Playing Catch-Up
I apologize to anyone who faithfully followed along on our RTW blog and homecoming only to have me completely drop the ball over the last (gasp!) 2 years. A lot has happen, and I will spend some time blogging about those events, but even more importantly, some big things are going to be happening!
This entry I’ll just do a quick recap. In late 2009, when I left off, I was back working at my old job at Grand European Tours and Jim was working in inside sales. We were making less money than before we left but our situation had improved from the life of PT retail for me and 14hr days of Schwans sales for him and, we had itchy feet. Without the means to flee the country again we decided on a plan. We would attempt to re-create our last couple of years before our RTW trip. We would buy a house, fix it up, pay off our newly accumulated debt, sell in a couple of years and take our money and run, this time having a lot more insight on how to really do a RTW trip well.
We did buy a house in early 2010, adopted the most wonderful dog in the world… a black lab mix AKA “designer dog” these days, we named Maddy but often refer to as blackdog, and moved to the country. The plan was to spend a couple of years getting things figured out and to travel around South America and Antartica, the only continents we had not yet conquered.
While celebrating our 20th anniversary on the beach in Puerto Vallarta, one of our favorite places on Earth, I suddenly had an epiphany….I turned to Jim and said “Why don’t we drive to South America instead of taking public transportation?” He replied “do people do that?” I had no idea, and even now have no idea why I asked the question or why I suddenly knew that we were destined to make that drive.
Once we returned home I started researching the subject and found out that not only had quite a few people made such a drive but a lot more were doing it as I searched. With that in mind we started searching for our ideal roadtrip vehicle. We decided on a Toyota Tundra w/ a pop top Palomino Bronco camper on the back and purchased them early this year. We’ve spent over 30nights camping in them so far and are loving life and can’t wait to get on the road full time. The two main things we disliked about our backpacking RTW was the horrific beds and not being able to cook easily. Both problems solved!
Now, we’re hitting full stride. Planning and plotting. Saving and selling. We’ll get everything updated on this blog and eventually create our own website as we now strive towards creating a location independent lifestyle. What we learned on our trip and since our return is that we are most alive when on the road, meeting people, discovering all the fascinating things this world has to offer. And, isn’t that what it’s all about!
Stay tuned for more details about our adventures the last 2 years and much more regarding the upcoming changes.
Cheers,
Rhonda & Jim
Tags: 1, pre trip planning, Travel
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Glad to see you’re back. Does this mean you will be taking your dog with you on the road? Just curious.
Thanks! And yes, we are going to take Maddy with us when we had down the PanAmerican. Not too many people do the drive with a dog but we’ve found some who have with no problems (sprinterlife.com has an adorable dog named Kiki and they’re currently in Peru). She is part of our pack and loves to camp so we’re very excited about making it a family affair! Thanks for following along!