In America, the term ‘food court’ is synonymous with shitty fast food, Orange Julius, and middle schoolers. How far from the truth this is when it comes to Taipei. We quickly found out that food courts in Taipei are nothing like what we think of back home. They’re filled with a dizzying array of every Asian cuisine imaginable, and all of it very high quality. To the uninitiated, it may be hard to believe, but the food courts of Taipei are not…
I first came across Taiwan’s Muyumugi Gorge last spring in a short article that was linked to in a Reddit post. The author described an off-the-beaten-path swimming hole, just a short bus ride outside of Hualien, with water so clear you could see straight through to the rocks on the river bed. The pictures looked awesome and it sounded like not many tourists made it there so I promptly clipped the article to Evernote. Like most of the random tidbits that wind up…
“One day we should…” – this little phrase seems to follow me around every where I go. Or maybe I’m the one following, collecting little bits of inspiration scattered along the trail of not enough time. In a sense, our entire upcoming trip is all about the ‘one day we shoulds’ and trying to ensure that the pages off our story are filled with what we’ve done and few regrets. And what better way to start off this chapter than…
We chose to start in Taiwan for a few reasons: tickets to Taipei were cheap, we have heard Taiwan is a foodie’s paradise, it is small enough that you can explore the whole country, and it was in Asia (our desired starting point). To be honest, I am not sure if I knew that much about this country when we signed up to come here. We have walked until our feet want to fall off, tried out the food, sweated…
The first day of our trip have been a whirlwind. One minute we were in New Jersey saying bye to family and the next (actually, more like 24 hours, but who’s counting?) we were halfway across the world. The only goal of the evening was to find our accommodations for the night, an Air B&B in the Da-an District. Our research, done on a layover in the San Francisco airport, told us there was a bus we could take from…
After our crazy couple of weeks in Denver wrapping up at our jobs, spending some time with family with a quick trip to Texas, packing everything in our house, and several send-offs from our amazing friends…we needed some serious relaxing time. Thank you to everyone who wished us well on our journey in the past few weeks. I can speak for both of us when we say that we were completely overwhelmed (in the best way possible) and feel so loved….
How do you plan a year long trip? Great question and we are not quite sure if we know how either…although we have figured out a few things along the way! One-Way Tickets We bought one-way tickets to Taipei, Taiwan leaving on August 16, 2016! We considered buying a RTW plane ticket, but there are so many rules and restrictions you have to follow. Since we did not want to plan our route completely before leaving and we wanted the…
“If you think adventure is dangerous, try routine; it is lethal.” – Paulo Coelho I quit my job today. It was a good job; I was paid well, I learned a lot, I worked with cool people on challenging problems, I grew as a person, as a software developer and, for the most part, I had the freedom to come into work and do whatever interested me….
Recently I quit my job. I didn’t want to do it. Absolutely zero interest. This was the thing that I was dreading the most. I wish there was a way to stay gainfully employed at my company and travel the world all at the same time, but sadly this was not an option. My 9 to 5 Gig This job has been my first “real” job out of college. I have been challenged daily over the past three years and…
A RTW trip has been a dream of ours for the past several years. It does seem slightly crazy (even to us) to leave our careers and “normal” life for an unconventional one, but it also seems crazy to look back on your life and have regrets. While there is never a great time to drop everything to travel for a year we think that there is no better time than right now. The Backstory I (Shelby) always dreamed that…