When I look back at my existence before I left Canada to pursue this dream of travel & adventure, I see a life full of things that I didn’t really want to do. I had to wake up early in the morning (oftentimes 6:00am, or even 2:00am) to go to work at a job that I didn’t find satisfying. I would work 12 hour days with no reward other than a fat pay cheque, but the long hours and subsequent exhaustion meant that I couldn’t really spend and enjoy the money as much as I would have liked.
A working Goat (circa 2006)
I would work all week and look forward to the weekend, but when the weekend came I was too tired to really plan anything major, plus I had a bunch of chores that needed completing and obligations that needed to be met – both of which I couldn’t finish during the week because I was too busy.
I would have to take the car into the shop and spend money to fix it; the sink needed repair; the house needed to be cleaned; the laundry machine was squeaking and everything was adding up. sometimes I would have to take a holiday, just to catch up on things that I didn’t even want to do.
On top of all of that, I wanted to make time to spend with friends and family, but with so little time for myself, this wasn’t all that easy.
This is not an unfamiliar story to most, in fact… this is considered the normal life.
Bemærk venligst
This article is for those who are interested in travelling and living abroad full time. If your life is exactly where you want it to be right now, then you’ve already accomplished what this post is trying to get across. You don’t have to travel to be happy, you just have to live your life doing what you love. As this article is written on a blog designed do inspire others to live a life of freedom, travel and adventure, it is targeting those interested in travelling as a lifestyle.
Once I decided to jump off of the ever-growing cliff of my working life, everything changed. In the first month of travelling, I had done more, seen more and experienced more than I had in the previous decade of my life. instead of having a few hours every weekend to do what I wanted, I had 24 hours / day, 7 days / week – now that’s a lot of free time!
A couple Of Goats (circa 2008)
And what did I do? I snorkelled with sharks, explored ancient temples, chilled on white sand beaches, swam in tropical waterfalls, ate exotic foods and explored a region of the world that seemed so far from my own, that it felt like it was on a different planet. This was all in the first month.
Dariece and I spent over a year travelling through Southeast Asia, India and Sri Lanka and when we returned home, we were in shock. It was the same shock that all long-term travellers experience.
Our lives had completely shifted and yet we were going to have to return to work and assimilate back into the normal life.
The world had simply stood still in Canada, while we had been going 1,000 miles a minute for 13 months straight.
We did everything we could to return to the travelling life that we loved so much. It wasn’t easy at first. We had to sacrifice another year of our lives doing the very thing that we had worked so hard to escape in the first place.
…But finally, after one final year of working in Canada, we were ready to completely detach from the 9-5 (or in my case, 7-7) lifestyle.
We’ve now spent more than 2015 days on the road and well over $100K living our dreams. That’s nearly 30,000 waking hours doing exactly what we want, when we want. No chores. No broken down vehicle. No angry boss. No alarms (except for the occasional early flight). No drama. Ingen stress.
If we had we stayed at home, I would have worked around 17,000 hours, gone on a couple of week-long holidays and maybe saved a few bucks for a rainy day.
I would’ve spent over $250,000 on mortgage & bills. A mortgage which was bloated with interest, and came with an equity that would have crashed along with the global market.
I would have spent even more money on useless material things that provided me with a short and unsatisfying level of happiness.
The car That cost Me more Headache Than Enjoyment
In the end, had I continued the way I was going, my life would be in much the same place today as it was on November 19, 2008 (the day we dared to jump).
What did we do to deserve this life? We simply took a risk, looked for a better way of life and followed our dreams. It may sound cheesy, but it’s true.
We often write on this blog about “how you too can live a life of freedom, travel & adventure”, but the truth is… all you need to do is jump.
The minute we realized that life didn’t have to be a chore, everything started going vores måde. I stedet for, at forhindringer konstant vises på vores vej, havde vi en klar vej direkte til frihed.
Vi skriver ikke om vores lykke, vores succes og vores spændende liv for muligheden for at prale. Vi føler, at vi har knækket en kæmpe kode, og vi vil fortælle dig alt om det.
Vi nyder at dele vores historier om at krydse Centralasien ved land og klatre på Himalaya -bjergene, men den ultimative glæde ved vores rejseblogging er, når nogen e -mailer os og fortæller os, at de har besluttet at forlade det hele for at udforske verden – At forfølge et lykkeligere og friere liv.
Jeg håber, at dette indlæg vil inspirere nogle af jer til at overveje en ændring. Eller hvis du allerede har taget springet, håber jeg, at du nikker dit hoved lige nu og er enig i følelsen af denne artikel.
Tusinder af mennesker over hele kloden vågner op. Der er titusinder af rejseblogger i disse dage, og mange af dem tjener nok penge til at støtte et liv med frihed, rejse og eventyr.
Folk underviser i engelsk i udlandet, frivilligt arbejde i Afrika, woofing i New Zealand, fører dykke i Micronesien og bryder sig fri fra fjederne i et “arbejde hårdt og vær stolt over, at du ikke tager helligdage” -mentalitet.
Dariece og jeg vågner op hver dag og ser på hinanden med enorme smil på vores ansigter. Uanset om vores sludder er brudt af solen, der reflekterer af en sø i Guatemala, eller af en havbrise fra vores midlertidige hjem i Caribien … vi er glade.
Vi ser ærligt ikke, hvordan vores liv kunne blive bedre, og når jeg virkelig tænker over det … er dette liv, hvad det er, fordi vi ikke behøver at gøre noget, som vi ikke ønsker.
Dette niveau af frihed er noget at værne om, og det er noget, som enhver kan opnå. Jeg vælger et uredeligt liv, fordi jeg en dag, når jeg er på min dødsseng, vil se tilbage på mit liv med et smil på mit ansigt. Jeg vil være i stand til at huske mit liv med komforten ved at vide, at jeg virkelig fik mest ud af det.
Der er for mange utrolige muligheder, der venter i verden til at tilbringe dit liv plaget af pligter og ulykke. Livet er for kort!
Når springet til frihed er taget, vises sikkerhedsnet, der dæmper faldet for de modige nok til at hoppe i første omgang.
Mine første sikkerhedsnet kom i form af en støttende familie og et utroligt forhold til Dariece. Derefter fulgte mere i form af engelskundervisningsmuligheder, frivilligt arbejde, hussæder og til sidst blev min faldskærm indsat, og jeg landede på denne rejseblog.
Billede af: Wikimedia Commons
Dine sikkerhedsnet kommer muligvis i forskellige former, men de er der, du kan bare ikke se dem, hvis du står øverst på klippen. Det er ikke svært at frit falde, når du er sprunget, og der er tusinder af glade og frie mennesker i bunden, der ser op på dig og råber: “Gå efter det!”.
Er du klar?
Hvis du vil tage dette spring, men du ikke er sikker på, hvor du skal starte, kan du tjekke vores Sustaining Travel -sektion for utrolige ideer til, hvordan du kan tjene penge online, på vejen og på farten. Hvis du stadig ikke er overbevist, skal du klikke her for mere inspiration.
Kan lide det? Pin det! ?
Ansvarsfraskrivelse: Geder på vejen er en Amazon -associeret og også et tilknyttet selskab for nogle andre detailhandlere. Dette betyder, at vi tjener provision, hvis du klikker på links på vores blog og køber fra disse detailhandlere.
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