Hi, I’m Kim, I sold my stuff and quit my 9-5 job in order to travel the world
I can’t remember when I first decided that my husband Brian and I should chuck it all and travel. I do know that when the idea found its way into my head I was instantaneously infected with it and absolutely certain that I’d give up almost anything to do it.
When Brian and I were in our early twenties we moved from Ohio to Oregon, a 2,000 mile relocation into the unknown. We left to start anew with $700 in our pockets, two dogs, a car, two spoons, two forks, two plates, a mini television, a bag each of clothing, and a few boxes of mementos, mostly books. Five years later we’d built an entire life: We’d married, bought a house, and filled the house with stuff. We’d climbed our way up our respective ladders and were earning good salaries. We’d made new friends, joined sports teams, and settled happily into our new city. We’d built a fantastic life that we were proud of.
And yet…
There were times while I was at work, sitting in my cubicle, that I’d think to myself: What will life be like if I stay this way? I knew, I absolutely knew for sure, that a 9-to-5-in-a-cubicle kind of life was not what my life was for. I’d always dreamed of traveling. I wanted to write. But my dreams and desires had been placed on the back burner, pushed aside by the pressure I felt to chase the traditional model of success. I was selling my life for a paycheck. Why?
So we gave it all up
We sold our stuff, quit our jobs, and set off in May 2012 to see the world.
Life is an adventure now. We’ve been swimming with sea lions in the Galapagos Islands. We’ve hiked the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. We’ve danced with village children on an island in Lake Titicaca and kayaked in Patagonia and sipped wine in Argentina. We’ve ridden sleeper class on the trains in India and trekked hundreds of miles through the Himalaya Mountains in Nepal. We’ve fallen asleep under a thousand twinkling stars in the Wyoming backcountry and played with monkeys in the Amazon Rainforest.
And we have met a countless number of kind and welcoming people who have made us feel at home in the world.
This is the life that I knew was possible back in those days when I sat in my cubicle dreaming of something different.
In January 2014 my husband and I came back to the U.S. to accept a job as Backpacker Magazine’s Get Out More Tour Ambassadors. We road-tripped across the U.S. from March 2014- October 2014 giving presentations about backpacking, outdoor gear and travel at outdoor retailers across the country. We drove 34,000 miles through 47 of the lower 48 states (we missed Rhode Island), hiking and camping our way around the country.
Afterwards we headed to Mexico where I put my efforts into finding a literary agent and writing my next book, a travel memoir called The Yellow Envelope, which will be published by Sourcebooks in 2017. And we began the next great adventure of our lives when we created our daughter, who arrived in this world September, 2015.