Goodbye Canada – Where the Journey Begins…
Boy talks to girl. Girl likes boy. They talk everyday for hours for 2 weeks. After ‘Date’ 3 (Thanksgiving weekend), love blossoms. When you know, you know.
That’s the short story to a much more complex one.
We’ve both had our share of relationships, but there was always something missing. I spent years online dating with varying degrees of success. I nearly gave up on it, but my gut kept convincing me to keep trying. He was still a newbie. It wasn’t until he was convinced by close friends and neighbours to finally give it a try. We are one of the success stories to come out of online dating.
Enter Paul. One of the few good ones that still exist. Right from ‘Day 1’ during our Pen Pal days, I knew he was special. Our secret handshake really sealed the deal!
My missing piece was finally found.
Fast forward less than a month, and we had plane tickets booked for a month in Mexico for Christmas and New Year’s Eve.
And you might be thinking, “What!? Are you crazy? That’s so soon!”
Not to us. It felt so natural and exciting to start living the way we wanted. We knew what we felt was real and we didn’t want to waste another minute.
Our trip to Mexico was so successful, in fact, that before it even ended, we were in the planning stages of where to travel next.
Fast forward another month after returning from Mexico, and we had ONE WAY tickets booked for Italy!!
I guess the ‘ONE WAY’ tickets may need a bit more explaining…
Since we both love traveling and have always dreamed of seeing more of the world, another trip seems expected. Except, we didn’t want it to stop there. We wanted more. Could we go longer? Maybe 3 months to escape the winter? Or, could we REALLY go out of our comfort zones and leave Canada?
Paul and I lived on Vancouver Island for 10-17+ years after leaving our family and friends in Ontario in 2005 and 2013. We both knew what it was like to leave everything behind. Vancouver Island served us really well in those years. The beauty that exists on the West Coast of Canada is remarkable, but the world is HUGE! There was no better time than today to start seeing more of it.
So, we went through the stages of trying to decide where to go.
Naturally, we both geeked out and made a spreadsheet of different regions, pros and cons, and anything else that seemed relevant to what we wanted to match our lifestyle.
We decided on Sicily, Italy as a starting point to explore. The island life has always been appealing to us, plus sunny weather year round, a lower cost of living, cheaper homes for sale, amazing food, etc. You can only research so much in advance.
After stumbling on an inspiring blog, ‘Livology‘, that described their shift to focus on ‘Plan A’ while they travel the world as a family, Paul and I decided to come up with our own motto:
That’s how Plan Awesome was created. We had 136 days to make some crucial decisions:
- Quit my nanny job
- Find our home for 3 months in Italy
- Buy motorcycle gear and luggage for travel
- Arrange shipment of Paul’s motorcycle
- Get International Driver’s Permit
- Pass motorcycle license (fingers crossed!)
- Sell/give way 95% of what we owned
- Book a storage unit
- Say our final goodbyes to BC friends
- MOVE!
- Plan a ‘See you later’ trip to Ontario
With the help of many supporting friends, neighbours, strangers, and even an ‘angel’, we managed to get through the process intact and ready to take on the next challenges. As Paul likes to say, “We eat Challenges for Breakfast!!”
