I’m not sure how to start this post, because there is so much to say.
I guess the best place to start is by explaining our Grand Adventure.
The notion of a Grand Adventure has been swirling in my mind for many years now. I dreamed abstractly about leaving everything behind and travelling in foreign lands. Every time I went on vacation to a new place I would imagine myself living there, and wondering how different my daily experiences could be. And every time I came home from a trip I was a bit more depressed, and overwhelmed by the notion of returning to high pressure work, and the high stress “get shit done” mentality seems to pervade life in the US. That’s not to mention the state of anger, frustration, and fear experienced by many Americans due to the state of our government, and our highly divisive political institutions, which have left our country more divided than at any other time in my life (granted that’s only a little over 40 years as of this writing, but it’s still not great).
I was fortunate to be able to save heavily for the day when I could travel as part of my lifestyle. My abstract plan was to save as much as possible for 10-15 years, and then retire to live frugally on my savings, while enjoying travel to less expensive destinations, and generally spending my time in pursuits of personal interests rather than continuing to chase the almighty dollar. I started saving at a very high rate around 2017, knowing that the more I saved, and the harder I worked, the sooner I would be able to start devoting my time to enjoyable pursuits. I didn’t make it to my goal of early retirement before burnout caught up with me.
A note about ‘burnout’:
I really don’t care what you call this sensation, but the commonly accepted term seems to be ‘burnout’.
I’m not a doctor, or healthcare professional of any variety, so I can only speak to my experiences. To me, burnout, meant waking up everyday, and wishing I could do anything other than my current work. During working hours I would struggle constantly to focus on tasks. It was far worse when I had completed a task and needed to select a new task to work on. I was unmotivated in the extreme. Even major accomplishments only provided the most fleeting sense of satisfaction, usually lasting no more than a minute. When I finished a work day, or work week, I felt too tired to do much of anything. Things I was passionate about felt too difficult to spend time on, and I ended up watching a lot of pretty dumb TV while distracting myself playing games on my phone, or reading news articles that made me feel worse about the world and my country.
If you find yourself in this position, you are not alone, get some help, and work towards a less stressful life, whatever that means for you. You matter too much to work yourself to death.
With the help of my coach I came up with a plan for how I would continue working until the end of October, and I started talking very seriously with my partner, Farrah, about taking a year to travel abroad. I can’t over stress how helpful it was for me to have a coach to help me set goals, and stay focused on the right things. This is a big change for me, and I found it easy to get distracted by random concerns and considerations. Knowing I would be checking in weekly with my coach made it possible for me to push the distractions aside, so I could focus on critical tasks, like: getting my passport renewed, finding someone to look after our cat, figuring out what to do with our house and cars, etc.
In September, my job was eliminated during a round of layoffs. I was given a very fair severance package, and I left my former employer with no regrets, or hard feelings. I was less than two months away from my intended date of resignation, and I had done a lot of the planning I needed to do for our trip. We had a massive spreadsheet in the works with information about the places we wanted to visit, our budget, our expected expenses, our packing lists, our personal goals, and lengthy lists of resources about anything and everything I could think of that we might need on our trip. A lot of other things had started to fall into place at this point. One of my closest friends agreed to watch our cat for the year, and even sweetened the deal by expressing interest in renting our house, so our cat gets to stay in her home, and we were able to use some of the basement for storing our things. We found and purchased an international travel health insurance plan. We booked flights to visit my family over the holidays, then flights to Guatemala for early January, and also booked accommodations for two months at San Marcos la Laguna. We followed that up with booking a month in Belize for March. We also practiced packing, A LOT. At the last minute, another friend had proposed renting our car for us through Turo, which allows us to make a bit of passive income on our vehicle, rather than having to sell it, or put it in storage at a cost. Almost everything was planned that could be planned, and I was still anxious that somehow our trip wouldn’t happen and I would have to start a new job on January 4 rather than board a flight to Guatemala.
The last couple of weeks in Denver were a total whirlwind for us. We hosted a Thanksgiving dinner for nearly 20 friends in our house, which had to be completely packed into the basement in ten days. And then, we packed. And had last minute visits with friends. And packed some more. And had even more last minute visits with friends. By the night before our flight to DC I was exhausted, a bit anxious, and totally amazed by how many wonderful people we have in our lives who made extra time to spend with us before we left. I really felt all that love friends, and it means the world to me to know each and everyone of you. You know who you are.
On December 7th, we boarded our flight for DC to spend the holiday season with family and friends. This trip was also a whirlwind. We had a final marriage celebration the first weekend we were in town, which my sister hosted. (Farrah and I got married on June 2nd, 2022, which I will write more about in another blog post). We also spent most every evening with friends and family eating good food, and enjoying good wine and conversation. During the days we visited museums around DC, and worked at our personal passions (learning the mandolin for me).
We flew back to Denver on December 27th to attend the 3 night New Years Eve run of the String Cheese Incident at the Mission Ballroom. The shows were fantastic, and we enjoyed them with many great friends, several of whom were visiting from out of town. Our last couple of days in Denver were strange. It was very cold (-2 F), and we were staying in our house, which was now being rented by our friend. He generously offered to let us stay there while we were back in Denver, and as it turned out he was going to be out of town at the time, so we ended up being there to watch our cat. It was both wonderful, and odd, to be in a familiar space with different furnishings.
On January 4th at 7am MST, we boarded a plane to Guatemala via Dallas Fort-Worth. The trip was uneventful, and we arrived at our AirBnB in Antigua by late afternoon.
And that is the story of how we began our Grand Adventure.