What's the plan?

A number of events in the last year have conspired and joined together to put me in a fairly unique situation. First there was a break up of a very long term relationship which meant that I was single and dating for the first time in my adult life. It also meant that I moved into a new apartment and was living by myself for only the second time ever. Within a couple of months, I was dating again, trying to find new hobbies, and just getting back on my feet in general. Dating was fun, but I certainly wasn’t in a rush to be in a relationship again.

Somewhere along the way I thought that taking a trip might be fun. It was winter time and I could think of nothing better than being in a warm, sunny place on a beach somewhere. I asked a couple of girlfriends if they’d be interested in joining me and for various reasons they all flaked out . But I had already decided that I wasn’t going to let that stop me. I’ve always been fairly independent and I figured I could handle taking a trip to Mexico by myself. After all, it was only going to be for four days and I’d be in a resort, not the jungle. I wasn’t at all nervous about this decision. . .until I was getting ready to land. Then I thought, “What in the world am I getting myself into?!” As it turned out, I had a fabulous time. I stepped WAY out of my comfort zone – ate out alone, talked to strangers, left the resort, made new friends – and in the process realized that I’m stronger than I thought. Two of those new friends I made were a young British couple who were wrapping up a year of world travel. I thought it was very cool and I asked them a bit about it, but I didn’t really think anything else of it until later.

Later came in a couple of months when I got word that my work contract was about to end and it was ending sooner than I expected. That’s not normally a problem or issue as I’ve been doing contract work for more than three years now and I’m usually prepared and ready for a project to end. This time, however, is another story because I am a corporate recruiter. I work in a company’s HR department handling their hiring needs. The U.S. is officially in a recession now, though, and companies are more often than not downsizing and firing rather than making hires. This doesn’t leave a lot of work for someone like me, so I started thinking about what my plan would be.

I’ve been lucky and fortunate enough to have saved up a chunk of money, so my very first thought was to travel. Planning trips and then actually going on them are two of my most favorite things to do, but I haven’t traveled as much as I would have liked. I figured that if I was going to burn though my savings, I may as well get a once-in-a-lifetime experience out of it rather than sit at home in my apartment, worrying about the fact that I can’t get work.

So here’s my situation: desire to travel, enough money saved up, no relationships or work tying me down or preventing me from going on an adventure.

And so it begins. This is how my journey gets started.