The Story
In the summer months of 2007, I came upon the realization that I wasn't very happy with where I was in my life. This struck me as very odd - just the previous fall, I had landed a great job and moved to New York city to run my own office. Career wise, I was golden.
Personally though, I wasn't satisfied. I had worked all my life and success was serving as an easy excuse to keep with the status quo. I would find myself staring at maps of the world, looking at photographs from across the globe, and imagined what it would be like at that exact moment to be sitting in the middle of Belgium or camped out in the Andes. Its what I had dreamed of for years. One day a friend was visiting me and when I told him about it, he joked that I might as well just quit everything and move.
The idea stuck. After some time of contemplation and discussing it with my friends and family, I decided to do it. I turned in my notice to work, started selling my stuff in New York, and finally after months of thought - actually years of thought - purchased a plane ticket.
The Plan
I've been doing a lot of research on where I'm going, but nothing is set in stone per say. I plan on spending the fall in Europe, primarily Scandanavia, Eastern Europe, and Italy. As far as after that, we'll see. I've been telling people who ask that I plan on travelling for at least a year - sometimes I say until the money runs out. The truth is, I have never done anything like this before. I can't tell you where I'll be four months from now, let alone what my state of mind will be.
However, I'm not going to go into this totally unprepared. While I have never travelled for extensive periods of time, I consider myself an experienced backpacker and have spent weeks travelling abroad through Germany, Costa Rica, Ireland, Jamaica, and lived in Japan when I was younger. The idea of being alone in a foriegn country doesn't scare me - sitting at home because I didn't do something like this does.
The Blog
Along the way, I'll be taking pictures, posting stories to this blog, and sharing the experience with friends near and far. I also have an email mailing list through which I'll be posting updates to friends. Feel free to send me an email at jmilwaukee@yahoo.com if you'd like to be added.
