Rule #1 should read as follows:

This Journey Never Ends

If you're like me (and you are), then you probably have a tendency to get something important finished and do your big stretch and say,

I feel good.  I feel accomplished.  I'm gonna do something good for myself.  I'm gonna take a break.  I'm gonna bend my rules just this once.  I'm gonna put my feet up.  I did it.  Yippee for me.  I'm wonderful. 

Bad idea kid.  Bad idea.

8 months.

This is all that separates us from a lifetime of travel.

We just have to stick to what we've learned, sell our condo, and then it's off to Mexico - and everywhere else.

Recently I was putting together a list of blog archives from the past year and I realized just how much has changed for us since we started planning this adventure.

A year ago there wasn't one person following this blog.  We knew nobody in the travel community.  We had about $50,000 in debt.  We thought we were going to go live in Sweden and Australia.  We had no idea how to make money online or even travel the world.  We were scrambling in every direction.  We had a condo with a basement that was full of crap.  We had too many bills.  We were overworked.  And - in general - we were exhausted.

The process of planning for travel has changed us completely.  Everything is different.  The way we think.  The way we act.  The way we plan on traveling.  And we never saw it coming.

On school days, the kids and I set off for the long march to school.  It's about a 2 mile walk throughout the busy streets of Boston, and it's something we have really started to enjoy - except for the times when mother nature gets the best of us.

You know those stories your grandpa told you of the "old days"?

When I was a kid we used to trudge 5 miles through a blizzard each day on the way to school.  Winter sometimes lasted until June.  And sometimes we had no socks.  You had to keep your eye pinned for bears and wolves at all times.  It was a savage trek to school, but we did it, and we never complained!

Well, yesterday I thought we were going to have a march much like those your grandpa used to ramble on about.  It was a typical New England storm - cold, wet, and nasty - and I was stressing about how we were going to get through it.  I bundled up the kids, gave them a pep talk, and we opened the front door.

A few hours later I was home, the kids were safe at school, and once again I realized,

That wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it was going to be.

Travel photography is not my strength.  Not only am I an inexperienced photographer, I'm terrible at securing and managing the good images I actually capture.  I'm just unorganized.  I lose stuff.  The few wonderful pictures I have taken over the years are gone to the world.

I realize that as we set off to travel the world, my poor photography skills just aren't going to cut it - I need help.  So I asked 5 travel photographers to get me started on the right track by sharing their methods for storing and managing photos.  They were kind enough to help me out, and I must admit that I was enlightened by their responses.  I truly had no idea what I was doing.

So if you're like me and can't seem to keep those precious photos of yours in order, then this post is definitely for you.

Last week I wrote a post asking people for their suggestions on where we should travel when we head down to Mexico and Central America.  Within 5 minutes of publishing the post I received suggestions on 18 destinations in 4 different countries.  Within 4 hours I had received over 100 suggestions and numerous people had offered to host us, play travel guide, or just chat by phone or Skype to help us get whatever information we needed. Truly unbelievable!  Big time thanks to everyone out there.

Over the past year the world as I know it has changed. It's become closer, friendlier, and more accessible. Things I only dreamed about doing before seem not only probable, but easy!  As my friend Emiel says, the travel game has changed.  I don't need guidebooks or TripAdvisor to tell me where to go anymore. I have the world helping me out - and you can have it too!

It's a bit hard to imagine that by this time next year we will be in Mexico!  Exciting, right?

We had planned to go cycle Europe first, but once I saw my 3 year old son try and ride a bike, I smiled and moved on to plan B.  There is always time for bikes and Europe.

Instead we are going to drive south.  Boston to Mexico to Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, Nicaragua . . . Costa Rica!

I know it's a ways away, but we could sure use some ideas and recommendations from those of you have wandered south of the border.

I don't like moving.

Correction!  I don't like moving stuff.  I don't pack well.  I'm lazy.  Just throw it in the truck and get me going - that's my motto.  After all, I'm not moving for my stuff, I'm moving for me.  Time is just too precious a commodity to spend packing and folding and organizing.

But as I look down the long term travel road with my family, I steadily realize that we will have a lot less space and a lot less money, so I guess I better learn to choose my possessions wisely and do a much better job taking care of them.

So often in our search for answers, the answers wind up finding us.

For the past week I have been thinking about this post.  I knew what I wanted to say; I just wasn't sure how to say it.

And then, with my mind completely removed from my plans for travel, I stumbled upon a bit of magic in the readings for my business class.

Vision without action is a daydream.  Action without vision is a nightmare.

Leave it to the Japanese to make the first step in a great journey  so clear and simple.

We take things for granted.

Right now we are sitting on a rock that is traveling at 67,000 miles per hour.  And it's been traveling for a very long time.

You think it's hard for the Earth to keep spinning its way around the Sun year after year?

I think we assume it's easy, but who knows?  Maybe the Earth is busting its hump everyday trying to get around that Sun.  Maybe it just keeps going cause that's its job, and that's what it was created to do.

I'm sure some of you are probably wondering what sort of special medicine I took this evening before I sat down to write this, but I do have a point.

If a giant, stupid rock can hurl itself around the sun for a few billion years and not even think about taking a day off, then what's my excuse?

Why can't I do what I'm supposed to do?

Why can't hurl myself into my work for 1 solid year and just stay on track?

Why can't  . . .

Enough with the cant's.

I can.  I will.  We will. 

One big year . . .

and then a lifetime of travel.

About a year ago, I was driving back from Disney World while my family was passed out in the car, exhausted from a near-perfect vacation.  It was about 3AM, and despite being exhausted myself, there was no way I was going to sleep.

My mind was swimming.  I didn't want to go home.  What was there to look forward to at home?  Work?  No thanks.  The morning commute?  No.  Weekly grocery shopping and coupon clipping?  C'mon.  Home had become a place that was full of meaningless responsibilities and boring chores.

I loved my family and I suppose I didn't hate my life back at home, but in no way was I looking forward to going back to it.  My wife doesn't know this, well, maybe she does, but that night I came really close to turning the car around and heading right back to Florida.