Around the world, or almost

My current blogging office: the bus from Phnom Penh, Cambodia to Saigon, Vietnam!

Tragically, I never got around to writing up my whole 30 Before 30 blog post series. But I had a blast doing it, and checked off most of the 30 items before October 25 of last year. My intentions up until now we're to finish that series off before starting on new events, but it's time to throw in the towel and admit to myself that I'm not finishing it anytime soon. (I have about 5 drafts that I will *probably* eventually edit and belatedly post, but laaaaaaater)

And there is SO MUCH other news to write about! It's June 10th (now June 24th!) as I write this, and Boo Thang & I have now been world tripping for 3.25 (3.5!) months. Well and truly past the point of optimal blog updating.

Alas!

…Oh well.

Onwards and forwards!

                                     One of our earliest photos from The Victory Lap at Tokyo airport

The itinerary for our Victory Lap is something approximating the following (capital letters means done):

JAPAN

NEW ZEALAND

AUSTRALIA

SINGAPORE

MALAYSIA

THAILAND

LAOS

CAMBODIA 

Vietnam

Mongolia

Russia

Eastern Europe

Continental Europe

Container/cargo ship across the Atlantic 

The USA 

Home!

I say home, but what I really mean is “mom’s guest room until we find a property.” I can practically hear your ears prick up: “A property? Buying a house, Anna?” And the answer is hopefully yes and no.

For anyone reading this that doesn't already know: Since 2010, I've been dreaming of owning a backpackers hostel of my own. It'll be next year before anything tangible will be established, so this has been a 7-year process. (Good grief… Seven years? It's been a long time…! Sheesh, about time I got this show on the road.) We started by trying out the hostel owner lifestyle by managing a hostel in New Orleans for 1.5 hilarious, exhausting, and rewarding years. It confirmed for me that this was a dream worth pursuing, and more importantly that I wanted to own the whole business, not just manage it for others AND additionally I didn’t want to get sunk in debt in the process. We traveled to Korea in search of high-paying employment, and after 4 truly wonderful years of teaching English in Gwangju’s public schools, we reached our savings goal. And glory of glories, we had a ridiculous amount of pension money leftover beyond our goal. Thus was the idea of The Victory Lap concocted: before jumping into the adventure (read, struggles) of business ownership, we'd use the extra funds to take the long way home and see as much of the world as possible.

And if you think the current list is impressive, you should have seen our initial Hitlist. 

Inevitably, we had to cut corners (another time, Scandinavia, India, Africa, South America! *sob*), and settled on the above-detailed itinerary. Which is honestly PLENTY. Even though we've been trying to travel slow for the most part, I still feel like we're flying through some countries.

We're journaling regularly but YOU GUYS I JUST HAVE SO MUCH TO SAY, and being a fairly gregarious and chatty person generally, brace yourselves for a blogflood of epic proportions.

TL;DR, I'm traveling the world this year and am about to start blogging again, and I really love elliptical phrases.

Carpe diem,

A