The End of Two Years of Travel
Home Isn’t Home Anymore
Nearly two years ago, we left Vancouver to travel the world. Without a doubt these past two years have been the most fulfilling, memorable, and the best of our lives. It was originally intended to be just one year of travel, but we found out pretty quickly that we had the finances to make it two years; and here we are.
Each new place we visited became a new eye-opening experience, while each “old” place we returned to became places of happy familiarity. Traveling the world felt like the most natural thing to do. This is probably because our only responsibility was to ourselves. There wasn’t a monotonous work grind nor the stress of saving for a house knowing it would take 29 years — longer than we have been alive — to afford a down payment.
Instead, we roamed day to day in our own mini retirement, gathering up memories which we’ll keep in photographs. At the end of our trip I gathered some of the best and made a slide show. This video includes our most memorable and greatest moments; I hope you enjoy it.
Interestingly, the way back home has been the most difficult. Not because we don’t want the trip to end — of course we don’t — but because we have to deal with the Canadian bureaucracy that we left behind. It was troublesome enough getting stuck in Cambodia while trying to extend our stay in Bangkok for a funeral, but figuring out the logistics of stopping in Vancouver and moving our things to Toronto have also been difficult to say the least.
This August I will begin a Masters of Architecture at the University of Toronto. Over the past month I’ve been figuring out housing and admittance, but it hasn’t been easy. Our move-in date in Toronto has changed three times, as have our dates in Vancouver. It is enormously frustrating and ridiculous, since it’s costing us hundreds of dollars.
Without a doubt, this has been the most frustrating time in our two years of travel and not the best way to end our trip, which makes the slideshow even more important. It reminds us that despite our troubles, we had a good time and that means that the future can be bright as well, whereever we go.
