Blue Dot Explore

One of the first questions you get when you tell people you are going on an around-the-world trip is inevitably "where will you all be heading"? Good question. Fair Question. But unfortunately, not as easy of a question as you would think.  We'll start with how this idea even came about. Over a year ago, after 7+ years of dating and 4ish years of living together, it was time to have a talk about what was next for us.  When I cornered Johnny to get some answers about our next stage (marriage? family? live in a new state?), his response was that he felt like he needed a "big adventure" (thus starting the ongoing joke that this trip is his "mid-life crisis come early").  I've been very fortunate that in my younger years I had lots of opportunities to travel and see the world. Over the course of our relationship, I've regaled Johnny with stories of my adventures and I often talk about how much I loved living abroad and how much I would love to do i...

Image: 14 February 1990. Voyager 1's view back at Earth as it continued its journey into interstellar space. " There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known ." - Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot , 1994 I first came across this quote in some science class or another while a biology major at UC Santa Barbara and it has stuck with me ever since. It reminds me that what seems endless can actually be just a tiny "blip" when seen from a different perspective. It doesn't seem to be a particularly common quote and often warrants an explanation, but it's referenced often enough in my own thoughts that it felt like an appropriate name for this journey we are about to start. We are embarking on our very own tour of this blue dot, which feels thri...