The most frequent question I get asked is “What’s next?” followed by “How are you making enough money to continue traveling?”. I’ll tackle the latter at a different time. Both of these questions cause me anxiety, but it is a given that I will be asked them by 90% of the people I meet. The [...]

I constantly get questions about my travels and I do make an attempt to answer them all back. However when someone asks a question that I think others would really benefit from hearing the answer, I like to share them for my entire Ottsworld audience (my mom + 20 other people) I had a recent [...]

Accepting change is hard. Most people don’t have a choice, when the world changes – they eventually have to change with it. My mother on Facebook is a great example of this; it was the only way she was going to keep up with her grandchildren’s lives. I have to admit though – I’m a [...]

  Yesterday I had a choice to make. I went with a friend to her gym to work out quick before we explored wineries in California’s Shenandoah Valley. She thought that she could get a guest in for free, but the manager at the desk told me it would be $15 to come and work [...]

It’s in my DNA to be prepared, to plan, to have a giant project plan that I can happily tick off the accomplishments. I’m happy when I can graph the critical path, and build dependencies. I’m a project planning geek and in my past corporate life I was paid big bucks to plan and prepare [...]

Re-united and it feels so good…(come on, sing it with me!) My true love is back in my arms. The two months apart had been difficult for me, I longed, even ached for my beloved. My passport finally arrived in crisp FedEx envelope; I promptly ripped it open and showered it with kisses. And I [...]

“It’s just too hard…” People often say to me. “…the airport security strip search, the extortionary bag fees, the long flight, my knees being crushed against the seat in front of me, customs, immigration, not knowing the language or the currency, the hassle of transportation, the fear of being ripped off, and then there’s the [...]

Travel back in time with me… May 2006 I was starting to plan my traveling career break. I was a novice. I had never traveled for longer than a 2 week vacation, I had never stayed in a hostel, and I had never backpacked. I didn’t have any role models who had done something similar. [...]