It has now been over a year since we've returned from our long-term trip, and we are starting to truly understand the phrase "time flies". It seems like just yesterday that we left, let alone returned home from a whirlwind fifteen month tour of the world.
As with all new milestones in this crazy thing called life, we have had some interesting changes come up along the way since returning home. So we thought that our one year milestone would be a good time to share it.
We're Back in Our Old Home of Pittsburgh!
Well, that was unexpected. We left Pittsburgh thinking we'd not see it again for a very long time. Surprisingly, after returning home from our trip (to family in Ohio) we had not one but two opportunities to interview in the city, with the latter ending up in a job offer for me.
After careful consideration, and knowing it would be much harder for Angie to get a job in this city, we took the cues of fate calling and returned back to the city that we called home for many years prior to our trip.
This was a perk for us because one of our goals after returning home was launching a city blog for wherever we ended up, so going to a city we were already quite experienced in (and love) made starting the new site an incredibly easy task. We may not be traveling internationally all the time now, but I can safely say that exploring our city and covering it like we do international destinations on Discover the Burgh has been an incredible experience so far.
Who says you have to go far from home to experience the joys travel brings?Our New Plan is Not Necessarily Travel Related
It is common for many people who return home from a long-term trip to either a) start planning another trip, b) figure out a new life goal that results in them living in another country, or c) starting on a new career path altogether at home.
We are not those people, well, kind of.
Angie and I thoroughly intend to work in our fields for a considerable period of time in the future. Our jobs pay well, we enjoy it, and really we cannot complain about working in our fields.
But that being said, our new life goal is to build up our businesses on the side such that one day in the future, they may be our primary mode of income that funds us to do, well, whatever we want. Our newest Lifestyle Design series was designed to chronicle this adventure, but due to a bit of a lag on getting jobs and starting on our new business goals it has been a bit slow to take off.
Overall, this goal comes with a long road to success, and is one we're not even sure we're going to make. Any blogger who has made a go of it professionally knows that a sustainable income from blogging is a holy grail that many simply never reach. In any event, it is obvious to us that running a global travel blog can only get you so far on the income front and we're going to be diversifying our online businesses in order to bring in more sustainable income streams to make our dreams a reality.
Don't worry, Living the Dream will be here for a long time to come. Between our staff writers going off on long-term trips, us traveling on frequent vacations, and the above business goals being covered in more detail in our Lifestyle Design series, this site will still be the flagship outlet in our brand for many years to come.
Our business plan may not include traveling forever, but it does include traveling as much as we want, and that is the next best thing. We just have to work hard now in order to make that happen permanently.
We Need a Vacation, Now
The biggest complaint I have about returning home is not how long it took us to find jobs, but rather that we haven't been on a vacation together since our trip ended! For travel addicts, going a year without a proper vacation comes with a terrible feeling of withdrawal.
Sure, I went to a blogging conference in Sri Lanka for a few days, and had a few business trips for my day job, but nothing compares to having a set period of time where Angie and I could explore a cool destination together with little to no responsibilities beyond that. Going from over a year of permanent vacation to a year of no vacation is just too much of a shock for me to handle at times.
Luckily, our delay in travel this year now means that we'll have more than enough time rolled over in the coming years to go on many vacations (hooray vacation roll-over policies!). We're already looking at some pretty cool destinations both locally and abroad for our upcoming trips, and hoping to get out on our first one in the next few weeks!
We sure do need it. For those who have returned home from long-term trips, how did the first year treat you? Was it rough, easy, or something else altogether? Comment below to let us know about it!
