Why We Travel (Allen’s Take)

Doing as this NYC mural says. BRB catching dreams. (Chasing dreams is too cliche, and the url was taken) PC: Allen Chen, 2019

I’m writing this on a plane right now, and Cathy is next to me watching “Up”. So appropriate, as the theme of that movie is literally going up and away, on a magical adventure. Which is basically what we are doing (minus the balloons).

There are many valid reasons to travel: Exploring and understanding other cultures, learning more about and developing oneself, visiting friends and family, escaping day-to-day life, or even simply – relaxing.

I’d like to think of this adventure as all of the above.

But why now?

There is never a perfect time to travel – or rather, there are always reasons to stay put. We had finally settled into our place together. (Which, for those of you who know us, was a long six-month plus journey and our first major undertaking together.) We had careers with opportunities for personal growth. We have friends and family locally who we love to visit and host.

Why in this manner?

We decided to leave for an undefined period (in the five to eight month timeframe) to travel and live across the world – roughly Q1 in Asia (primarily Thailand), then Q2 in Europe, and perhaps another continent in Q3.

Because now is the time

It is such a luxury to not have responsibilities to bind us. No kids or family who are dependent upon us.[1]  Enough savings that we can take significant time off work.[2] It is an extremely fortunate situation, and it is a rare opportunity for us to seize.

On a more professional and psychological perspective, we were both in similar career circumstances. As Cathy mentioned in her post, we felt stuck in our careers.[3] I would like to acknowledge that while there were external factors that contributed to these feelings, we also had enjoyed the many opportunities our respective employers had provided over the years and likely would continue to provide have we worked constructively on them. And yet… sometimes time and space are the things most needed to gain perspective to break through barriers. We need to reflect and take time to evaluate and change our relationship with work, the nature of our work, and really figure out what and how it is that we want to go about our careers.

Living abroad is the way

So yes, taking an extended time away makes sense – and going abroad is the mode. I have lived in California my entire life – from childhood, through college, and my twenties working. The Bay will always be home, but I would be remiss if I never got to experience another city or country as a local.[4]

Goals?

With the many reasons to travel stated above, we will try to balance them all during this incredible year. We will be tourists and try to explore the world; We will be locals to experience other cities on an intimate level; We will visit family (and come back for friends’ weddings); We will develop ourselves (e.g. month of Muay Thai/MMA training for Allen, more painting time for Cathy); We will take it slow.

Really, this is all a dream. And these goals are all dreams. So you know, we’ll be catching them. Like Pokemon, around the world.

To our readers:

I hope through this blog, our friends and family, may go on this adventure with us. At a minimum, we will share where we we’ve gone and what we’ve seen. Hopefully, we will also share our newfound perspectives and the progress on our own development as well.

We invite you to come with us on this adventure. So please enjoy, share, and let us know what you think.

And of course, you can connect with us in all the usual ways (yay technology!). Our phone numbers are the same. Texts are welcome. Oh and if you have any travel recs or dreams, we’ll take those too.

Here’s to 2020, to infinity and beyond!

Footnotes:

[1] Much empathy for those who are caretakers for family. I know it can be extremely difficult, oftentimes thankless, and hard to share the burden with others. It is extremely noble, and I am very thankful for the health of my family members – mostly for them personally, but also for this luxury of freedom. (Afterall, filial piety is a virtue).

[2] Living modestly over many years – whether at home with family, or in compromised situations with little privacy – helps significantly. Even more so is the generosity of parents, to provide direct and indirect financial support over our lifetimes). I’ll also acknowledge the economic arbitrage from living in a thriving city in a developed country, which greatly impacts earning potential relative to the rest of the world. That all said, we still need to compromise. The first research topic was to identify low cost of living areas (e.g. where do expats go to retire). Giving up the apartment definitely was not an option (not with all we put into it, we definitely wanted to come back). So the best option was to rent it out to a close friend. While doing so at a significant discount results in monthly losses, it made the most sense because as we could leave our furnished home to a person we trust completely and not have to find a storage solution or worry of damage.

[3] In my case, I spent over a decade working for one company. And I know that’s an extreme outlier amongst millennials. At some point though, the comfort and familiarity bred stagnation and acceptance of status quo.

[4] This statement has a caveat.  Must give a nod to Shanghai and Taipei, Cathy and my respective cities which our families call home and where we have studied abroad.

Afterword:

Our website name for the blog, brbcatchingdreams, is a theme for our year.

I’d like to share my rejected idea of “www.presspausetoplay.com”. Ultimately, it was too ridiculous. Ridiculously layered and complex beyond the point of comprehension and sensibility.

But if that tickles your fancy, here’s the cake.

First, the contradiction. Pressing pause to play… and not pressing play to play. At the outset, this is confusing and doesn’t make sense. Similarly, to some (*cough* my mom *cough*), taking a sabbatical to travel is confusing and doesn’t make sense. So this is a tongue in cheek acknowledgement, that yeah, this can sound a little crazy.

On a basic level – this is quite literal.  We are “pausing” from “work” to “play”. We are literally taking a break from work. Unfortunately, this is not retirement, and we will need to go back at some point. Therefore just a pause. And we are using this time to go play and travel the world.

Another layer of the onion – We are also pressing “pause” on our day-to-day lives so that we can make a transition out of our old lifestyle where the corporate job was a primary focus. This will allow us to press “play” on a new lifestyle with more balance and personal pursuits.

Other rejected blog names: brbnomadlife.com, brbtakingtimeand.space