I confess, whenever I hear someone say, “The best things in life are free”…it kind of gets under my skin. I understand why they’re saying it, of course, but I think it undermines a whole lot of other philosophies on life and money. My perspective on money has changed greatly over the years. I’ve always been naturally inclined to be thrifty…spending my high school years garage sale and second-hand...

The speed in which you form friendships while traveling is unlike any other friendship-making we’ve experienced. In contrast, we’ve found that friendships made in “normal life” develop painfully slow. It seems they follow these unwritten rules of mandatory stages. First, you meet under the pretenses of casual conversation which must take place repeatedly for quite some time. After it was been solidified that there is potential...

People ask us what it is like to live a “normal” life now, assuming that we’re just itching to escape and go on the run again. This couldn’t be further from the truth. The reality is that we haven’t returned to “real life”…we’re experiencing “real life” for the first time! Jared and I met in Alaska back in 2002, and we have lived anything but a normal life since. We married in Spring 2003, and lived seasonally in...

Someone recently asked us if traveling was life-changing for us. My immediate response was “No,” and I defended it by saying that traveling has simply reinforced our already unique perspective on life. After all…before living and traveling abroad, we lived a seasonal life in Alaska. We moved to and from there every six months, and met people traveling from all over the world. We hadn’t led a sheltered life from foreigners, and we...

Last year I shared my Thanksgiving thoughts, and expressed my gratitude for several things, including the opportunity to travel the world. I wrote about how thankful I was for a supportive family and flexible job, and wrote: “I feel that taking advantage of this opportunity to travel helps me outwardly express my gratitude for such great blessings!” This year I feel like I’ve come full circle. After living out of my home country for 2...

Yes, you read that right. After 10+ years of marriage, 18 moves, and traveling full time for the past year—we have finally done the one thing we swore we wouldn’t do anytime soon… We bought a house! I know a lot of you are asking…”So what does this mean? Are you done traveling? Are you finally ready to settle down and be normal?” Geesh, people. I wouldn’t go that far! We will never be normal. We’ve proved that! I’ve never...