On the road again?

After spending a few weeks at home, we're looking back at our time in South America and forward to our trip to Europe.

After our time in South America, we took a planned break in April to celebrate the kid’s birthday and see family/friends. While we were in South America, we rented out our home to some friends that were remodeling their home. We have an apartment over our garage, so that became our home while we were back in Charlotte.

While the adventure of being on the road exploring new places is always great, it was also good to be home. Things were less chaotic in the United States. Streets were well marked. Drivers don’t  take road signs as suggestions, generally. You knew what to expect at groceries stores. You could flush toilet paper in the toilet. The trees were blooming in Charlotte. The city was beautiful. Things were easy and there’s value in that. 

While we really enjoyed our time in South America, it wasn’t always easy. Half way through it, I got frustrated and questioned finishing out the trip. Around that same time, I began seeing double and had to go to the ER to troubleshoot. Ultimately, I was diagnosed as having diplopia and got myself some new prescription glasses. A lot of our time was spent planning what to do next. Travel planning resources aren’t as great for non-European destinations we learned. That meant lots of time in front of a screen doing research.  Traveling for three months straight isn’t always as easy as the photos on Facebook suggest. 

It wasn’t strange being home. It was certainly different. But it was calming and comforting. We spent long hours with the kids just catching up and hanging out. It’s great to just know the ropes without needing to google them.  Lindsey worked, I was at Starbucks caffeinating and planning for our next trip - Europe.

We were home for about three weeks. As the time wound down, it was time to get amped up to continue the journey. This time it was more of a challenge. Europe didn’t seem as adventurous as South America. We considered going to SE Asia or New Zealand first but the first was too hot and the second too cold. Europe was our best seasonal option (I know….waaahh). We also discovered that we could only spend 90 days in a rolling 180 in member countries of the Schengen region. While this is a benefit to most  travelers (it eliminates the need to get a visa for each European country you visit), it didn’t quite fit into our plan to spend 5 months in Europe. So we needed to be flexible. It boiled down to us being a little less enthusiastic  for the second leg. But we also knew that new experiences lay ahead and that we’d set out to spend a year doing this. So that’s what we were going to do. 

Our first stop was Portugal. Our strategy was to start south and make our way north to avoid the hot summers of southern Europe. 

The morning we left was chaotic as we’d not spent enough time packing the days before thinking this would be no different than packing when we were on the road. We were very wrong. Clothing was left behind, returns weren’t made, and the clock for our flight was ticking. 

Our good friend Luke offered to take us to the airport that morning. Appreciative of the offer, we accepted it. After some last minute adjustments to what we were packing, we said goodbye to our home and sped off to Charlotte Douglas International Airport to begin the second leg of our trip. As we arrived, a certain familiarity and comfort of being on the road came over us.  We were glad to be back on-the-road.  Let’s do this!