Since I left my day job to write full time in 2017, and could work from anywhere with an internet connection, it was always our plan to start seeing the world before we get too old to truly enjoy it. I'm a firm believer in that quote, “Travel is the only thing you can buy that makes you richer.” and we don't have any intention on waiting for our "Golden Years" to enjoy life.
We got off to a decent start, between 2017 and 2019 racking up tens of thousands of airline miles -- Amsterdam, London, Lisbon, the Virgin Islands, NYC, Canada, Arizona.
Between using our airline miles for airfare (thanks to Amex’s Delta Skymiles card) and Airbnb for accommodations, this was surprisingly affordable.
We were busy planning trips years into the future then pandemic hit and we all know what happened next. Now that most of the Covid restrictions have been lifted we’re happily picking up where we left off.
2023 will be the start of what we’re calling our vagabond years. So far we have trips to Canada, Arizona, and Ireland planned but have many more destination ideas in the works before we settle down and take a rest in 2028 (or so).
If you have any ideas for great destinations we'd love some recommendations. We want to make it back to England to visit @cryptogee and
@opheliafu. We'd also like to visit
@lizelle in South Africa and
@zirochka in the Ukraine.
I’m especially excited about our trip to Ireland in September. It’ll be our son’s first overseas trip. We land in Dublin then will be splitting our time up between Galway and Cork. We plan on getting to know each of those cities as well as experiencing the Cliffs of Moher, driving the Ring of Kerry along the way.
If any of you have recommendations for Dublin, Galway, or Cork we’d appreciate them!
Of course, I'll be sharing our adventures here on Hive and on YouTube along the way. We can't make up for the lost years (2020-2022) but we can make more wonderful memories and we intend on doing just that.
All for now. Trust your instincts, invest in you, live boldly, and take chances.
~Eric Vance Walton~
(Gifs sourced from Giphy.com.)
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Poetry should move us, it should change us, it should glitch our brains, shift our moods to another frequency. Poetry should evoke feelings of melancholy, whimsy, it should remind us what it feels like to be in love, or cause us to think about something in a completely different way. I view poetry, and all art really, as a temporary and fragile bridge between our world and a more pure and refined one. This is a world we could bring into creation if enough of us believed in it. This book is ephemera, destined to end up forgotten, lingering on some dusty shelf or tucked away in a dark attic. Yet the words, they will live on in memory. I hope these words become a part of you, bubble up into your memory when you least expect them to and make you feel a little more alive.
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