http://VrienDuineN.tripod.com
http://VrienDuineN.tripod.com Other than wanting to experience what it's like to be unemployed before we reach retirement age, we wanted to break away from the "get married, buy a house, live for the two week vacation, save money for a new car" mentality. Climbing the corporate ladder isn't important to either of us, so quitting our jobs wasn't so much of a problem. Saving up money for our trip wasn't too hard either - we live pretty simply and in the year before our adventures, we took more radical measures in our attempts to fund a year of traveling (we sold one of our cars, put a freeze on any big or nonessential purchases.)
The hard part was deciding where to go and what to do. At the beginning of our planning, we considered visiting every continent in the world. However, cost and the realization that we just couldn't do it all (that and we had to leave some places for our next big trip!) brought our plans to a more realistic level.
We knew we wanted to travel and "see the world", but we also knew that we wanted to spend time in long-term volunteering opportunities. We experienced some setbacks when we realized that most volunteering jobs require you to pay for lodging, food, and sometimes even thousands of dollars for the experience itself. This was a problem for our limited budget!
Details, however, began to fall into place when our two friends, Dan and Sarah (who were also planning to travel for a few months), suggested that the four of us travel together in SouthEast Asia...on bikes. It was a new idea to us but after thinking...for about two minutes...we jumped on the bandwagon. Part of the exciting thing for us was that we found out we could do a month of volunteer work at a Christian NGO in Cambodia.
Then, in a book Deb had read a few years ago, we came across the name of an organization whose work and philosophy inspired us. The Open Door in Atlanta, Georgia is a homeless shelter that operates under the Catholic Worker ideals. We contacted them, applied, asked if we could spend the second half of our year off working for them, and then accepted their offer to do so!
Did people think we were crazy? Most definitely! Some of the more stellar responses we received were: "Quit your jobs? Are you out of your mind?" "Why would you ever want to travel in Southeast Asia - why not just go to Europe?" "Why waste all that money when you could use it to buy a new car or put a down payment on a house?" However, we also received encouragement as well: "This is the time in your life to do something like this - go for it!" "We wish that we had done something like that when we were your age"
Would we do it again? Most definitely! In fact, we're already planning our next trip! South America, the Trans-Siberian Railway...are just a few of the future possibilities!
