We’re a married couple in our mid-30’s who’ve decided to break away. We feel we’ve “done our time” in the corporate world and have started a journey to figure out how to live a life that we want to live, something fulfilling physically, mentally, and spiritually and in a way that also benefits the world around us.

This website will chronicle our lives on this journey in many formats – travel blogs, photographs, video – and will provide practical tips for anyone wanting to pursue similar interests, as well as inspiration for those needing that extra push.

Disclaimer: We don’t believe in country counting or ticking locations off a list. We don’t have “goals” to visit 100 nations before we’re 40. We have no desire to visit every single country before we die. We don’t judge a trip based on how many cities we’ve visited.

We started traveling together as soon as we met in 2004. Roadtrips to Yellowstone, the Canadian Rockies, and the Oregon Coast were a few early highlights. Our first long term trip was a 3-month excursion in Europe — England, Italy, France, Germany, Austria, Czech Republic — in an old ‘84 Ford Transit campervan named Rusty (for obvious reasons).

Our second big trip came after our wedding in 2007 – The Big Honeymoon. We spent five months in an ‘89 Ford Transit campervan — named Freda — seeing more of France and Germany, and dipping into Spain. We ditched the van and flew to Greece for some saganaki before starting our cross-continents journey on the Trans-Siberian/Mongolian rails.

After 6 weeks in China and a month in Vietnam, we moved to Melbourne, Australia where we held day jobs for two years, turned a 4×4 van into a camper (S.A.M.) and enjoyed the leisurely lifestyle of down-under. We always knew that Australia was only a Long Layover, so in early 2010 we closed up shop and hit the road again.

We then cycled five weeks in Cuba, spent a month in Vancouver visiting friends/family and taking in the Olympics, and went on a three week sojourn to Oaxaca province in Mexico. We lived in New York between April and July and can report that yes, it really is the center of the universe.

It’s not only the scenery that changes for us, but our lives and our travel style as well. In fact, perhaps travel is no longer an accurate description of what we’re doing, but rather a constant change of home base. Will we ever settle in one spot? Will we ever return to 9 to 5 jobs? Who knows…life is too short to make long term plans. We’re not limiting our options.

Born in Burnaby, British Columbia in 1976, Carlo spent a good chunk of his adult years helping people with their computer issues. He enjoyed the satisfaction of solving people’s problems, but something else was calling him. What started out as emails to home while abroad transformed into a passion for the craft of writing. In 2008 he began his foray into the writing world with Matador where he is currently a Contributing Editor for Matador Trips. Carlo also contributes regularly to Nileguide.com and has been published on several other travel websites. He is also a freelance photographer and has had a photograph published as a book cover in 2009.

Besides family road trips, Carlo’s first taste of travel came when he was 9 years old: a trip to the motherland (Philippines) with a layover in Japan to experience Tokyo Disneyland and Expo ‘85. In 1996 he moved to San Jose del Cabo, Mexico for six months to work as an animador in an all-inclusive resort. He didn’t travel again until 2004 when he “did” the Eurorail thing for a month with his then-roommate.

You can read more about Carlo’s work on his personal blog: Carlo-Alcos.com

Born in East Germany in 1977 and ‘relocated’ at the tender age of 10 to the West before the fall of the Berlin wall, Yvonne has had a ‘travel bug’ ever since she can remember. She was always an avid wanderer throughout her youth, taking 12 hour train journeys by herself to visit her grandma in the East at age 11; convincing her single-mom that she needs to go to summer camp every year even though they could hardly afford it; or persuading her BFF’s parents that it is absolutely normal for 15-year-olds to go on 2-week ski holidays in the Austrian Alps by themselves.

The “life changing trip” took place in 2002 when Yvonne decided to ship her ’82 campervan from Germany to Jacksonville, FL to start a 6-month road trip across the US, which finally led her to Vancouver where she set up shop, and where she would eventually meet Carlo, her future partner in crime. Yvonne believes in equality for all living beings and has many other passions in life besides roaming the world. So stay tuned for her upcoming projects!