How it began

At 11:45pm on October 7th, I will board a plane at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York, bound for Bangkok, Thailand. I do not know how long I will stay, what I will do, where I will go next, or when I will return to the US, though Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Singapore, India, China, Australia, New Zealand, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania are all tentatively on my list of eventual destinations. All I know is that I am heading off on an adventure to see the world, experience different cultures, meet new people, and hopefully learn a thing or two about myself.

When I tell people about my plans to travel, I often get a response along the lines of "Wow, I bet you've been wanting to do this for a while, huh?" In truth, it was only about 3 weeks from the time I first considered taking a trip like this to the point where I decided to commit to doing it and gave notice (albeit, two and a half months' notice) at my job. While making such a major decision so quickly may seem a little rash, a number of factors converged to make me confident that this was the right thing to do:

1. Although my parents were wonderful about taking my brothers and me on trips when we were young, I haven't really traveled much as an adult and so the desire to see other parts of the world is something that has been building for a long time. Living in DC and being surrounded by the type of people who tend to come to this city means that I've heard many stories about the excitement of living in/visiting other countries, and the 10-day trip I took to Costa Rica last summer--with Rory, Marni, and Rory's siblings, Kevin and Rochelle--really primed me to do some traveling.
2. While I was generally quite happy at Community Wealth Ventures and was working with possibly the nicest, smartest, most dedicated group of colleagues I am ever likely to find, the learning curve had flattened significantly and I was getting ready to try something new. The problem with wanting to try something new is that it's pretty tough to get motivated to make that happen when you don't have a very good idea of what that "something" would entail, especially when your current situation is pretty damn good. Going on a "life-changing adventure" seemed like a good way to both make a clean break and do a little soul/world-searching to figure out what I want to do next. Dave Ellis, one of CWV's excellent 2008 summer interns, shared with me this excerpt from John Steinbeck's Travels with Charley which captures this driving sentiment:
   
   

   Could it be that Americans are a restless people, a mobile people, never satisfied with where they are as a matter of selection? The pioneers, the immigrants who peopled the continent, were the restless ones in Europe ... But every one of us are descended from the restless ones, the wayward ones who were not content to stay at home. Wouldn't it be unusual if we had not inherited this tendency? And the fact is that we have.
   

   
   
3. The summer after I graduated from college and came to accept that a career as a professional Magic: the Gathering player was just not in the cards (yes, I'm a dork; yes, I make terrible puns), I redirected my attention to learning about people and organizations that are having a meaningful impact on the world. One of my favorite resources quickly became NextBillion.net, a blog now run by Acumen Fund and the World Resources Institute and focused on development through enterprise. Since then, learning about international development--especially efforts to build local wealth and capacity based on sustainable business models--has been somewhat of an ongoing intellectual hobby. I'm very interested in potentially shifting my professional focus in that direction, but I know I need some more direct exposure to the people and organizations I would be working with. By planning a flexible trip like this, I'm hoping to have the opportunity to find some meaningful volunteer or employment opportunities and end up staying for a few months, a year, whatever, to really get some hands-on experience and integrate into a community more than is possible as just a tourist. (Suggestions/contacts for countries along my planned itinerary are much appreciated.)
4. I don't have a mortgage, kids, crushing student loans, a rigid career ladder to climb, or even a girlfriend. When else in my life am I going to have the freedom to just take off on an extended, open-ended trip like this without concern for competing priorities and obligations?

So that, in a nutshell, is why I'm going on this trip. I love DC and the almost three years I've spent here have been the overall happiest years of my life (thus far, at least). I have grown so much, connected and deepened connections with so many amazing people, and had a busier social and professional schedule than I ever imagined. It has been very difficult for me to begin to draw up my roots this past month or so, especially considering I have no idea if or when I will live in this city again.

I hope this blog turns out to be a useful tool to maintain contact with all of you and share some of the exciting adventures and experiences I hope to have in the coming months. I'm aiming to update it approximately once per week, but knowing myself, I probably won't maintain that pace for long. If you want to get updates but don't want to have to check the blog regularly and don't know what an RSS feed is, join this Google Group I set up solely to send out periodic emails containing my blog content enter your email address in this form and you will automatically receive an email each Monday if there are any new blog posts. [Edit: Google Groups made people register an account, so I created a new list using MailChimp which will be much easier for you all to join/leave and will free me from even having to remember to send out a separate update.  Score.]