Hello New Friends!

I got a fever, and the only prescription is more travel. The travel bug is real and I’m living every day with a 103° temperature.

Not even three years ago I had barely traveled outside of my home (Ontario, Canada). A few trips to Disney World and the Caribbean was all I had under my belt. And that was okay with me. I was focused on school and spent my twenties acquiring two undergraduate degrees and a master’s degree. I finally finished school and jumped right into full-time work. That’s when it hit me. I would only be young once and I finally had the time to do what I wanted. So I began planning the most cliche trip of all time – a Eurotrip.

Acquiring pins quite quickly… with many more to come!

I knew nothing about travel, backpacking or how to budget. I just kind of, went for it! My fiance and I decided to sell our home, pack up and take off. We had a comfortable amount of savings so a travel budget was not our main concern at the time. We were more interested in the cities we wanted to see. Of course, every place on our list was in Western Europe which consists of the most expensive cities in the continent. That did not deter us. We had a bucket list and we weren’t letting anything get in our way!

Two months later we had traveled through 11 countries. The experience was indescribable and changed me at a core level. It opened my eyes to a whole new world of cultures, landscapes and flavours far beyond what I ever imagined. Once experiencing something like that, I am baffled how one could go back to the cookie cutter life. I was hooked.

Sipping on €15 mojitos at a secret beach in Ibiza, Spain.

After our Eurotrip, we decided to make our new home in Vancouver, British Columbia – the capital of adventure and beautiful weather in Canada. We lived in Vancouver for a year and a half, working and making sure to maintain our travel quota. We ventured out to Vancouver Island and its surrounding Gulf Islands, went on an extended road trip from Vancouver to Los Angeles, and made a few short trips to Cuba and Miami. We are now based in Vancouver Island as we were drawn to its laid-back lifestyle.

Our next adventure, quite unlike anything we have ever done before, is to tackle to West Coast Trail. This is a 75 km backpacking hike which follows the southwest edge of Vancouver Island and is said by many to be the most beautiful yet challenging (and dangerous) hikes in the country. We are taking 7 days and 6 nights to complete this trip. We have been preparing ourselves by doing overnight hikes all over the province and focusing on fitness and health. I have learned a lot from my training. I hope I’ve learned enough to make this hike gratifying rather than agonizing. Either way, I’ll be satisfied with what I have accomplished.  

Training for the West Coast Trail atop Garibaldi Mountain (and it’s turquoise waters) near Whistler, BC.

So that’s us in a nutshell. A crazy couple with an insatiable urge for adventure. We have no plans to end this ride any time soon and we plan to keep on trekking, chronicling our journey along the way. Here’s the catch – we’re not experts by any means. We are novice travellers learning as we go. Sometimes the best way to learn is by jumping in and doing it! My goal is to write about our failures as much as I write about our successes. Because that’s travel. And that’s life. Fake it till you make it.