FAQs

Below are FAQs about our trip, but our latest FAQs while on the trip can be found here. Let us know if you are curious about something we haven’t covered.

This doesn’t sound like a normal honeymoon. What are you two doing?
We got married on March 3, so we’re calling this our extended honeymoon, and it’s been about a year in the making. But to be quite frank, what we’re doing is quitting our jobs, selling most of our belongings and traveling the world for a year or more.

When do you leave and return?
We fly out to Iceland on June 6, 2012. We’ve saved enough to travel for at least a year (and return with a solid base), depending on how well we spend/save and how long we end up staying in inexpensive countries. We may also explore jobs abroad (like teaching English) in order to truly experience another culture and to extend our travels.

And you’re quitting your jobs? Aren’t you worried about being unemployed?
Of course! I don’t think we’d be human if we said we were 100% comfortable living without an income. But it’ll be a good opportunity for Tara to work on pitching and writing travel articles and for Mike to document our journey with video and photography.

The good news is that there’s no way we’ll go through the rest of our lives jobless. There will always be something out there for us.

You guys live in an efficiency and don’t even own a car.  How can you afford to go on such a long trip?
Ding, ding, ding! We live in an efficiency and don’t own a car! It all comes down to minimizing, saving, planning, budgeting and, most importantly, sacrificing.

In early 2011, we started thinking about taking a year off to travel the world. Initially, we planned to leave in 2013, but as we started looking at our finances, we realized we could meet all of our saving goals sooner and leave by mid-2012.

In many ways, renting instead of owning an apartment/condo, not owning a car and having no pets or children have helped us save faster. We’ve cut down on how often we go out, become more cognizant of how much we spend (and where we spend money) and nixed frivolous expenditures. When we see something we consider buying, we first ask ourselves whether we can bring it with us (like clothing) or if we really need it (candles, ice cream).

Where are you most excited to go?
Iceland, Portugal, India, Thailand, Taiwan, Zanzibar, South Africa… To be honest, everywhere we plan to travel to. We love that we’ll be able to take our time and won’t feel rushed to catch a plane back to the States to return to work.