“How are you always traveling?”

This is text I get the most, followed by “Where are you this time?” I get asked some version of this every other week, usually by someone who assumes there’s a trick to it. There isn’t. I have a normal job, normal vacation days, and a manager who expects me ready to work everyday at 9AM sharp. I just love new experiences in new parts of the world, and I am committed to making it work.

Here’s the real background. Two years ago, Memorial Day weekend, I took a Friday night flight after work. We got Monday off, and I was itching to get out of the city. I woke up Saturday morning in the historic city of Antigua, Guatemala, and started preparations to hike Acatenango. 6 grueling hours of steep volcanic dust, a volcanic lava show all throughout the night, summiting for sunrise the next morning, back to Antigua, and I was back at my desk Tuesday morning. No extravagant itinerary, no PTO, just a hunger for adventure. Nobody wanted to come with me, but I read somewhere that it’s better to go alone than not go at all. They were right.

That trip is the reason this site exists.

Most people don’t have a travel problem

They have a perspective problem.

Almost everyone who asks me that question wants to go somewhere. What actually stops them usually isn’t money or time in a literal sense. It’s a quiet belief that travel is something other people get to do. People with a trust fund. People who quit their jobs. People with no responsibilities. People who aren’t them.

Every travel site on the internet assumes you’ve already decided to go. This blog isn’t. It’s written for the version of you that’s still deciding.

So what’s here isn’t just cool places to go and fun itineraries. It’s evidence. Real costs, real schedule math, and real lessons I learned on the go.

What I actually do

I work in fintech, basically a 9-5 for around 40 hours a week, and I travel around it. Sometimes that’s a long weekend. Sometimes I’m lucky, and it’s ten days in Nicaragua where I’m working remotely. From a hostel, from a cafe, from a table beside a volcanic lagoon. But when I’m working, I’m wired in and maximizing shareholder value. That means most of the adventuring is saved for the weekends. What’s that one line…work hard, play hard?

I travel cheap. Hostel dorms, chicken buses, local ferries, street food and grocery stores. It’s a different experience. But I’m not broke, and I don’t pretend to be. I’ll splurge on something nice once in a while. I’ll pay $120 to skip five hours of a hike I’ve already done. I’ll be in the airport lounge before a red-eye I have to work after, and that flight might even be booked with points.

Money doesn’t change the category of your trip. It buys back the hours that suck. It buys convenience.

Most of what I write is about where exactly that line sits.

What this isn’t

It’s not a quit-your-job blog. I haven’t quit my job, and I’m not planning to. The interesting problem is doing this with one.

It’s not a highlight reel. It’s a gallery of trying. An exhibit of experiences. My Belize trip left me stranded on an island during a hurricane and scrambling to get home. I was stuck on a mountain in the Slovenian Alps during a thunderstorm, with trails flooding and water damage in my phone, questioning whether to descend the mountain or stay the night in a hut. They are all here, and I’ll have real tips to navigate them.

It’s not sponsored posts about resorts. Every place here is somewhere I actually went, and every number is one I actually paid.

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