"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." The words above are powerful words uttered by the great American writer, Mark Twain. It is these words which capture the essence of my next chapter in life. As most in my circle know by now, I resigned from my position as a school principal this past June. It is a position I was honored to hold and a privilege I did not take lightly. One could ask, "then why resign?" I have written my answer to that question in a blog post in early July, 2017. In that same blog post, I shared reasons for my resignation and I left readers hanging with the fact that I would share news forthcoming pertaining to what is next for me and my family. This blog post is that news.
On Wednesday, September 6th, just after this upcoming Labor Day, my family and I will embark on a journey around the world.
This is not something a year ago I would have seen coming. This is not something I would have seen last Christmas or even at the turn of the New Year. An adventure such as this did not become crystallized for my wife, Kaydee, and I until March of this past spring.
It became apparent we needed something different. We wanted adventure of another kind. We wanted to take part in something extraordinary.
We wanted a change in perspective. As Nancy Economou states, "Traveling the world gives you a very different perspective." This idea stemming from that simple quote resonates with our little family at this time.
We have read and researched for the past several weeks and months and have created our own timeline and itinerary (more on this will be shared soon). We have collaborated with world travelers across the globe for whom have families of their own, children of their own.
Our first country we will be visiting is Portugal where we will begin staying an entire month amongst the beautiful Portuguese. Specifically, we have booked flights and accommodations on the Azores islands, the northern Portuguese city of Porto, the capital city of Lisbon and lastly the picturesque southern region of Portugal known as the Algarve.
Next, we tentatively plan to move on to Spain for the month of October for which we will celebrate our oldest child's seventh birthday and the Halloween holiday. Up next will be South Africa for just under a month where we will be for the month of November and enjoy the American Thanksgiving holiday . We will then journey on to Thailand for the month of December tentatively where we will be for the Christmas holiday and New Year's Eve. We will follow up our Thailand visit with a plan to take a boat to the Southern Thailand neighbor, Malaysia. We will tentatively be in Malaysia for just under two months. After that, we will head to Hawaii for approximately one week as a type of layover to break up the very long flight from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to Ecuador. We will be in Ecuador from the end of February until mid-April.
We created our itinerary with two primary considerations: affordability and family friendliness.
We are excited to visit five different continents over the next year. We are ecstatic to be able to take our two children on this journey with us as we inhale foreign languages, soak up quality foods and drinks, absorb a multitude of cultures, breathe in the variety of flora and fauna found around the world, gaze at the diverse landscape and geography of the worlds different regions, stand in awe of mysterious wildlife, interact with human beings from different corners of the world, and just sit in the presence of knowing we are doing something different, something rare, something scary, something memorable, something crazy, something radical, something together.We are the Drinkwines. We are going on an adventure. I hope you can follow us along in our journey. We are creating a new blog which we plan to launch in the coming weeks. That blog will be a place for you to follow along. We would be honored and humbled if you did.
Until then, enjoy this final thought from the great Mark Twain. Blessings.
