The Trandell’s are Taking Off!

I’m leaving on a jet plane, don’t know when I’ll be back again!… Well, I have an idea!

After nearly 4 years of saving and 2 years of slowly putting travel plans together, my husband Ron and I finally purchased our oneway plane tickets that will begin our one-year-long crazy adventure, starting in October 2018. Our plans started a few years ago when I got the travel bug again. Ron and I started daydreaming and having hypothetical conversations – Where we would travel to next? If we could do anything what would we do? I said that I have always wanted to travel around Asia since I have never seen that side of the world before. Ron told me that his dream was to hike a national scenic trail in the US. Since that conversation, everyday our travel dreams moved more and more from hypothetical situations to reality.

Ultimately, we decided we wanted to spend about 3-4 months traveling through Southeast Asia and when we return back to the states we will begin thru-hiking the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT), a 2,650 mile trail that runs from the US-Mexico border up through California, Oregon, and Washington and concludes at the Canadian border. On top of that (as if we didn’t have enough travel plans already) before we take off for Asia, we will be tackling the Incan Trail hike to Machu Picchu! Long story short, we were ready to take on Machu Picchu last year but a few of our friends that wanted to join us were unable to. We pushed our plans back a year and we thought the perfect time to go would be after we quit our jobs so we wouldn’t have to worry about taking time off from work. So now, hiking in Peru will kick off our year-long grand adventure!

We’re crazy right?!? Yeah, I think so too sometimes. Especially because we just got married in May and over the past year we have been busy with not only planning our destination wedding (because of course we had to travel for our wedding), planning an “at home” wedding celebration afterwards, but we’ve also been mapping out what the next year of our lives would look like; hiking in Peru, backpacking throughout Asia, and 6 months of thru-hiking the PCT. Believe me, this all lead to more than one mental breakdown. But now that we are legally bound to each other and everything, why not spend our first year of marriage next to each other at ALL TIMES traveling for 365 days?  Through thick and thin, make or break right?!

But in all seriousness, we have some experience traveling together for an extended period of time; in 2014 we spent 3 months backpacking Europe. During that trip we learned a few things about traveling together and being with each other 24/7. We learned from some of our mistakes and we’re ready to do it again…or at least we will see! Keep up with our travel journey and you will get all of the juicy details!

Ron and I will be starting our grand adventure when we fly to Peru on October 9th. Until then, a majority of our time will be spent planning more adventures for us while in Peru, organizing more of our stops through Asia, planning and gathering more gear for our hike along the Pacific Crest Trail, and trying not to get too overwhelmed along the way. I am so incredibly happy to be able to share our journey with everyone and I hope that our adventures help to inspire others to follow their dreams! In the meantime, if you have any questions, need travel advice, or have any recommendations for our future travels feel free to contact me!