Homeward Bound...

...is a heartwarming story about a gang of lost pets, trying to make their way back to their beloved owners.  Michael J. Fox stars as the voice of Chance, the happy go-lucky young golden retriever who adventures across America with the experienced Shadow and the family cat, Sassy (voiced by the talented Ms. Sally Field)...

...But homeward bound is also, probably more importantly, our current state (in fact, we're writing this from the Seoul airport).  Our first flight from Bangkok to Seoul, South Korea departed at 11:40 pm on Friday, December 2nd.  After a thirteen hour layover in Seoul, and a nice lunch and an afternoon with our friend Dmitry, who we met in KL, we'll be on a second plane - this one headed straight home.  The Seoul to Seattle leg leaves at 7:10 pm on Saturday evening, and we arrive home around noon...on Saturday.  We love a 30-plus hour travel day that gets you to point B just twelve hours after you left point A.  We're magic!

The last eight months have been an amazing adventure.  They have sped by, but at the same time Osaka feels like it could have been last week.  We'll probably add a few miscellaneous posts we've been working on after we get back, but this marks our last post from the road.  We have tried our best to take you along for the ride, but we look forward to filling the gaps soon in person!


Thank you for reading and traveling along with us when you could.  We are grateful for our friends and family back home and we couldn't have taken off without the help of our support team (AKA our parents and close friends) who took care of the small and large things out of our reach while we were on the other side of the globe.  We cannot wait to get back into the swing of things and catch up with all we have missed with each and every one of you. The last eight months have been a blast, and they wouldn't have been as good without loved ones to share it with!

Cheers and we'll see you all soon,
J & A

Maybe later, maybe now

I have wanted to travel Asia for a long time.  But I haven't yet.  I plan to remedy that on April 3rd.

Singapore

A trip to Asia has always seemed like one of those "too-big" dreams.  Something fantastic to talk about, but too large and difficult to actually do anytime soon.  Maybe later, I kept telling myself.

As much as I talk about loving travel, I haven't been on an extended trip since 2007.  I went to Europe for two months with my girlfriend after college on the obligatory "go-to-Europe-before-real-life-starts-trip." And it was awesome.  It was a trip I would never take back. I learned a lot about myself, about the world, and about my future wife.  But it always felt safe somehow.  It felt like an escape more than an adventure for some reason.

Gulin, China

I pushed myself, but I never felt as uncomfortable as even just the thought of traveling in Asia makes me.

My girlfriend and I both started working almost as soon as we got back home.  Before we knew it almost four years had flown by.  It happens just like that. Zoom!

A lot happened in those four years - I bought a house, got married, went on an amazing honeymoon, made friends, lost friends, pursued a new career, and started a writing project.  But also in that time I started getting antsy again.  My wife and I started talking more and more about our future.  And the more we talked, the more we realized that we didn't have much time.  Our lives were getting more complicated each day, and the opportunity we were looking for - the opportunity to seemingly blow off our responsibilities here and flee the country - wasn't going to be around forever.

Indonesia

So, we quit our jobs to backpack around Asia and Australia. We are extremely lucky to be able to take this time to travel and we want to take you with us! This blog will detail our trip with words and photos.  I have no idea what this will all look like at the end of our trip but I hope it will allow you to travel along side us.

I hope you will enjoy following it!