It was five months. Five months of a whirlwind love affair with travel. Okay, that’s a cheesy, romance novel version of what we did, but it isn’t that far off.
You’ve maybe seen the ‘we quit our jobs to travel’ story before, and it can sound like a too-good-to-be-true, clickbait story. And in some cases, it is. But we really did it, and it is glamorous and not glamorous all at the same time.
We know you can’t just quit your job and never earn money again and be able to sustain that lifestyle, but it was the right move for us in the short term and has set us on a path towards a lifestyle that we enjoy and makes us happy.
It was no small feat, and it required letting go of a lot of things (ie. jobs, homes, material possessions, security, familiarity, etc.) and it was the happiest I’ve ever been.
So, this is the story of what led us to quit our jobs to travel and start this blog. And a bit about who we are, Colton and Nikki.
The Way it Began
When 2020 rolled around, we had just gotten married and were beginning down the path that we assumed was next after that milestone. We rented an apartment, both got jobs doing what we thought we wanted to do, and started saving for a house.
We didn’t really question any of it. Not until ‘rona moved into the neighborhood and then we began questioning EVERYTHING. I think everyone was having an existential crisis at that time, but ours manifested in this question: WHY?
Sitting down at dinner one night I looked at Colton and said, “so, we’re saving for a house right?” To which he replied, “yeah, I guess so.” Um, you guess so?
That so summed up how we had been looking at our life. I guess we’ll just fall into the next thing and just go with it? But I did not like the idea of that all of a sudden. So I countered with, “WHY?” And that just blew the door off the hinges and threw us into a period of complete confusion.
We started looking at everything SO differently from there.
It Started with a Tiny Idea
We argue over who came up with the idea first, but it began with moving into a tiny house.
Yeah.
At the time we were living in a 2 bedroom apartment and we weren’t even using the second bedroom except to store leftover junk from college. So of course we could easily downsize to a tiny home.
The idea here was to free up some income to therefore just not have to work as much. We had qualms with the typical 9-5 jobs we had gotten after college. There is nothing inherently wrong with a 9-5 job, but for me, it is the definition of hell on earth (especially if that hell is a desk).
For Colton, it isn’t so bad but what he craved was time. Time freedom began to be the goal for us, and it’s still what is driving us and the decisions we make to this day.
So the tiny house idea lasted for a while, but then quickly morphed into also wanting location freedom, which is decidedly more difficult to find. Remote jobs are fine, but it still just didn’t feel like enough freedom for us.
What if We Quit Our Jobs and Travel?
Somehow, after a few months, we ended up making quite a large jump to not only do we want time and location freedom, we actually just want to completely quit our jobs and travel!
Travel is something we have both always wanted for ourselves individually and as a couple. It didn’t become a priority for us after college or when we got married, so when was it ever going to become a priority? Would we just go on a week vacation once a year and call it good? For us, that didn’t feel good enough.
So, we quit our jobs to travel more and create a lifestyle that would allow us to travel frequently in the future.
I just need to interrupt myself for a moment.
Now, here you might be thinking we’re asking for too much and that we’re being a little greedy, and you would be right! If you aren’t greedy for your dreams, who else are you thinking is going to do it for you?
I am grateful for the job I had, but I don’t think it is wrong to want more from life than what society deems to be the good or right path, what is considered ‘conventional’.
WHY do you need to go down the same path as everyone else? College, job, house, dog, children, retirement, and no time for your dreams in between. I just didn’t want it, and I don’t think that makes me ungrateful or unrealistic.
I think it means that I’ve realized there are more options to choose from and I can choose any one of them!
The Details of the Trip
Alright… so that leads us to our trip. A year and a half of saving up aggressively and waiting for miss ‘rona to calm down a tad enough for us to feel comfortable leaving.
We wanted to do this safely, but we also knew that 2021 would be an amazing year to travel. Fewer crowds, lower prices, etc. We quit our jobs (didn’t want to keep them anyways!), sold most of what we owned, and packed up a carry-on and a backpack each.
We planned to start our trip with two weeks in Turkey, and that was as far as we planned. It was clear we couldn’t possibly plan 5-6 months of travel with corona around and expect it to go smoothly.
So, we decided to just plan as we went, and while that did mean we spent a lot of time planning while on the road, it also gave us so much freedom in our travels. Plus, isn’t it such a romantic idea to not know what tomorrow will bring (or where you’ll lay your head tomorrow night)?
We traveled for a little over 5 months to 18 countries. WOW. It was unbelievable and it was exactly what we had been wanting. It was adventurous and life-giving. I felt homesick for about five seconds and then never again.
We rode a hot air balloon above the desert in Cappadocia, went sledding and skiing in Switzerland, drove around Ireland for a week in a van, met elephants in Thailand, visited the smallest country in the world in Vatican City, danced in the streets in Barcelona, and ate all too much food at German Christmas Markets.
We did so much more too, which is why I started this blog in the first place, to share it all!
Now I Want to Help You Plan Your Next Adventure!
That’s the reason I’m here, starting a blog about how to travel more and live life to the full. It’s because when I read the paragraphs above, I get so giddy and a yearning to EXPERIENCE burns in me and calls me to more. I want to share that with people like me, who know the world is worth seeing and want to make it happen.
The way we did it is not the only way or even the best way.
You don’t have to quit your job to travel more, even just understanding how to do it cheaper can make it more attainable.
I want to help you incorporate as much travel into your life as you want and make the planning process for your upcoming trip a bit easier.
I hope you’ll let me share my experiences and help you plan your new adventures.
Stay adventurous,
Nikki
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