Hi everyone! Welcome to our travel blog, Free for Departure; a collection of stories about our adventures, with some travel tips and ideas thrown in along the way.
Free for Departure was created with the hope to inspire you to travel more by proving that you don’t need to quit your job and backpack around Southeast Asia in order to experience all that this world has to offer.
We’re just two regular people with full-time jobs who have made the conscious effort to get out of the rut of wake up, go to work, eat dinner, go to bed, repeat. And we hope to inspire you to do the same.
Where it all started
Our story begins 2007, when Amanda and I were just a couple of kids trying to get through college. After meeting, it didn’t take long for our conversations to turn to the far away places we would like to visit… Italy, Greece, Ireland to name a few. Some day, we said.
Then it became time to be an adult.
Like most people, we spent our 20s following what everyone else was doing. Work hard, buy a new car, save for a house. The American Dream. Don’t get me wrong, the path we were on was a fine one. After growing up in a small coal mining town, we found ourselves with a Mercedes-Benz at the age of 23, solid careers in finance and a growing savings account.
Life was fine by any measure but we both knew something was missing
Over the next five years the life we wanted started to slowly unfold: day trips to West Virginia and Niagara Falls, a road trip to Nashville, five days in Jamaica (hello passport), a week at an all-inclusive in Mexico.
But it was always back to work, back to the grind. Our careers continued the upward trajectory; and like most people, more income meant more stuff. More stuff meant more bills and we soon found ourselves living the dreaded paycheck to paycheck trap – always wanting to travel more but never having the time or money to do so.
Eventually, the desire to travel would win out.
Meet Tony
For me, travel has always been this vague, seemingly unobtainable dream.
Growing up, vacation meant doing the 3 hour drive from Pennsylvania to the Jersey Shore. I didn’t step foot onto an airplane until I was 23. I’m also afraid of heights (which I am working on conquering), and airplanes give me anxiety.
It’s funny to look back at your life at the moments that have shaped you into who you are today. I never thought I’d admit this, but fate intervened (as it tends to do) a few weeks ago. As I was contemplating whether to start this blog I heard a quote by Neil Gaiman which went “The moment that you feel, just possibly, you are walking down the street naked, exposing too much of your heart and your mind, and what exists on the inside, showing too much of yourself…That is the moment, you might be starting to get it right.”
So, not to be overly dramatic, but here we go…
High school is a formative time, and this one moment has stayed with me more than any. Sometime around 2005, a pop song was released by an artist named Anna Nalick titled “Breathe (2 AM).” Remember that one?
So one day this song comes on the radio while I’m driving around aimlessly, as high school kids do, and I get hit with the line “Life’s like an hourglass, glued to the table.” Damn.
I assume that there is a specific moment in everyone’s life when you realize that our time on this planet really is finite. I have Anna Nalick to thank for that moment.
Those lyrics sat deep in my mind over the years, resurfacing every now and then to remind me to stop drifting along. Finally, I said okay, let’s do this. A move to Colorado kicked things into gear. Then a life changing trip to Moab made it impossible to look back.
Travel was no longer a luxury, but a priority.
Meet Amanda
Passionate. Vibrant. Spontaneous. Cat lady.
These are just a few of the words that I can think of to describe Amanda, but I think the most accurate of the bunch is spontaneous… although she might argue for cat lady.
While I could take months to plan a trip, exploring every option before settling on the details, Amanda is the one to say let’s just go. You only live once (before that phrase was ruined by frat bros everywhere). Next thing I know plane tickets are booked and that trip planning is no longer hypothetical.
I guess opposites do attract.
When it comes to travel, or just life in general, I think the biggest thing that drives Amanda is a fear of missing out. FOMO, as it is regrettably called. Whether it’s kayaking through the Everglades, trekking to a picturesque lake in the Tetons, or hiking the Narrows in Zion, she is always willing to give it a go, afraid of missing out on an epic adventure.
“I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my list”
Susan Sontag
It is with that fear in mind that pushes Amanda to make sure we are staying on the go, always having our next trip in mind. Actually, I’m pretty sure that she searches for airplane tickets a minimum 365 days of a year.
If there is one thing that Amanda would want you to take away from our travel stories it’s this: “if I can do it, you can do it.”
She would be the first to admit that our crazy adventures don’t come natural to her. “I’m clumsy. I cry. It’s not easy for me. But it is always worth it.”
So it is with this magical combination of enthusiasm and determination that keeps her going, especially when the going gets tough.
And it is not always perfect. As a road trip partner she has her shortcomings. To her credit she no longer sleeps during half of each road trip. However, she refuses to listen to the single greatest thing ever created for passing time on the road… podcasts.
What is Free for Departure?
While Free for Departure is designed to be a resource for your travels, the main goal behind the blog is to show that regular people like you and me can live an adventurous life.
We are not “digital nomads”, and we are not independently wealthy. Unlike most bloggers, we didn’t quit our jobs after a trip to Thailand to travel full time. If your dream is to live a life of travel, we are here to show that you don’t have to quit your job to do so.
Of course, traveling is not cheap. To make it work for us, we have found that traveling on a budget works for us, but we are not quite “budget travelers.”
Often overlooked by many travel blogs, some of the most spectacular natural scenery in the world can be found in your own back yard. There’s a reason the National Parks are dubbed America’s Best Idea. Our goal is to visit all 61 of them.
There was a professor in a college business writing course that told me that I have a gift for writing. I guess it is time to put that to the test.
From childhood onward, there is no shortage of rules, both self- and culturally imposed, about what we’re supposed to be doing. And they usually boil down to this: what everyone else is doing.
Susan Casey, Outside Magazine
So here we are – armed with an iPhone and a passport, inspired by a 2005 pop song, refusing to sit back and allow life to pass us by.
If you want to keep up with us in real time, you can follow us here…
Instagram – we are most active here
Facebook – old faithful
Twitter – brand new on here
Hope you enjoy!
Tony