Why we left everything for travelling and what drove us to the decision
To be young, have time and money.
We can probably agree that it is difficult to have them all at the same time in our lives.
When we are students, we might have more time but we do not have the money.
When we start working, we have more money but no time, as we are busy climbing the corporate ladder, making a living and setting up our financial future.
Once we retire, we probably have set aside more money and we will have time, but some of our energy and health might be just a memory and our interests might have shifted.
To study, work, retire: this is, of course, a simplified version of the life that we have known.
If you do not have a job, looking for another job is your job.
Sara and I both studied in university in Italy, we both have good careers and we both are ambitious and driven. Our drive made us leave Italy and brought us to London in our 30s where we started small, we downshifted from what we had in Italy and then we grew, doing well for 5 years.
We were renting a brand new 2 bedrooms flat in zone 1, we could go out for great cocktails and dinners in the city that we consider the most international in Europe, but we started feeling something. That same something that made us leave Milan 5 years ago.
We were settling and becoming too comfortable, we were not developing as we were wishing.
Now we are in our late 30s and we decided not to play by the rules.
We wanted an adventure, learning something new and a new challenge.
At least for a while.
Welcome to the Big Trip: our time for adventures and personal development.
The Big Trip
So off we go, we prepared physically with 2 months of personal training and then we left it all, putting some of our stuff in a storage.
On the 11th of July 2017, we boarded a plane from London to St. Petersburg with 2 backpacks and we started our adventure. We named it The Big Trip.
The Big Trip started in Russia on the Transiberian railway, touching different cities from the well known St. Petersburg and Moscow to Vladimir, Suzdal, Ekaterinburg, Novosibirsk and Irkutsk.
From there we moved along towards Ulan Bataar in Mongolia, slept in a gher, visited the Terelji park and then made our way to China, touching Beijing, Shanghai, the rice terraces and many other small villages.
Our travel was originally planned until September 2017, then we headed to Indonesia between Bali, Lombok and the Gili, meeting communities of digital nomads. There we sat down and decided to spend October, November and December between Iran, Turkey, Georgia and India.
In Iran we got in touch with local people and we learned a lot about this incredible country, in Turkey we spent time between Istanbul, Pamukkale and the incredible Goreme with the flying balloons, in Georgia we learned about the food and wine traditions of an underrated country and in India we visited the magical and overwhelming Rajahstan.
We are now back in Italy for Christmas where we are planning the beginning of next year and spending time with our families.
Stay tuned for the next adventure in 2018!
Learnings
Some of the things we have learned so far – in constant update:
– How to set up a blog with a newsletter and to monetize it (yes, this blog!)
– HTML, CSS and a little bit of PHP (still working on it)
– Use of new software (Lightroom, Photoshop, Final Cut Pro)
– Social media and our personal brand management
– Open water diving and wakeboarding
– Fly a drone (DJI Mavic Pro)
– Reading Russian and not getting lost in Siberia, yet 😉
– …
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