends that we were leaving our home and jobs to go travel the world, some were puzzled at our decision to up and leave our comfortable lives. After all, we have both worked hard to get where we are, and life is quite good for us. But we just can’t shake our desires to see as much of the world as possible. While there are many factors behind our decision to go on this journey, we have distilled it down into 5 reasons for us to travel the world now!
1. No Guarantees That Tomorrow Will Come
Life is sweet, but it is short. Over the last couple years we have had some experiences that reminded about how precious, and unpredictable, life is. You just never know from one day to the next. And recently, I saw a picture that resonated with me because it brought up a great point. It was a picture of a grave stone, and it said that your life is summed up with a start date, a dash, and an end date.
What really matters are not the dates, but the dash in the middle which represents your life and what you chose to do with it. This point stood out to me and made realize that we really do need to make every moment count. What are you going to do with your dash?
2. “Do It Now, While You Can!”
When explaining to people our intentions of selling everything and living out our dreams for a while, some people reassured us by saying “do it now, while you can!” This is exactly our perspective. Right now we don’t have any major commitments because it is only Liz and I. This makes it a lot easier to plan the trip and take care of things at home. As time goes on and we do start a family, then the first several years will be focused on them and us getting use to a different way of life. We look forward to that day, but for now we are doing it while we can.
A lot of people wait until retirement to do something like this. But retirement’s a long way off for us, and we just don’t want to live today dreaming of tomorrow (or 30 years from now). Plus, who knows if we will be healthy enough or physically able to travel extensively or do the things we want by that age. So why not take a round the world trip now, because let’s be honest, who knows when we will be able to retire and travel like this again?
3. It May Actually Benefit You Financially
This might strike some of you as crazy-talk, but once we crunched the numbers, it made sense. A significant portion of our discretionary spending here at home is for travel. When you think about all the times that we have flown halfway around the world and back for only a 1-2 week vacation, it was really an inefficient use of time and money! This became painfully obvious last year when we were in Thailand.
We only had 10 actual days to spend exploring the area, and we realized that we would need at least 5 trips to the area to see all we wanted. Honestly, it’s cheaper just to keep making our way around the globe! Plus, if we are going to keep going around the globe for a while, why keep paying fixed costs at home for things like cars and your home? You save a lot of money by giving those things up for a while and putting all of that money toward your travels.
Further, it doesn’t have to be expensive to travel the world. While we do enjoy luxury hotels, it’s not a necessity…especially if we are traveling long-term. We can easily rent houses or apartments short term, and in Asia, the cost is a fraction of what we would pay here in the States! Lastly, there are opportunities for us to work in exchange for accommodations along the way, as well as finding other work overseas, like teaching English!
4. A Chance to Focus on Yourself For a while
It’s always good to have a bit of “me” time to reflect on your life. This still holds true as you get older. But it seems like the older we get, the less time we have to do this. With more responsibilities comes more stress, and you can get caught up in it. There are so many things that Liz & I would love to do, personally and professionally. So this adventure around the world gives us the chance to focus on ourselves, and our new business ideas. I don’t think that there is anything wrong with focusing on yourself for a while. After all, if you don’t focus on yourself then who will?
5. Why Not?
Why not!?! That’s my favorite answer to give when people ask us why we are packing our lives and moving. We understand that what we are doing isn’t “normal” and it can seem pretty scary to some people. But honestly, have you ever heard anyone say “geez, I wish I hadn’t traveled the world!” What does it hurt to chase your dream, really? Why not do it now?
This journey is not only for us, but for our readers who want to explore the world too.
Follow Along on the Adventure of a Lifetime Around the World!
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