There are so many answers to the question, "Why are you going on an around the world trip?". Put simply, we want to play, we want to learn, we want to dream. 

When we got engaged in 2009, we set a goal to take a long term overseas trip together before we had children. We each had been impacted by long term travel, Brooke having spent 6 months in Africa and Bobby having been abroad for 8 months in New Zealand and southeast Asia. We recognized that we came back form overseas travel different and changed people, and we wanted to experience that same growth and development together. 

There are many ways to travel and many motivations, too. For us, we scrapped all our impulses to put a cause behind our travel. We aren't doing humanitarian or religious work, we aren't pilgriming or running or moving. We are simply traveling because, well, we want to. This was a big step for us. To be able to shirk off the pressure of traveling for a reason and embrace the freedom to do what we wanted trusting that our incentives were generally good. Since then, we have boiled our travel down to playing, learning, and dreaming/reflecting. 

There is something magical and healing about play. The freedom and creativity sparked by play can change the tides of life. Climbing, fishing, laughing, cooking - for much of this trip, we simply want to experience the joy of travel! We have to believe that there are little deposits made in us each time we play or experience the wild world that make us better people and directly translate to a more loving, engaged, and positive life for us and those around us. Besides, playing is FUN! In the words of Larry Howard, if a little fun is good, a lot is better!

Travel does something else, too. It helps us see the ocean of possibilities for so much in life. This is true of the big things, like the possibilities of careers, education, and lifestyles, but it seems even more true for the infinitely vast possibilities of the small things. Like how Canada includes firewood at campsites in Banff, or how sales tax is included in pricing, or the way windows open in Iceland. There are so many different ways to do things, we want to LEARN! We won't take it all home with us, but we will certainly take some of what we learn and observe, repurpose it, and share it with our community at home. 

We've got a strong value for personal and corporate reflection. Typically this looks like squeezing in a run early in the morning or hiking to the top of a peak nearby only to slip into reflection accidentally. It is in moments like these we ponder why we live the way we do and think the way we think. For us, this trip provides not only the time, but the distance to honestly reflect on our lives. Are we making decisions that reflect the type of people we want to become? Are we eating the way we thing is right? Why do we spend our time this way or that? The thousands of miles, language barriers, and lack of rhythms and comforts are going to provide a safe and genuine space to reflect on our lives in Colorado. 

Finally, dreaming. I (Bobby) have always been a dreamer. This trip, we hope to put some feet to those dreams. Partnerships, conversations, painful deaths - whatever the case, dreams are a theme of our trip, and we are eager to hold these in our hands when we return and nurture them while we are away. The world is a great incubator for ideas that can't float in small water. 

While we don't feel sent necessarily, though we do feel like this life, the heartbeats and breaths we are given each day, are divine and championed by a love greater than we can yet know. With this in mind, everything becomes significant. Each conversation and interaction with the world and our community (people, plants, bugs, food) - it all is meaningful, real, and alive. What we can learn from it, how it causes us to reflect, the ways we create fun and dream dreams - this is up to us! We read this quote and thought it summed it up pretty well:

"This is what life is about. It is being sent on a trip by a loving God, who is waiting at home for our return and is eager to watch the slides we took and hear about the friends we made. When we travel with the eyes and ears of the God who sent us, we will see wonderful sights, hear wonderful sounds, meet wonderful people ... and be happy to return home." Henri Nouwen