“A year to go around the world! A whole twelve months of scenes and curious happenings in far-off foreign lands! You have thought of doing this, almost promised yourself that when you got old enough, and rich enough, and could “spare the time,” you too would go around the world. Most of us get old enough; some of us get rich enough; but the time! the time! – to spare the time, to cut loose from goods and lands, from stocks and dreary desks, quit clients, patients, readers, home and friends – ay, and our enemies whom we so dearly love! Full many a promise must be broken and few the voyagers round the world.” -D.N. Richardson, “A Girdle Round the Earth”, 1888

Why not be one of the few ………..

So it’s official. After the Army, a couple overseas deployments, college days and the corporate tyranny – oops I mean world… We’ve decided to quit our jobs and take a mini quarter life retirement and are on our way to travelling indefinitely! We are starting out with a roadtrip around the U.S. then continuing on to the rest of the world. If we are visiting you please have cold beer, plush bed, home cooked meals, and a shower ready for us. Thanks! See you soon!!!

A little bit about TB:

Okay a little about me.  I joined the Army National Guard when I was 17.  I went straight to basic training after high school and then on to college.  My junior year of college I deployed to Iraq for a year.  It was an experience and I met great people who are still a huge part of my life.  My (wife), as I refer to her, being one of them.  You will hear about her later in the blog I am sure.  Once I came home from the deployment I went back to school for a couple of quarters then deployed to Germany.  That was a nice deployment!  After that I came back and finally finished my degree from OSU, go Buckeyes!!  I worked for a company I interned with until I moved to another defense contracting company which led me to meeting John (J).  We didn’t date initially.  He needed a little time to figure out how great I was..haha jk.  We both deployed to Afghanistan with the company and ended up sharing a 10×10 office.  As you can imagine one thing led to another and here we are.  We began planning this trip about a year ago.  J’s plan was to not have a plan and that is pretty much how it has worked out.  I am just excited to finally be doing this.  We are giving ourselves approximately a year– Hopefully we are still together at the end of it 🙂 Oh and a little shout out.  Thank you Mr. Moorhead for inspiring me to do this.

A little bit about J:

My turn. Growing up my family and I moved around a lot but for no particular reason other than to go somewhere new. We lived in a few different places in Ohio, Florida and even did a stint in Japan. As you can imagine, living on the move has given me the proverbial itch to keep moving. After a year of college I got the itch and joined the the National Guard, eventually deploying to Iraq. I met the best friends I’ll ever have while in the Army and I’m grateful for all of them, even the ones I don’t stay in touch with. Thankfully, I made it home safely from Iraq and was able to continue at OSU. I finished school in 2008 and started working for a defense contractor in Columbus, OH. The itch to keep moving hit me again and I found myself scratching it in another war-torn country, Afghanistan. I met TB in Columbus but, like she said, we were just friends at first. After I left for AFG, TB realized how much she really liked me and followed me all the way to the poorest country in the world…jk. We worked with each other in the closest quarters you could possibly imagine in AFG and, like she said, one thing led to another. 🙂

So I’ve ended up being the luckiest guy in the world. I’m in love with a beautiful girl who’s traveling the entire globe with me for as long as possible. Doesn’t get much better than that. The itch has got both of us now. We’ll be going as slow as possible, winging most of everything we do and enjoying whatever life throws at us along the way. Hope you like our story. 🙂

Check out my other blog about bad-ass Veteran entrepreneurs, www.patriotstartups.com. Every week or so I write a story about a Veteran-owned company that exemplifies all the great qualities of our military service members – dedication, perseverance, sacrifice, and motivation – all in the context of business and new ventures.