We are a young(ish) married couple embarking on a new adventure that doesn't involve procreation. Our love of travel has developed over our nine-year relationship while living in four different countries and traveling in countless others. Well, maybe not countless, but I'm too lazy to add them up.... Here's a little background on us and how this trip came about.
Elissa (that's me) is an American PR pro with a ravenous appetite, a weak stomach and a basic need for down time with a good book on the couch while eating popcorn.Vincent is a French IT whiz (some would say geek) with an equally ravenous (and completely undiscerning) appetite, a deep love of technical equipment and an immune system that rivals Superman.
In October 2010, while planning our vacations for the coming year, we got to talking about how there was just too much to see in this world for one lifetime. The thought was both exciting and depressing. At the time, Vincent had been in the same job for nearly three years and was fed up, while I had just started a new job and wasn't yet too attached to it. After talking for a while about all the places we wanted to see and all of the million things we wanted to do besides sit at our office desks in front of our computers for 50 hours a week, we started throwing around ideas about taking a few months off to volunteer abroad. That turned into talking about traveling while volunteering along the way, which turned into an idea to take a year off to travel and volunteer. Over a considerable amount of wine, sitting on our couch, we looked at each other and said, "Let's do this thing."
Once we made the decision, it was like a snowball effect- we immediately started the planning and things just got bigger and more serious and more solidified. We first looked at how much a year's traveling would cost us, and then looked at our finances to see how much time it would take to save that amount. After jiggling our budget around a bit, we discovered that, with a little discipline, we could save the necessary funds in one year. Bingo. 2012 is the year!
Since then, the time has passed in a flurry of planning activity and we have tried to document the planning along the way. This blog follows us from the very beginning- telling our friends and family and figuring out our route, throughout the trip itself. The blog is a joint effort: Elissa writes, Vincent takes pictures. If you like what you see, or even if you don't, let us know by emailing us at vincent.elissa@gmail.com.
For more information about the trip- activities, route, volunteering- please check out our first post and see the Our Route page. Thanks for following us on this adventure!
