We’ll start by saying “because we can.”
But to elaborate, Chris and I started this journey because we wanted to get the hell out of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. First we had to save the money and pay off the school debt. Luckily for us I was laid off. A handsome severence and bonus package meant we theoretically no longer needed to save. Chris paid off his university school debt the same week I was officially laid off. The pieces of our life all seemed to fall into place.
Chris first proposed to me in a poem on Valentine’s Day, 2008. I responded back with a poem which I spent writing the better part of my work day. Not being able to focus on anything work related and encouraged by my boss and co-workers it seemed like the best use of my time. In my poem I had a line that read something like, “I’ll travel with you from Istanbul to Kathmandu,” which is the title of a Lonely Planet travel guide Chris had been reading quite fequently. I recall him saying that one day it would be great to do the journey the book talked about. But that’s all it was, a statment with no tangible reality. That was a dream. We were living in the real world as two young people with no money, debt, university degrees and no strong foreseeable careers.
Not two years later, with some hard work, skill and a bit of luck the journey was possible. So that’s how we originally picked our destinations. In mid-December 2009 we bought two one-way tickets from Vancouver, B.C. to London, U.K. and then two more one-way tickets from London to Istanbul, Turkey.
Our journey has changed many times since it started, ever changing due to world politics and our finances, but all in all, at its core, is the journey from the West to the East.