Learning to Live Life on the Go – Part 2

We’re back for round 2 of the travel adventures of Noelle and Jake on Every Day a New Adventure! Stay and read a bit about their travels and living a life that’s outside of the box. Next week we’ll be back talking about how Noelle and Jake’s adventures 

If you missed the first part, click here to learn about Noelle and Jake’s story here!

1) What would you tell to a “normal” person in the US about your trip and how it’s impacted your life?

Anyone who wants to do a trip like this can do it – it just takes a budget and a decision to stick to it. The only thing keeping you from doing it is yourself! It’s less expensive than you think. The whole “I could never afford to do something like that” is just an excuse – you can afford it if you really want to!

This trip has reinforced the value (pun intended) of having a budget before, during, and after the trip. It is the backbone of our whole trip. It has replaced fear with knowledge – we’re not traveling until the money runs out, we’re not going into debt to do this, and we have a plan for when we return. There’s nothing to be afraid of because every dollar is accounted for, and every dollar has a job. Thanks to our budget, we have no financial stress on the road!
Taking this trip is the best decision we’ve ever made so far – in addition to all that we’ve learned about the world around us, we’ve learned so much about ourselves, our relationship, and how to communicate with each other better.
My priorities have definitely changed. For example, this trip made me realize I don’t need tons of things – I wearing the same set of five outfits for almost a year and living out of a backpack! Now, don’t get me wrong, this doesn’t mean that I don’t want things (I’m still super excited to decorate our future apartment/house with pretty things), but my happiness and idea of success is not tied to having them all. For the most part, I’d rather spend my money on experiences than things, and this trip has really driven that point home for me and Jake.

Exploring the temples of Angkor in Siem Reap, Cambodia
photo: Jake Wysocki, Every Day a New Adventure

2)  What’s next for you once your trip comes to a close?

We’ll find new jobs, hopefully in one of our target cities of Denver, Seattle, or Portland, and start a family. 🙂 The adventure doesn’t end when we get home, it just changes a bit, that’s why the name of our blog is Every Day a New Adventure.

3) What are the biggest challenges for you as you travel the world and how do you tackle them?

As a couple: Constant togetherness – We spend, literally, almost every second of every day together, so we’re bound to argue! We nit-pick and bicker about the dumbest things, but we’re learning our communication style as a couple, and growing closer with each spat. We each annoyance or tense discussion, we learn.
As a traveler: Starting over in each place. As soon as we become familiar with a place, we move again. Then we have new streets to learn, new foods to figure out, new languages to muddle through. As a person who likes consistency and familiarity, the constant starting over is hard for me and tends to stress me out, but the new is what makes it exciting and what teaches me the most.
As a person: having the confidence to make decisions. More often than not, when Jake asks me what I want to do in a day, I tend to say “I don’t know. What do you want to do?” It’s not because I don’t care, it’s because I don’t want to choose something that won’t turn out well, or that he won’t enjoy as much as I, or that we’ll think is a waste of time later. Decision making often cripples me, and I am working hard to stand up to my fear of “making the wrong decision”, especially since there is no such thing.

4) Tell us anything else that you’d like to share!

We’ve covered a lot of ground here, but if you’re interested in following our journey, check out our blog! We’re posting about our experiences in each place, resources we’ve used to plan the trip, budgeting and photography tips, and tons of photos! You can also follow us on Facebook, Every Day a New Adventure, and instagram @every_day_a_new_adventure!

The colors of Riomaggiore, Italy
photo: Jake Wysocki, Every Day a New Adventure

5) My readers will probably be happy to learn about your adventures, the best and worst parts and how you took the leap to do this trip in the first place. 🙂 I’d also love to hear about the connections you’ve made with people all over the world.

The best part of this adventure is that I’m doing it with my husband, that we get to see the world together, to experience all of these new things together, that we get to learn and grow in our relationship like few people will ever do, that we get to learn about ourselves and learn about our priorities in life, that we get to have this adventure that is all our own. We are very fortunate to be able to take this trip, and we are also very well planned. It feels so good to see all of our hard work with our budgeting pay off in such a way that will impact us for the rest of our lives.

The worst part of the trip is missing big life events back at home. I’ve missed weddings, engagements, birthdays, and births. I mean, my best friend had her first baby, and even named her after me, and I wasn’t there. Sure, I’ll meet beautiful Ava Noelle when I get home, but I feel terrible that I wasn’t there to support my best friend through her last trimester, that I wasn’t there the day the baby was born to show my love and appreciation for her and her family. It sucks to miss big things. It also sucks to think who I might not get to see again – my grandpa is turning 90 this year and is not in the best of health. The scary reality is that he might not be around when we go back home in January. And that sucks too. We are missing a lot to do this, we’re sacrificing a lot of amazing celebrations and a lot of quality time with people we love. But we told ourselves in the beginning that we cannot live our lives waiting for other people to do things. We need to do things too, and that means we’ll miss life events of our friends and family.

Oh, connections around the word! This might be the second best thing about this trip! We have met the most wonderful, funny people on our adventure! From our friends at Mountain Hostel in Switzerland and hilarious honeymooners in Cinque Terre, to our buddies who we met up with in three different Southeast Asian countries, we have formed friendships that will last for a very long time! And, most of these friendships formed over food and drink (another reason why the dinner table is so darn important to me, so fascinating to learn about, and so fun to hang out at!). We now have friends that live all over the world, and I hope they all come to visit us, wherever it is that we end up living when we return! And, they should expect some American visitors in the future. 🙂

Thank you to Noelle and Jake of Every Day a New Adventure for telling us about living a life of adventure and fulfillment! 

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