This fall Carl and I get to do 2 really amazing things, get married (and throw one hell of a party) and take off for a trip around the world. If I believed in Jesus I would #blessed this but I don’t so #privileged would be more accurate (It’s not a bad thing but it’s true).

For those that know me, I have not spent my whole life dreaming of Prince Charming and I surely didn’t have a dress picked out before I had a partner. Some might even call me a militant feminist (I’m looking at you Jolie). I won’t be walking down the isle to Carl and I won’t be taking his name but I am really really excited to partner with him and share in both big and little adventures.

And the first one is BIG. A year of freedom,  of nothing and everything, of discomfort as well as pure joy. It’s one year that takes a lot of planning to have very little planned. We are flying (and sailing) off to just explore.

A year abroad is something I have been dreaming of for a really long time. I’m not sure when it first crossed my mind as a possibility -Likely sometime in my late teens when I started learning how really accessible the world is. It’s a great big little place.

The first question we tend to get a lot of is where are we going. There is a rough draft but otherwise little set in stone. The big solid as a rock part of the trip includes 3 continents and 53 days on a 90 foot sailboat. There will be a full pre-trip blog post with more on that. The general drift of the trip is we start in South America and then head east until we are back where we started.

The second question we get a lot is how will you pay for that. I will say, planning a wedding (especially one the turned into a bigger thing that either of us planned) and taking a year off was probably not the best idea. Saying both things are expensive is an understatement. But we’ve both worked really hard and travel is far cheaper than most people expect -about half the price of living in the Bay.

For the last two years I’ve worked 2 full time jobs- somewhere between 65 and 80 hours a week. Carl is exceptionally good with money and has basically donated his savings account to my culturally not normative ideas on life. We are very very fortunate to both have great careers. But we also have massive debt (ok, I have massive debt) so with some work and planning anyone could travel for a year.

Reflecting on my personal experience traveling and a lot of research we hope to keep everything under 50k for the both of us. And that price is so high because of that not so short sail boat ride. If you are cool to take it slow, thrifty as shit  and down for a bed bug or 2 you could manage doing it for 10-15K per person.

So- read along if you’d like or better yet save for the next 6 months to a year and join us for a bit of adventure.

And if you’ve got questions? Ask away!