That was my response when my darling husband Ben first told me of his grand plan to travel the world. We’ve been asked many times over the last 18+ months how we ever came up with this idea in the first place & truth be told Ben surprised me with it driving southbound down I81.

We were headed for our annual 4th of July shindig at my parents & I was dog tired having just wrapped up my then jobs annual 2-day conference & Board of Directors meeting. I was in no mood to chit chat, half asleep in the passenger seat, when the idea was thrown out to the universe “What do you think if we took a year off & just traveled?”. “Normal people don’t do that” was, as you may have guessed, my first response; “We have jobs and a house….and a dog for goodness sake - we have responsibilities. I don’t see how we could pull it off”. Well that was that for now as I rolled back over & resumed my nap.  

Fast forward 3 days later, after a sun & fun filled weekend and we were headed back northbound this time, home to DC and our “normal” lives. For whatever reason, it was I this time that turned to Ben & asked…” what did you mean take a year off & travel…. what are you thinking exactly?”. And the rest as they say was history…

Well not exactly history, it took a year & a half of planning, financial sacrifice & saving, amazing family & friends support (including keeping previously mentioned dog), and breaking the news to our respective companies. There were more things than I can count that kept me up at night, stressing & worrying over what would go wrong or hold us back (promise to dedicate a full post or more to the in & out logistics of it all for those who have asked) but as I sit here boarding “the flight”, the one-way ticket to Santiago, Chile, I can’t help but feel it was all worth it.

Sure, it wasn’t always easy & I’ve had more than one moment of panic in the last few months, even unwavering Ben looked over and uttered “we may be crazy” a mere two days ago, but in the end, we’ve rented our home (pictured above) & packed the rest of our world into our small travel packs (below). Come hell or high water we’re off & in the end we may both we right…we may be crazy & perhaps normal people don’t do this, but who ever wanted to be normal anyway? 

First stop...Santiago!