Travel - An Incurable Addiction

Someone once told me that travel was addictive. Like a drug. Once you experienced it, you'd always want more. Once it gets into your veins you need it and there is only one cure, one fix, for this addiction...

At the Acropolis, Athens, Greece in 2014

More travel.


And I firmly believe this. Once you've really truly experienced travel your life is never the same. Sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worst. The memories will make you happy and sad at the same time. Not traveling slowly destroys your soul. Sitting in a windowless office, padding someone else's pockets destroys your soul. While it's nice to have a steady job and a steady income... You can always make money. They print more of it every day! You may not always be able to travel. Do it while you can. And so... We are!

Geoff and I have decided to take the plunge and travel again. This time we'll be sticking close to home. We'll be staying in my two home countries. A visit to my homeland of Canada and a further exploration of my adopted home, the USA. We realized that while we both live here we really haven't seen much of this vast country we call home. We went back and forth on what mode of transportation we'd like to use this time. A car? An RV? Maybe a motorcycle? With a sidecar!? Back and forth we went but in the end we decided on probably the most difficult choice. We'd buy a van and convert it to a camper. Make it our own. Fit it out the way we wanted since what we really wanted didn't seem to exist (at least in our price range). Oh, and we'd complete the construction in about a month...

Checking out Prambanan, Yogyakarta, Indonesia in 2011

What did we get ourselves into!?!

We've been working steadily on our new home on wheels and dreaming of our route. I know you'll all have a ton of questions like: When? Where? Why? How? and... What the hell are you thinking!?

So let's address those questions:

When: Our time table is fairly loose. We'll leave probably the week of my birthday and the only time constraints are as follows: my dear friends wedding in St. John's, Newfoundland in early September; Geoff starts school back here in Seattle at the end of September, and well actually that's it!

Where: We're looking at doing sort of a counterclockwise circle around the US. We've got season passes to Six Flags. There are 13 parks and we'll try to visit all of them except the one in Mexico City. We'll be visiting a lot of National Parks and visiting family and friends. If we get to a place and like it we'll stay for a while. If we're not feeling a place we'll move on.

Splurging on an over water bungalow at Oyster Island, Espiritu Santo, Vanuatu

Why: Well, as I said above; travel is addictive. We're constantly dreaming of places to visit, trips to take and telling stories of our past travels. We're at a good place right now to take this trip. And really, what better time than right now. We couldn't come up with any real reason NOT to go now. So away we go!

How: This is one of the perks of being careful with money and not having children or pets. We can pick up and leave when we want to without worrying about what to do with the tiny humans or our four legged, furry friends. We save money so that we can do things like this. And yes I'm quitting my job so we can go frolic and play in our van. haha!

Seeing Rarotonga, Cook Islands by scooter in 2010

What the hell are we thinking? umm... sometimes I'm not sure. But we like a challenge and we're capable of doing the construction on the van ourselves, which is something we've never done before.

So there you have it. That's the plan. Our plan. In our van.

Keep an eye on this blog for updates on our travel and how we converted our van from empty shell to our comfy home away from home! Most of the time it will be me writing about our adventures. Geoff may do a post here or there or perhaps describing some of the ways we put our van together!

And because you made it all the way to the end, here is a beautiful sunset picture from our time on Fanning Island, Kiritbati in 2010 while aboard the sailing cargo ship S/V KWAI.

Till next time: Fair winds my friends.

- Marsha (and Geoff)

Sunset on Fanning Island, Kiribati 2010