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The Open Road Beckons!!

Written June 19, 2008 at 22:56 MDT Tagged family, general and inspiration

My family and I are big proponents of lifestyle design. I was unfamiliar with the term until I started reading the great blog of Mr. Tim Ferris.
I posted a while ago about how the Lord had prompted us to give away all of our material possessions!! Save for a few bags of clothing and some irreplaceable childhood mementos of the kids, we are officially a 100% mobile family.
For the last 2 years my family and I have been doing a lot of traveling. For the other 10 years of our marriage we did zero!! This has been a large and much welcomed change for us, and it was one of the items that we had on our original "big dream list".
Unfortunately, a large majority of the travel consisted of business related trips that left me with little time to enjoy the places that we were all visiting. My wife and I decided early on in our marriage that we would always make a commitment to travel as a family. I can count on one hand the number of times in my entire career that I have ever had to travel without my family, and all of those times were due to circumstances that were beyond our control. So though we have been traveling as a family, I can't say that I have been able to enjoy the locations as much as they have, thankfully this has been improving over the last couple of trips and is about to undertake a major overhaul!!
My wife and I have always felt the same about enjoying life one day at a time, and not just waiting for the good stuff when I get to "retirement". We want our kids to see that the world is a phenomenal place with lots of little adventures that can be taken all the time. To that end, tomorrow my family and I will be the leaving our "comfort zone" of a stable home and known environment, to hit the open road and travel the world for the next 6 months - 1 year!! We have several key places that we want to hit on our journey, but we are keeping our options open and letting the Lord direct us in the location he wants us to go.
I feel confident that all of the traveling we have been doing these past 2 years was to prepare us for this time. We are looking forward to be able to grow even stronger as a family unit, while also trusting in the Lord to help us meet our needs as we go about our travels. Initially we thought that Austin was the place that we were going to end up. At this time, we do not feel that it is the place. We want to use this journey as an opportunity for us to see new places, meet new people, and be a blessing to anyone the Lord puts in our path along our travels. As well, as potentially open our eyes to a place that we can eventually establish roots in.
What about work? I decided to bite the bullet and offer my current client the ability for me to work remotely in lieu of several months of consulting fees. They are a startup company with a potentially awesome product that just needs some time to grow their legs. I have a vested interest in seeing this thing succeed, so I will continue to do my part in a completely remote fashion. I have been working on my own for the last year and am hoping to conclude this project by the end of the year so that when we have completed our travels, I will be able to reconnect with a team that is in need of an extra developer!! This means that I am purposefully taking a hit so that I can enjoy the experience of being on the open road. There will only be a month in the next 6 months that will be a pure vacation month. The rest of my schedule should look as follows:


At 2:30PM each day I will connect with my family and we will explore whatever location we happen to be in. I am working on a condensed schedule, as an emphasis on lifestyle design draws me away from the typical 9-5 schedule. It may take me a little longer to get my responsibilities completed, but the journey will be so much more rewarding!!
Of course, I am keeping myself open to the option of being able to work with other teams in an ad-hoc nature as we progress through our travels. Which reminds me!! In the end of October timeframe, if you happen to know of a company that would be willing to have a good remote resource available at a steal of a rate, get in contact with me!!
So far, the places that we know we are visiting are as follows:
Places that we would also like to visit during this time:
We head out tomorrow in the family van, and will be driving as much as we can while we are in the US and Canada. While in Europe we are going to try to exercise the train infrastructure as much as possible.
At this point we actually have no idea where our travels will ultimately take us, but we are all approaching this trip with a great deal of anticipation.
What is my point to all of this? 3 years ago I would not have dreamed of orchestrating this kind of endeavor. Where I am sitting today, I understand the importance of taking the time to live "now". In the last couple of months, our family goals have once again shifted, and my wife and I are once again "dreaming big" to see where we want to take our family. If we were not willing to "give it all up" in pursuit of a bigger dream that we all share as a family, we would easily be able to sink into a comfortable, known, safe lifestyle that would not really challenge us as a family. I have done it before on my blog and I am going to do it again now. Read the following books/resources:
After reading through the above resources ask yourself the following questions:
Answering the questions above could be the start of a new path for your entire life. You have to be able to embrace the unknown with courage, remembering as the Prayer Of Jabez says, in the places you feel the most uncomfortable, is where the potential for growth is the greatest!!
Live and Develop With Passion!!!