“All men dream, but not equally.  Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity, but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible.”  — T. E. Lawrence

The whole idea started simply enough.  In 2009, I had decided to take my first transatlantic trip by myself.  Actually, it was the first trip of it’s kind for me.  I’d been to Canada on multiple occasions, Central America, and the Caribbean.  But France….. it was a long way for me.  Before I left, I had found a Vineyard in the Languedoc region of France that also serves as a Bed and Breakfast.  Arriving at Chateau Haut-Blanville can be a bit of a challenge considering there is no public transportation from its closest city, Bezier.  It was a major highlight of my trip, and one that I almost did not accomplish.  After being stranded in Bezier for one night due to problems encountered using my credit card to book the rental car, I thought I’d have to miss this part of the trip.  But I was committed – so I asked around and located a motorcycle dealership that rented motorcycles just 15 km away.  After arriving there and waiting around for 2 hours, I was able to finally acquire a motorcycle for 2 nights.  An hour and a half later, I arrived at the Chateau.

Later in the day, I found myself relaxing in an Adirondack chair reading the book Vagabonding by Rolf Potts.  I was glued to this book that was describing to me all the experiences I could be having traveling the world, and how to go about doing it.  Maybe it was my new-found confidence arriving at my destination, but I was immediately taken with the idea of traveling the world myself.  The book describes in detail some of the things a person will most likely need to do to make traveling for an extended period of time a reality.  For me, this included renting or selling my house, downgrading my life, finding cheaper ways to travel, do a better job budgeting my cash-flow, save enough money to sustain me for the duration of my trip, etc.

I knew it wouldn’t be easy and quite honestly, I’m not sure I fully committed to the idea right away.  But it infected me and once I finally committed to the idea, it helped me to focus my energies towards completing some projects and to organize my life to help make this dream a reality.  I was in the middle of finishing off my basement and doing some repairs to my house.  I also had a room under my garage full of junk and unused items that I knew I would need to get rid of.

It has been huge undertaking for me.  It’s quite possibly the largest project I’ve ever undertaken.  My magnum-opus, if you will.  I’ve had to undergo a huge transformation and conquer many challenges, fears, and insecurities along the way.  It has been almost 4 years since I sat in that Adirondack chair and first had this idea.  I’ve had to make many sacrifices and take a much different path than I thought I originally would have made.  I’m currently three to four months out from my departure and to be perfectly honest, I’m scared.  But, the trans-formative potential that this idea could have on my life is too great to ignore.  It’s an ambitious idea and I’m excited.

The idea is this – fly to South America and visit Peru, Ecuador, Argentina and Chile.  From Santiago, Chile, I hope to take a flight to Easter Island.  Easter Island has been a huge draw for me ever since I first saw pictures of the large Moai when I was in the 3rd grade.  After Easter Island, I hope to fly to Southeast Asia for some Scuba Diving.  I hope to be gone 6 months to a year.  Am I crazy for doing this?  Possibly.  But I believe that it takes a little bit of “crazy” to accomplish great things.