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-Colorado, 2022-

Welcome to our humble blog detailing our round-the-world trip of a lifetime between 2012-2014. We're glad you're here, whether you're hoping to score some information on what an endeavor like this costs, learn about unconventional border crossings, get some tips on interacting with Dracula, or just happened to land here by chance.

If you want to read about our journey chronologically, we suggest you start by visiting the Archive tab (found via the navigation tool in the upper left) and navigating to June 2012. If dabbling in certain countries is more your speed, please search using our Labels filter found in the same location. Our wanderlust is never sated and we're always happy to hear from armchair and backpacking travelers alike, so please reach out with any questions, comments, or if we can be of assistance in any way. And for those of you who have asked what we're up to now, read on...

Where We Are Now

The post-trip years have been a whirlwind, namely buying our first small (fixer-upper) home in the Denver suburbs and augmenting our family by 1 dog and 1 human. Following our trip budgeting principles, Leah even managed to earn a graduate degree while working full time and either pregnant or adjusting to being a first-time mom, eventually graduating debt-free.

HOUSE: Our home was a neglected, run-down travesty when we bought it in 2015, but year by year we've been either tackling repair or renovation projects ourselves, or calling in the pros when warranted. While a mortgage payment is nobody's idea of a good time, our long-term plan is to eventually rent it out while we're traveling again, or because our primary residence is elsewhere. Regardless, it's been gratifying to take some of the skills we learned on our trip and apply them to improving our place- the sense of satisfaction indeed runs deep when we see the results.

FAMILY: Our six year old son, "O", certainly keeps us on our toes. His first plane ride was at three months old, and he's likely logged more air miles than many adults since then, including to multiple international destinations before Covid saw us grounded. We know he's still too young to remember most of what he's seeing, but we're firm believers that every new culture and environment O experiences is helping shape him into a curious and compassionate global citizen. Besides, even though traveling with an infant/toddler/small human is no picnic, we refuse to stop doing what we love simply because it now takes a bit more planning and bribery patience. And just to round out our family and provide a friend for Theta (whom we re-christened Naali because it's Finnish for "arctic fox" and she sure acts like one), we adopted Ushi (short for Ushuaia) from a Denver animal shelter and they're true peas in a pod.

CAREERS: Professionally we are right where we need to be- Leah landed in higher education and Steve is a business developer. And naysayers be damned, our careers didn't take a hit as a result of removing ourselves from the rat race for several years. If anything, potential employers were eager to interview us because of our global experiences and healthy risk-taking, so in regards to salaries and opportunities we truly believe we catapulted ourselves forward by first stepping back.