"Life begins at the end of your comfort zone"

Reading that quote two weeks before I quit my job and entering the world of FUNemployment put everything in perspective. It summed up my inspiration and motivation for the actions I was about to take. Indeed, I've gotten way too comfortable and was dissatisfied with maintaining status quo, losing that drive and enthusiasm that I so openly display when it comes to traveling.

I'd be remiss if I say that I only started planning this trip in the last two months. Sure I didn't quit my job until two weeks ago, and I didn't give up my apartment until recently, and I will be packing until I leave my apartment in a few days. But the reality of it is, I've been preparing for this trip, consciously and subconsciously, since I went on my first solo trip in 2007.

I was 22, newly hired at one of the biggest biotech companies in Boston, earning way more than what I had gotten accustomed to, and contemplating my first trip solo. The sheer indecisiveness on my part felt paralyzing. I must have seemed like a broken record going over all the possibilities and options with my coworker. I think she even yelled at me to just book my tickets at one point.

The idea of traveling to someplace so "unknown" caused equal amounts of fascination and terror. But after much debate, I committed myself to what has become the first of many multi-city destination tickets I've purchased. That first step onto that Virgin Atlantic flight to London, the experience of riding the Chunnel across the English channel, the massive disappointment with, what is by far, the worst hostel I've ever stayed in (in Paris), the struggle of trying to conduct anything in a foreign language --- these experiences caused such a transformation within that I have yet to really fully comprehend. I continue to travel with every opportunity I can to satisfy my thirst for plucking myself from the daily grind and dropping in on new, interesting, random, comic and sometimes even awkward situations (though those are far and few between).

So now, five years after that first journey, I've decided to take a leap of faith, a break from my career in the biotech industry, and go on a full on trip. I can't say it will be a trip around the world as I have yet to make any concrete plans beyond the first two months. Sure I've got some rough ideas but I'm doing things a bit different this time; a little less of a plan and a whole lot more of spontaneity.

So far I've got Las Vegas, San Diego, Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand and Philippines on the route. Not quite sure yet what I'll be doing at each of these destinations but I will try to have as many new experiences as possible without completely blowing my budget in the first two months.

Follow me as I go about my adventures and misadventures. I hope I can do a good job of sharing my experience and perhaps even inspire you to go on your own "journey", whatever that may be.