Let the Adventure Begin! (Plus, We Got Married)

It took a broken toilet to finally get to me to sit down and write this first blog post. 

It’s currently 4:26 p.m. in Narita International Airport in Tokyo. If our original flights yesterday had worked out, we would be in Singapore right now (more specifically, enjoying the Gardens by the Bay while likely fighting off jet lag), but we didn’t start off our travels with the best of luck. Flights can be delayed for all sorts of reasons, but a broken toilet on the plane was definitely a first for both of us (and for the pilot, who said he had never encountered anything like that before in all his years of flying, which was a very “ha, of course” moment for us). The toilet dilemma that started us off in Raleigh meant we would be missing our subsequent flight from San Francisco to Singapore, so, after additional delays, a few rebookings, free dinner in the airport courtesy of some meal vouchers from United, and four hours of sleep back at Cam’s parents’ house, we returned to RDU at 5 a.m. this morning for round two. “Try to make it there this time,” Cam’s dad said as he dropped us off at the curb for the second time in the last 24 hours. Our new plan was to fly to Houston, then to Narita, and finally to Singapore, hopefully landing around 1 a.m. on March 9. 

When I had texted my parents letting them know we’d likely be missing our flight to Singapore, my mom responded “Oh drats- as dad says, the good thing is you have four months to get where u need to go.” And he’s right. We do have four months to get where we need to go. We have four months to do just about anything once we get to Singapore. Apart from that original flight on March 7 and a return flight booked for July 9 out of Sydney, Australia, we don’t have much officially planned for this big adventure we quit our jobs for. 

I’m realizing I really dove right in to all this without much of an introduction, so let me back up a little bit. I fully intended on the first post for this blog to be all about Cam and I getting married, as my friend Nicole smartly suggested weeks ago. It would have been a great way to set the scene and kick things off, really easing everyone into things, but that just didn’t happen. Life got in the way. (In my defense, we really did have a lot going on.) So I’ll give the abridged version, which, knowing me, will probably not at all be abridged. Months ago, when Cam and I were discussing what we might want to do when our lease in Atlanta was up for renewal in early Feb. 2024, I introduced the idea of traveling internationally together for an extended period of time. We had previously toyed with the idea of living somewhere outside of the U.S., but that was with the understanding that at least one of us would still be employed. My suggestion implied we would both be quitting our jobs, which was a much bigger ask. Of the two of us, Cam has always been the more careful, prepared, think-things-through one when it came to planning for the future, and in general– separate funds for things like a house and a wedding created years prior, a roadmap to reach a managerial position at his company commencing the first day he started his entry-level position, a very well-thought-out strategy to keep his proposal to me a total surprise until the moment of… the man usually has a plan, and he operates a bit more methodically and safely than I do. I’m more of a “we’ll figure it out” type. Cam was initially hesitant to leave the security of his job – one he liked – to travel for a few months. I was also comfortable with my job, with Atlanta, with our apartment. Committing to this meant quitting our jobs, moving out, traveling for a bit, and ultimately returning to the U.S. with no idea where we were going to live or what we were going to do. But, the more we talked about it, the more it felt like a real possibility instead of a hypothetical, far-off idea, and our excitement grew. Once Cam created a rather elaborate spreadsheet breaking down a potential budget and we confirmed this is something we could actually do, we both fully committed. 

On top of deciding things like where we’d be traveling (SE Asia, because we knew our money would go further there and it’s always been of interest) and what to do with the large collection of plants we’d accumulated in Atlanta (give them away to friends, as heartbreaking as that was), we also decided we wanted to get married before leaving. Once you make one big “why not” life decision, it tends to create a domino effect. We landed on a date for the wedding (Feb. 10) and, without much time to plan, invited our immediate family and grandparents for an intimate celebration in Raleigh. We had our ceremony in a little garden tucked away in an arboretum with my twin sister officiating and a total of 12 people in the audience; we managed to DIY most of our florals, with family members turning Costco garlands and Trader Joe’s flowers into professional-looking arrangements; we rented a beautiful, rather quirky historic home for first dances, toasts, and a post-ceremony cocktail hour; we celebrated with a Betty Crocker rainbow chip cake, which was something we had always talked about doing at our wedding. It was a sunny, 70-degree day sandwiched between two cold and rainy ones, and it was perfect. 

Some people have joked that we’re now embarking on what’s about to be just one big, particularly long honeymoon. While we don’t necessarily agree with that, I do think that this journey feels a little more momentous as husband and wife. Before even getting to Asia, we dealt with a pretty big curveball, in the form of a broken toilet, that derailed our plans. We dealt with that together, as we’ll deal with everything else together over the next four months. I’m looking forward to the doing, though, rather than the dealing. The exploring. The eating. The experiencing. The meeting. The hope is to share some of that here, with whoever wants to follow along. 

For those who have gotten this far, when we do finally get to Singapore, our ~tentative~ plan is as follows, spending a few days in Singapore and roughly 2–2.5 weeks everywhere else: 

1. Singapore

2. Thailand

3. Laos

4. Vietnam

5. Cambodia

6. Indonesia

7. Sydney, Australia

Let the adventure begin!