Yair and I love Arvie and we love RVing, but I can’t help but think about how family-friendly a lifestyle RVing is. We are both interested in living internationally and the types of overseas experiences that we would like to have are best done pre-kids, so we spent a couple of hours today reimagining our itinerary or – in more grandiose terms – our short-term life plan. Here is our totally theoretical thinking:
- Spend the next year RVing. Make our way to southern Texas in the winter and then up toward Wyoming, Montana and South Dakota in the summer.
- Put Arvie in the best possible hands for temporary storage while we live abroad and explore the world for a couple of years.
- Return to the United States. Bye bye IUD, hello baby (is that how it works?) and pick up Arvie before we hit the big 3-0.
We spent the past hour staring at a map like a bunch of goofy kids and picking out countries that ‘sound like fun’. We each picked five countries that could be interesting, and our homework over the next two weeks is to research each of our countries and present them to each other. Awesome!
Our Playground (Though Ayo Wanted To Choose "Outer Space" For One Of Her Countries)
Yair’s List
India
Sweden
Australia
Iceland
Argentina
My List
Spain
Morocco
Bangladesh
Iran
Malaysia
Just a year ago, RVing was a new crazy adventure and it’s still a way of life that I dig, but I don’t want to pass up the opportunity for international living and volunteering (which is what I am craving now) just because sticking with the status quo is easy. Who’s got suggestions for us?
posted by ayo
Our Take on Freedom: Escaping the 9-to-5 Before 25 
such an amazing plan… i love this!! we plan to go international as well.. probably a couple of years behind you.. then you can tell us what to do!! (:
It’s a deal! We’re really looking forward to seeing you guys soon. If you’re free tomorrow (Thursday) evening and want to simultaneously hang and meet an awesomely cool RVing couple (Sam & Tracy), you are totally invited to check out my Faces of Israel program in Denver. Text us for the details if you can make it. 🙂
Well I wholeheartedly support your idea of living abroad. Having been a “roaming traveller” for over ~36 years now living all over Asia, Europe and US I still feel I haven’t touched the surface of what there is to see and do out there in the world.
– Asia has so much good food, cheap travel and interesting spots to see. You can “backpack” across India, Vietman, Philippines, Nepal and still have plenty of $$ left over at the end of it. Diving in the Philippines is exquisite. Hiking in Nepal is mindblowing.
– Europe has more good food and lots of history. Eastern Europe is particularly interesting…I love Budapest and Prague.
– New Zealand/Australia have so much nature and great people. We RV’d in a minivan in Western Australia for a few months some years back and it was fabulous.
– Scandinavia is a unique experience, but will cost you a bit more in $$ (not cheap). It’s my home of course, so I feel partial to it.
– South America has amazing spots. I’ve been to Peru (stunning!), Mexico (many times) and Venezuala. All have unique and fascinating culture.
And I’m rambling and could go on and on….no matter where you go the EXPERIENCE will be fabulous!!
Nina
Holy moly, woman! You are a bastion of experience. It sounds like we’ll be having fun anywhere we go, and we’ll certainly keep you posted on our choices. Thanks for the encouragement and the good info!
Hehe…As they say “I’ve been around”. By the way forgot to mention that if you want to live and spend some extended time in one particular place (especially in Asia altho’ it works well for S.America too) then Teaching English as a Foreign Language is a great way to go. It’ll get you the visa (to stay), some cash and integration w/ the locals. Don’t know if you’re interested, but figured I would give you the link just in case: http://www.tefl.com/ and http://www.eslcafe.com/jobs/
Nina
Oh my gosh how fun – can’t wait to see what you guys decide and follow along on the travels….
I can’t give much advice. I studied abroad in Budapest and loved it there, and agree that eastern european countries are more interesting if you’re doing europe.
One of my well-travelled friends who just backpacked on his own for a long time swears New Zealand is the best place in the world.
I also follow this blog, the couple has been travelling for 2 years and might be some good inspiration for you: http://www.anotherfuckingtravelblog.com
I’m reading this with Susie (hi!) and we are thinking that you can’t do Argentina and not do other places in South America! Instead of going to five totally far apart countries, why not backpack across several, like libertatemamo suggests? And if you do that in South America or South Asia, it’s really easy and inexpensive! Usually the flight is the most expensive part of these trips, so flying around is impractical…