Welcome to the log of our travels. This is the journey of Amanda and I (Tyler) on our exploration of South and Central America. We've been discussing and planning this adventure ever since our travels to Costa Rica seven odd years ago and it's finally a reality. Why did it take seven years to make this adventure happen? It's a great question I don't think I could have answered until a few months ago.
As we grow up we focus so much energy on our careers, relationships and making our lives as comfortable as possible. For me this meant working much of the last 18+ years to get an education, build my experience and grow my career while balancing my other passions such as soccer, politics, adventure in the great outdoors and of course my wonderful life with Amanda. Amanda and I have done a lot for our ages. Many long camping/road trips through British Columbia and the western US States, vacations to Mexico, Hawaii and the aforementioned Costa Rica. What we've never done is really stepped outside our comfort zone and tried to live for months with no jobs travelling on a shoestring in countries that are very different from our home.
So why did it take so long? Honestly it's a combination of the magnetism of home comforts mixed with a healthy fear of the uncertainty that goes with not having an income and being far away from routine. There are always excuses and reasons to postpone an adventure like this and there isn't much of a driving force in our culture pushing people to walkabout the world and experience life in a different way. Everything seems so hard and scary when you don't know how it'll turn out. In reality the hardest part of this trip was sitting down for a couple hours to book flights because it committed us to going. We all know booking flights online is dead simple, what was hard was wrapping our minds around the reality we were committing to. Best part of it is once we were done booking our flights we both looked at each other and said, "well shit, that was really easy."
So I hope you all enjoy our adventures along with us. Our travels will take us to Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Ecuador, Colombia, Panama and back to Costa Rica where we'll start a new chapter in life on March 24th as we get married 10 years to the day we started dating. In all things uncertain there is one thing I know for sure. This will be a wild ride and an unforgettable experience.