In The Beginning...

Happy New Year first of all.  I know I'm a little late but if we're going by Costa Rican time, I'm probably early.

Being this is my first post, why don't we start from the beginning.

September 10, 2011 was the day I decided to see the world. I can literally pinpoint the moment it happened. I was having lunch in Siena at a cafe overlooking the Piazza del Campo. I was visiting my family, who had rented a Villa in the Tuscan countryside, and friends. At my table were Jennifer and Cliff (friends I've known since we all were in diapers) who were in the middle of a backpacking adventure of their own. As they were telling me about all the amazing stuff they had seen and done, I kept saying I really wanted to travel. However I kept bringing up they typical excuses as to why I couldn't. It wasn't until well into our conversation, when Jen brought up her reason for travelling, that I was convinced to drop everything and follow suit.

Jen said as she was closing in on college graduation, she asked a number of people from an older generation; "if you could go back to your youth and do anything differently, what would it be?" An overwhelming majority of them said they would travel more.

That was all it took. My mind was made up. I needed to travel before my life became tied down with too much stuff.

The amazing thing is that the end of 2011 had already started to line up towards being the perfect opportunity for this venture. I was in a state of transition at work and two of my friends, Stephanie and Daniel, were getting married in Costa Rica over New Years. I was already heading south for the winter, so I decided to keep going south.

Following lunch, I wandered the streets of Siena with my dad discussing my plan. With him, I came up with the following rough timeline:

1. Travel from Costa Rica into South America during the winter. 
2. Continue on in the Southern hemisphere to New Zealand and Australia and work my way North into Asia as Spring rolls around. 
3. Travel into Europe for the summer.
4. Return home just before Labor day.

Since then, very little has changed. My itinerary is as follows:

1. Two months in South America.
2. One month in New Zealand and Australia.
3. Two months in Asia.
4. Two and a half months in the Middle East and Europe.

So, as I continue on in Costa Rica, I'll finish up by saying thank you to the lovely couple below for inviting me to your wedding and giving me a wonderful jumping off point for a year of adventure.

More details and pictures to come later.