About our travel

My lust for travel started after a solo trip to Japan during a semester break from university. The trip didn’t originate from a longing to travel, I was merely taking advantage of a nice offer from a friend for a low cost flight with the airline she works for. It was a short trip, but experiencing hundreds of new sights, sounds, tastes, in a foreign culture was one of the most exciting things I had done and I couldn’t help but catch the infamous travel bug. So upon finishing my undergrad I sought-out an international internship and left to live and work in beautiful Cape Town, South Africa. I did some travel in that region, and when my work-term completed, with a sad farewell, I flew to Malaysia to meet-up with a friend and we traveled together on a shoestring budget through South East Asia, Australia and New Zealand. When I finally returned home I accepted a short contract job that took me to Morocco. Since then, I have been living and working in Vancouver, Canada.

My desire to experience what I can, when I can, likely stems from how I was affected by Guillain-Barre Syndrome at the age of 19. I spent four weeks paralyzed in a hospital, but fortunately had a full recovery. This is one of those life altering experiences that made me recognize life may be short and one should live to have few regrets.

When Leanne and I met she had little interest in travel. I convinced her to go backpacking with me through Western Europe. It was a lot of fun particularly attending the Street Parade in Zurich. For our next big adventure we spent a month traveling through Australia and French Polynesia. At the end of that trip Leanne caught the travel bug herself. We married the following summer back in Canada and celebrated our honeymoon by visiting Turkey, Croatia, Hungary and Greece. A year later we returned to Europe with my parents for their first trip abroad. Some of the highlights of that trip included visits to see relatives in Norway and staying in a castle in the Loire Valley. When my parents returned home we continued on to visit Iceland, Ireland, and Spain.

Within two years of getting married I took a seven-month leave from work and Leanne left her employer so we could embark on an ambitious (at least from the distance we planned to cover) seven month adventure around the world. Our trip took us through South America, Africa, Asia and back to our home in Vancouver. It will forever remain a life highlight. The following year we made the arduous journey to Antarctica. This completed our visit to every continent together.

We have experienced incredible wonders and feel very fortunate and lucky to have had so many exceptional life highlights. I have met many career travelers who have seen more of the planet than I will in my lifetime and their adventures always inspire me and excite me about my next trip. While this blog initially started as a means to keep our families apprised of our whereabouts, we have discovered it is a nice way to preserve our memories. If you have stumbled across it we hope it reminds you of your own trips, or inspires you to further travels.

Michael