I meant to post this a couple days ago, but my internet has been spotty at best.
As many people know, I stopped working at Mozilla in December of last year. The story deserves its own post, though I doubt it’s one I’ll ever write. This post, however, is more of a post-post-mortem, to write about what I’m doing now and where I’m headed.
In mid-February, I sold or disposed of 99% of everything I owned. What’s left of my physical possessions fits into three, fairly heavy carry-on sized suitcases and an over-packed messenger bag. Suffice to say, a year ago, I never saw myself making this type of move.
The beginning
I guess most of this started back in 2008.
That year, I woke up one morning and decided to visit Thailand for my yearly vacation. Most people I know take a couple two-week vacations every year. I prefer to take one long vacation, usually three to four weeks. Being able to truly decompress and relax is something wonderful. But, back to Thailand.
I knew people who had gone to Thailand and, for some reason, I felt the urge to head West. Five months later, I was there. I spent a month in Thailand, enjoying the beaches in the south and the mountains of the north, making friends with locals and expats alike. Coming back to work was the hardest thing I had ever done. While my job was more or less my life, something about the freedom of traveling clinched inside of me.
After returning, my mind was on leaving again. I talked a lot about walking around the world, stopping for a month or two at a time, whenever it felt “right”. Of course, doing so wasn’t something I was yet prepared for. But the seed was planted. I wanted to travel. I wanted to see the world.
In 2009, I got my chance to see more of the world. Traveling over 100,000 miles by air, and many more by car, train, and even boat, I hit four continents, and almost ten countries. More importantly, this lifestyle started to feel right.
The real beginning.
Personally, I’m not really one for superstition, astrology, or any of the related ideas. I find them to be patently false. On the rare occasions when fortune telling works, the resulting fortune seems far too vague for my taste.
Yet in 2004, I attended a party with a coworker that resulted in a startling glimpse of what my future would be. An hour or two into the party, a woman at leaned over to me and asked if I was a Libra. “Indeed, I am.” Unfortunately, she didn’t know the precise information about my particular birthday. A quick trip downstairs and back she was with a large book in hand. I’d later purchase this book just because of how accurate it was.
She read, with increasing accuracy, the details of who I was – who I am. The book described how I was born to travel, how I wasn’t ever satisfied in one place for too long. Sure, it’d be possible to settle down, as long as I could continue to travel while settled.
The next morning, I left for a planned two-week road trip across the US, over seven thousand miles of travel.
Today.
I’m writing this blog post at the Mohammed V airport in Casablanca, Morocco. This year, I’ve completed fifteen travel segments, thirteen by air, two by train. In a few minutes, I’ll be on my fourteenth flight.
What I realized was that I’m happiest on the road and in the air. I relate to movies like Up in the Air, not because I’m destined for a hollow life of travel, but because the freedom that travel brings is truly wonderful. While it wasn’t actually my intention to visit Morocco on this trip, because I did, it likely means I’ll visit six continents this year (curse you, Antarctica!), including two new-to-me ones.
So with that in mind, this blog is hopefully going to change a bit, to include interesting stories from my travels and hopefully some pictures as well.