Nick and I met in college while studying abroad in West Africa. From that point on, traveling together was a big part of our relationship. I’m at my happiest sitting next to him, on our way to somewhere new. I have a distinct memory of the first trip we ever took together, rattling around in a very sketchy plane flying into the Gambia, thinking: I’m a nervous flier in a tin can in the sky, and I’m not sure that I’ve ever been happier than this.

We packed as much adventure as possible into our 20s and early 30s until March 2020 when it all came to a screeching halt. Obviously due to the pandemic, but also because it was when we found out I was pregnant. We were stuck at home, with nothing to do but dream about our family’s future. We started scheming.

We knew we couldn’t travel until the pandemic was over, and we knew that traveling with a baby was more work than fun. We also knew that we wanted our daughter to have a stable schooling experience and that once she started kindergarten we’d be limited to traveling during her school breaks. This left us with a very small window when she’d be old enough to travel, but not yet in school.

In late-2020 we agreed: we’ll take the last year before she starts kindergarten and travel around the world. This would give us 5 years of planning and saving. I remember looking up school cut off dates and doing the math for when exactly this would be. 2025-2026. It was years away! And now suddenly, it’s months away.

As I write this, in early October of 2024, we have just recently, wholeheartedly, decided that Yes. We are doing this. I will quit my job. We’ll pull Millie out of her beloved preschool. We will get those extra fat passports to fit all the stamps and visas. We will rent out our house. We will live out of bags. And we’ll spend the next year, together as a family, on our way to somewhere new.

I’m starting this blog to document our planning and to share updates with family as we go. More than anything though, I’m writing it for Millie who at 4 years old may not remember most of the trip. As I write I’ll imagine her at 16, discovering this documentation, and staying up into the night reading it while the puzzle of her memory gets put together, one piece at a time.