I have to start this off by recognizing the incredible, absolutely incredible amount of privilege we have been graced with in being able to have experienced this adventure. Yes we made significant sacrifices in order to make this happen, but being healthy enough, wealthy enough and fortunate enough to possess a passport that was welcomed by the places that we visited are all paramount to having made this possible. Not to mention the incredible facebook communities that helped us to learn and plan this journey of a life time.
Where did we go?
By the numbers
Since I’m a bit of a numbers geek, I decided to pull together some metrics on what we did.
- Different beds slept in: 40
- Apartments rented: 5
- Hotels rented: 34
- Cruises taken: 1
- Cars rented: 3
- Total flights: 16 (12 international )
- Highspeed trains taken: 9
- iPad screens broken: 2
- Days spent outside of the United States: 184!
- Spend a month in a country where the native language isn’t English.
- Get medical treatment outside of the US
- Use public transit in a country where we don’t speak the language
- Walk one of the Camino de Santiago routes
- Cross an ocean by cruise ship
We were successful in all of those things. For more details just check out some of our blog posts. Thanks to my favorite nomad influencer, Amy and her incredible facebook community, Go With Less, we met up with other nomads in Mexico, Turkey, Latvia and Spain. And we also got to spend a lot of time with 20 other nomads and slow travelers on our first Go With Less cruise across the Atlantic.
We went dancing in most of the countries that we visited. We did Salsa, Bachata, Zouk and Rueda in Mexico, Zouk in Japan, Tango in Turkey, Bachata, Salsa and Rueda in Latvia, Tango in Spain… and you know what? Dance is a universal language. I’m incredibly thankful for having spent the past 20 years learning and loving social dance because as a slow traveler it’s a super power. Being able to show up at a social dance in a country where you don’t speak the language and just have a great time with the locals is absolutely magical.
Going slow
The other big goal here was to see if we would enjoy this. It was a grand experiment of living differently and it was going to be so different that I couldn’t even wrap my head around what it might feel like.
Would I be filled with anxiety, so worried about what could go wrong that I couldn’t enjoy it? Would I regret having tossed just about my entire life into the scrap heap in trade for a life of uncertainty and doubt? Would we adapt to the constant newness of changing locations every few weeks? Would I die from an accident caused by dull Airbnb knives? Who knew!
Well, now that we’ve done it, I can say whole heartedly that living like this is absolutely *amazing*. I thought that I liked traveling before, but I had no idea how much better travel could be when you’re not in a hurry to “see it all.”
We went to Mexico City with essentially no itinerary. We learned about things to do while we were there and then calmly made plans to do the ones that sounded like fun. Being able to be in a new (to me) city and being 100% fine with just sleeping in, or having the entire day’s activity be “go to the park and have a picnic” is beyond even my most optimistic dreams. It’s like everything that drove me to want to travel in the first place, but 100x better!
So now what?
Well, I’m writing this from Saint Louis now on our first return trip. We’ve already got the next 12 months mapped out. For now our plans are to return to the US about twice a year and to spend the rest of our lives visiting places and trying to check off bucket list items while we’re still young and healthy enough to do so. Life is short, joy is fleeting. Live now, while you still can.
