For the past 8 years, my wife and I have spent six months out of every 24 months living abroad. Six months abroad, 18 months in San Diego—rinse and repeat. It's become one of the rhythms of our lives and is one of my favorite parts of my life. The idea here was always simple; if we kept up this routine, we'd end up taking more than 20 Trips of a Lifetime.
Tomorrow, we leave the US again—but for the first time, we're leaving on a one way ticket.
I'm as excited about this as I've ever been about anything. We've sold or donated almost everything we own and we've rented out our place in San Diego. The remainder of our earthly possessions are packed away in the storage unit pictured below.
Over the next six months we'll be living in:
- Barbados
- Nairn, Scotland
- Martina Franca, Italy
- Alpe de Siusi, Italy
- Asturias, Spain
- Galacia, Spain
- Cyclades, Greece
After that is open ended, but the tentative plan is to land somewhere in Spain and stay for a while.
We started doing this when we were single, but kept it up after having kids—we traveled with 18 month olds and with three year olds, but my (twin) boys are now five. This is the first trip that we know they'll truly remember.
While we'll return to San Diego at some point, we decided to do this now for a couple of reasons:
- My kids will be going into Kindergarten, so we feel like they are still young enough that we can do this without them missing "real school." I know they'll learn far more about the world from this adventure than they will in a Kindergarten classroom.
- Our whole family wants to learn Spanish—we're going to force the issue via total immersion.
I've gone around the sun enough times to recognize that I have no natural talent when it comes to learning instruments or languages, so total immersion is my attempt to force it. I know that my kids will pick up Spanish far faster than I will.
While it wasn't the impetus for this trip or it's extension, I'd be lying if I said I also wasn't looking forward to leaving the US this time. What's unfolding in the US right now is ominous, and the culture of the country is toxic. I'm looking forward to stepping into a different atmosphere.
I will miss San Diego—it's become our home and it's a place that I love. We have a group of the most crazy and open-minded friends you could imagine here, who have become our extended family. I've never found a place where more people are optimizing for their own happiness, and that's every bit as infectious as the weather.
But for me, I've found that the changing of environments and cultures suits me. I'm more interested and more curious about nearly all aspects of life when I'm constantly encountering new circumstances. They say variety is the spice of life, and that definitely rings true for me when it comes to place. I'm definitely one that finds too much routine to be mundane. We have so little time to see all that's out there.
So adios, amigos... I'm not entirely sure where I'll end up.
I couldn't be more excited to meet so many new places and faces.
