How One Way Tickets are like Skydiving

Many, many years ago, I drove my husband (then boyfriend) out towards the farm fields in Illinois and surprised him with a gift of skydiving for his 29th birthday.  He freaked out.  He tried to back out of it saying he needed more time to get used to the idea.  I laughed.  He had about 5 minutes before we reached the small airstrip. It was his first clue that life with me would certainly not be boring.

One way ticket

I love buying one way plane tickets.  When we purchased our one way tickets to Costa Rica, it was a feeling similar to sky-diving.  The feeling of pressing the ‘confirm purchase’ button is similar to the anxiety of standing at the edge of the plane wondering if you can and should jump. Once you jump, there’s no going back.

Then you start to make all the necessary preparations of selling your stuff, making plans on where to live, what restaurants you’ll eat at, the activities you’ll do.  It’s exciting, like the rush of adrenaline that takes over your body as you accelerate to the ground in a skydive. The sound of the air rushing past and pulling the parachute to float softly down to the ground is riveting and completely changes the scenery.  Everything becomes silent, you are able to enjoy the view as you float. Then once on the ground, the excitement of what you just did is insurmountable.

This is how we feel about our slow travel lifestyle.

I love jumping into a new country

We have just purchased another one way ticket.  But buying this one way ticket was, admittedly, not as exciting or nerve-wrecking as buying our one way tickets to Costa Rica.  Moving from the US to Costa Rica, we knew it was going to be a HUGE life change.  We left our contrived sense of security behind.  We left a familiar comfortable culture and dropped into a foreign one.  But now that we are here, moving to another country seems like a piece of cake.  Been there, done that. We’ve already been through a major transition, so this is not going to be as large of a change.

We are used to change, in fact, we are energized by change.

I crave change

I cannot stand still in one place for too long, or do the same job.  Ask anyone that has known me since I was young and they’ll tell you the same thing. I get bored and need a challenge. I don’t know how most people do it?  Don’t they get bored when things become routine or not challenging?  I love a challenge and therefore I love change.  Change pushes our boundaries.  My favorite quote is “Different isn’t always better, but better is always different”  I’m not looking for a better place or a better job…but I do like to ‘keep it fresh’.  I’m a learning addict.  So, when something gets predictable…I change it up.  I do that in a lot of aspects of life, including where I live.

We’ve lived in Costa Rica for 1 1/2 years and the past months have been, well, feeling a bit comfortable and stale.  We’re ready to jump and explore more.  So, in the words of Seth Godin “push yourself to be more in the world”…well, I am going to take this literally.

So, Belize it or Not…here we come!

Our New Home, Ambergris Caye - Belize

How we chose Belize

I was mesmerized at first sight.  I had never seen anything so beautiful and blue from my window seat.  On a trip back to the US from Costa Rica I was sitting on the plane looking down, I saw a hypnotic array of blue water. More shades of blue than I could even imagine water to be. And I think a part of me decided right then that my time to live near water is now. Ironically, K was reading an article about Belize.

We had not done any research. We had never been there.  I’m not even sure we knew where the country was located exactly. But the idea was cemented into our minds that we should live there.

Sometimes, you just have to go with it.  And so we did.

So we’ve packed our parachutes, are ready to jump and are waiting for the excitement of touching ground.

We launch in 2 short little weeks and will definitely keep you up to date on our new adventures!

These little toes were made for island life.

No related posts.