We are Phil and Melissa, two 40-somethings thrilled to be living our ultimate travel dream. Some say it’s a mid-life crisis. We call it our adult gap year. We’re taking a year away from our professional lives (aka the rat race) to travel a wiggly path around the world … meandering all over the globe doing our favorite things, trying new stuff, and meeting the locals.
Phil is a Brit. I’m American. We both work in tech. He’s in software; I’m in marketing. He speaks a bit of Spanish. I speak some French. I love animals. He loves (really) long walks. We both like to ski, garden, sip wine (red), drink beer (especially craft beer), and travel.
In 2015, we sold our house in the US and gave away most of our worldly possessions to friends and family or to charity. We shipped the few things we couldn’t bear to part with, like our ski gear, to family in England. In early 2016, we sold our car, left our jobs and moved from Boston to London, where we plan to settle after our year on the road.
This is not our first foray into travel but it’s certainly our most ambitious. Over the past 12 years we’ve been fortunate to have had the means and the time off to travel together to many wonderful places in the US, Canada, England, Scotland, Wales, Spain, France, Portugal, Germany, the Caribbean, Mexico, and Africa. Before we met, Phil’s wanders took him around Europe, India, Australia, Thailand, and South America (where he spent a year). I had mostly travelled in the US, including Alaska and the Grand Canyon, plus Europe, Iceland, and Canada.
Until now, our travel time has been measured in weeks, so we’re thrilled to have the opportunity to have months of exploration ahead of us. We’ll kick off our gap year with a “transition” ski trip in the Alps, on the hunch that the best way to ease into full-time travel is to start with a familiar activity. Our ’round-the-world adventure begins in April, with stops in Africa, Southeast Asia, New Zealand, Australia, Latin America and South America. This is our plan, but then again, our plans may change depending what happens along The Wiggly Path.
Our travel style is minimalist and middle of the road. We’re both carrying decent sized backpacks but we’re not roughing it. We’ll travel frugally where we can, and we won’t be afraid to splurge when the occasion calls for it.
And so our adventure along The Wiggly Path begins! We invite you to follow along through our blog, newsletter and on social media. The Wiggly Path is on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.