Travel Blog

The longer I'm on the road, the more respect I have for people like Lea Rieck and Tim Burke who seem to be able to be constantly writing and editing photos while still traveling and exploring... the travelers that have the ability to do both blow my mind! Alas, I have not been that quick and 5 months, 5 countries, and 20,000km later here is the first part of my journey - New Zealands North Island. With peg dragging, beach riding, leg burning, hotspring soaking, and culturally enlightening experiences, I hope you enjoy the read!

You'd think that once a shipment has arrived it would be a quick and efficient process to get it out of customs right? Yeah. Funny how that works. Despite already being 3 weeks late, the process of actually getting to Robin (although not all of her.... grrr) was quite the experience!

New Zealand has been incredible, so many adventures to be had, so much family to re-meet, and an endless array of scenery to take in (and take photos of!). But, since there's so much it's been incredibly difficult to choose what to write about!

What is lifes purpose, what am I doing, why are things not going how I think they should.... There are many reasons why and in this post there's a brief description of what my plans are while I travel!

I’ve now realized playing catchup is near impossible when doing travel blogging. Unlike the Happiness Diaries which are able to be done well after the fact if needed, day to day activities, highs and lows, thoughts etc all seem to disappear if you don’t put pen to paper (of fingers to keyboard) relatively soon after. In this sense, I’ll be brief in my summary of the sailing trip so that I can concentrate on being up to date with my current travels.

Real travel with Robin may not have started, but as a transition to unemployment sailing with two of my best friends and my dad is not the hardest thing I've ever had to do!

All of a sudden its real. I've worked my last hours, gotten my last paycheck, and have actual flights booked. My rental place is empty (to be refilled shortly by a friend). My condo has got long term renters in it. My bags are (mostly) packed... maybe real wasn't the right word as its feeling surreal!

I'm going to run through all the things I'm planning on bringing with me. Since my first 2 countries are New Zealand and Australia, I feel that starting as light as possible is the best bet and figuring out additional thing (like spare parts) are best to do as I go.

How do you decide where to go? there are so many places to go, so many things to see, how do you choose which are sacrificed or postponed to a later date?

How did I decide to ride around the world? Well it wasn't a single decision. I always knew I wanted to travel, always knew I wanted to see the world, but when I finally started planning my time away from Vancouver it legitimately snowballed.