Exploring the World: The Next Chapter

While hiking the Hayduke last spring we toyed with the idea of hiking the Transcaucasian Trail (TCT) in 2025 with our stalwart hiking partner and friend Seth. After a week of discussion and a seventy percent commitment from him, Samantha and I decided this was close enough to one hundred percent to start planning as soon as we finished the Duke in May.

Several months later, while discussing the less than romantic details of these kinds of adventures, we floated another idea to reduce the financial burden while on this hike. What if we closed our business, put everything in storage, sold what we wouldn't need, and moved to Tbilisi, Georgia in April? And maybe lived overseas for another year or two after the hike? Perhaps this was just crazy enough to work, it's something we'd talked about in the past but never were sure how to make a reality. The biggest obstacle is our business, as it's very much tied to a physical location. We've taken sabbaticals before, albeit shorter, but we'll live with the assumption we can always pick up where we left off in a year or two. After committing to this optimistic and potentially naive belief, we decided this was going to be as good a jumping off point as life would ever provide anyway. And I believe if one waits too long to follow their dreams they tend to fade away, tucked into the dark and dusty recesses of one's memory. Only to occasionally see the light of day when remembered as errant youthful whims, but there's still that pang of longing in your heart, of an opportunity missed. So to avoid any existential dilemmas and associated midlife crises, we decided what the hell, YOLO, and all other related proclamations. Let's do this.

So where are we going? The map above is centered on Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, an ancient country in a part of the world often forgotten by the West. The Georgian people have a complex history stretching back more than a millennia, with western Georgia being prominently featured in Greek mythology as the home of the Golden Fleece. After skirmishes with the Romans and centuries of battles with ancient Iranian, Asian and Turkish empires, followed by decades of occupation by the Soviet Union in more modern history; the Georgians today remain a proud people almost 4 million strong. They still speak a language in a family unrelated to any other, with a script all its own. After the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, the once again independent Georgia made significant progress in modernizing the country. Over the past few years there has been a lot of work put into developing the national park system and the Transcaucasian Trail. We'll be following the orange route on the map to the right, northbound, or NOBO in hiking lingo. And as an added bonus, Georgia has very favorable entry requirements for U.S. passport holders, 365 days, no questions asked, visa free!

After the next few frantic weeks of packing, storing, finishing jobs, and tying up lose ends, it all begins April 28th with another ride on our favorite Turkish Air flight, nonstop Seattle to Istanbul, followed by a short jump to Tbilisi. And then what? Will the arrival feel different knowing it was a one way ticket? No return date, a couple of apartments rented in Tbilisi, but what's next? We've sketched out what our ideal world tour looks like and after a short visit to Azerbaijan we'd like to head to South Korea, followed by Taiwan, Southeast Asia, maybe a stop in mainland China and any other interesting destinations along the way! The ideas are limitless, unfortunately our resources are not, so we're going to go with the flow, see what opportunities arise and embrace the experience.

Join us in the coming months to share in our adventure. From the natural beauty of the Caucasus to the megacities of Asia, we don't know where this next year will take us but we certainly hope a few of you will enjoy the ride.

Adventures, Hiking, Travel