There was nothing wrong with our lives, but we wanted more. Less routine, more adventure, and more travel.

Eating out in Singapore, one of our favorite past times in the Lion City

Our first book was published and we held the launch party one day before we left Singapore. The book was entitled Travel Learn Earn: Let The World Be Your Guide To Freedom. The book was based on my first experience traveling around the world. It summed up my six-month solo experience through India, Pakistan, Tibet, Thailand, New Zealand, Indonesia, and Singapore. It highlighted my journey from being a broke backpacker, to broke young professional, to finally a successful businessman. At first, I thought that we wanted to go into the business/personal development, training and speaking business.

After a few months on the road, Charine and I decided to move into a different direction.

On The Road

The first few months on the road were fantastic. We started in Switzerland and traveled from Geneva to Central Italy with my parents. The trip was an anniversary present to my parents and it was very rewarding to see them have a great time. Both of my parents are not big drinkers but had no qualms washing every meal down with a few bottles of wine.

After two weeks, my parents flew home. We set off for Barolo and Barbaresco eating and drinking until our heart’s content. After enjoying the culinary and wine gems of the region, we dropped off our rental car and flew to Sicily. The island of Sicily was amazing and we sampled incredible street food, found Charine’s favorite beach (Cefalu), and climbed Stromboli at sunset to watch it erupt. All of those experiences were great, but our real focus was to visit the famous Etna wine region.

Nearing the top of Mt. Stromboli as the sun sets over the Mediterranean

Tasting wines on Mt. Etna is exciting and fascinating. How often do you get to taste wine while viewing a smoking volcano? We spent our last night on Etna finishing up dinner, only to watch a fresh basket of porcini mushrooms come into the restaurant. There was no choice but to order a second round of porcini infused dishes.

Our next stop was Portugal and the romantic Douro Valley – where we tasted a number of stunning dry reds. From there we moved on to Galicia in Northern Spain and drove across the country. We drove to meet our friend in the foodie mecca of San Sebastian. In San Sebastian, we ate until our heart’s content in the old town, where streets are lined with wonderful Pintxos (tapas) bars.  After northern Spain, we tasted our way through the famous Rioja region on the way to Madrid.

The Genesis of Our First Wine Book

After Spain, we flew to Turkey to begin our three-month jaunt across the Anatolian Plateau into the Caucasus Region. Traveling through Turkey was exhilarating and delicious. The food, culture, and people fascinated us. On the other hand, being an enotourist through Turkey was incredibly frustrating as wineries are not allowed to market or advertise their wines and locations.

We were extremely diligent in trying to locate wineries and taste as much as we could. In the middle of our journey through Turkey, Charine suggested that we should be part of the wine industry in some way, shape, or form. As we made our way across the plateau and into Georgia it became evident that wine was our destiny.

We arrived in Georgia in the Fall of 2015 and made our way up to the magical mountains of Svaneti. Traveling through Georgia had always been a dream for me and I wasn’t let down. Georgia is magical, beautiful, and intoxicating at the same time.

Crossing a mountain pass in Georgia on our way to Kazbegi

The only thing that was difficult in Georgia was finding information on the wines. There was a boom of information available about Georgian wines published in early 2016 – but we were there a few months too early for that. Our Georgian wine research was limited strictly to trial and error.

By the time we crossed over into Armenia, the seed we had planted in our minds began to sprout. We arrived at the right time in Armenia. With the modern wine industry being a few years old, there were mavericks all over the country with big visions. So many fascinating people were doing amazing things and their stories needed to be told. After tasting through Armenia we made the choice to dive into the wine industry head first – focusing on “exotic” wine regions.

The Official Start of Exotic Wine Travel

The Christmas and New Year Season of 2015 saw us spending time with family. We flew to the USA to spend time with my family and then to Singapore to celebrate New Years in the Lion City. After 2016 began we relaunched our website Exotic Wine Travel which was formerly known as The Blue Roster. We also started our YouTube channel “Exotic Wine Travel.” The first few episodes were as expected… terrible.

Charine needed more time to be with her family so I went off to Bali to finish the first draft of what would become Uncorking the Caucasus: Wines from Turkey, Armenia, and Georgia. I spent one month in the co-working space Hubud in Ubud, Bali. After one month, writing every day for eight hours, the first draft was finished.

We packed our bags once more and headed back to the USA for a few weeks for a wedding. After the wedding, we went to a part of the world that both of us were always fascinated with, Ex-Yugoslavia. More specifically the countries of Serbia, Macedonia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Croatia.

Our apartment in Montenegro had a spectacular view of the Bay of Kotor.

Three months of tasting wines in that part of the world was unforgettable. Yes, there many breathtaking wines, but the food, culture, and people were showstoppers. Tasting in some of these countries felt like walking back in time. Many of the tasting sessions in the region lasted all afternoon. Stories about the history and culture flowed more freely than the wine during those long afternoons.

Croatia was the last country on our itinerary. We had met a wonderful Croat during our stay in Ubud, Bali and he is an avid wine enthusiast. With his help, we were really able to reach into the underbelly of Croatian food and wine. We fell in love, it became obvious that we needed to write a guide to the wines of Croatia.

Back to the USA

When you are traveling around the world full-time, weddings can be difficult. This was the second time in 2016 that we scheduled our entire lives around a wedding. There were a few things that worked out when we flew back to the USA in May 2016. The Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC hosted a tasting of Armenian wines. We got a chance to see many of our friends/producers and taste some newly released vintages.

After the wedding, we decided that since we were back in the USA, we should check out the wine scene in Baja Mexico. And since we were going to Baja, it only made sense to make a side trip to my favorite American wine region, Santa Barbara County. We spend a wonderful week in Santa Barbara County reliving my interpretation of the film Sideways. Tasting in SBC was awesome, we tasted over 350 wines during the week. Our electronic book on the Wines of Santa Barbara County will be out this year.

Oh Mexico

James Taylor’s single Mexico was on my mind as we crossed the border and headed towards the port town of Ensenada, Mexico. The city is next to the largest wine producing region in Mexico, the Guadalupe Valley. Baja California produces nearly all of the fine Mexican wine and Ensenada was a perfect place to set up shop for a few months.

We spent two and a half wonderful months in Ensenada. It may be the best food city in the world, period. The fresh seafood from the Pacific prepared with Mexican spices proved a lethal combination. The Mexican wines were very interesting, they ranged from rich and over extracted to extremely well made and elegant.

Good day! We’ll be starting our prelaunch campaign for Uncorking The Caucasus today. Expect tons of info on wines from Turkey, Georgia, and Armenia! But before that, here are some more recent and timely updates on our wine discovery in Baja, Mexico. In the upcoming episode, we introduce the portfolio of @torresalegre and make recommendations on the must-try and must-buy from the winery. 🍷To view full episode or learn more about unique wines from lesser-known wine regions, follow us on Facebook.com/exowinetravel or subscribe to YouTube.com/c/exoticwinetravel🍷

A video posted by Exotic Wine Travel (@exoticwinetravel) on Aug 1, 2016 at 12:37pm PDT

It was a real challenge as Charine was finishing the editing, design, and layout of our first wine book while we had to research the Mexican wines. We managed to get everything done and ready for printing while tasting all of the wines we needed to. Baja wines are garnering a lot of attention and we hope to have our guide out in late 2017.

Back to the Start

We crossed the border and flew from San Diego, California back to Tbilisi, Georgia. Our mission was to attend the United Nation’s first ever Wine Tourism Conference. Launching our book in both Georgia and Armenia was also a high priority. Being back in the country also meant tasting the new vintages. Charine made the two-minute video below that sums up our stint back in the Caucasus.

Closing out 2016

As the days started to grow cold in the Caucasus we made our move to back to Macedonia. Our friend in wine, Ivana Simjanovska, organized the first ever Wine Salon Skopje. It was a marvelous two-day event and we got the chance to taste through new vintages of the Macedonian wines we had earlier in the year.

Our eyes were on Zagreb to finish out 2016. In Croatia, we finished our Wine & Spirit Education Trust (WSET) Level III Advanced Certification. The end of this year ended in a flurry as we were published on JancisRobinson.com, Wine Folly, and Uncorking the Caucasus received the Gourmand Award for “Best Wine Travel Book.”

As 2016 comes to a close we look to 2017 and the release of three new books. They will be guides to the wines of Santa Barbara County, Baja, and Croatia. Looking ahead into 2017 is scary and exciting, it’s a make-or-break year for us. We have to make the business work this year. Our site continues to grow but we are working towards big breakthroughs that will make everything we gave up in our previous life worth it. Family and financial pressure continue to mount but we that believe that things will be great this year.

This year we start off by tasting through the Friuli-Venezia Giulia in the northeastern corner of Italy before doing a two-week project on the island of Cyprus. I hope that you’ll follow us and learn more about this magical beverage we all know as wine.

20 months of wine travel–from Switzerland, to Italy, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, Georgia, Armenia, Indonesia, USA, Mexico, Serbia, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Bosnia-Herzegovina. It was hard to condense everything into a minute-long preview but here’s a peek. We hope you’ll join us as we continue our journey in 2017. Follow us here on Instagram and Facebook (Exotic Wine Travel). Next year, our journey begins in Friuli, then Cyprus, and… well, who knows!

A video posted by Exotic Wine Travel (@exoticwinetravel) on Dec 30, 2016 at 4:09pm PST

Follow Us

You can follow all our videos, articles, and updates here on the website. We are also extremely active on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Vivino.

Our books Uncorking the Caucasus: Wines of Turkey, Armenia, and Georgia and Travel Learn Earn: Let The World Be Your Guide To Freedom are available on Amazon.

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Reflections: Long-Term Travel and the Journey to Becoming Location Independent 

The post The Story of Exotic Wine Travel After 20 Months On The Road appeared first on Wine Travel.

In December 2015, Matt and I concluded our first circuit of travel and flew back to Singapore, where I had two months to catch up with family and friends. During meetups, some questions kept popping up in conversations, and then there were other questions too that had never crossed my mind. I’ll always appreciate the people who ask thoughtful questions, no matter how challenging it is for me to answer them, for three reasons. First, it shows that the other person cares enough to try to get to know me. Second, it shows curiosity, which is one of my favorite traits. Third, a thoughtful question creates the space for both the questioner and me to uncover more self-awareness. Since Matt has written about his “lessons learned from quitting a lucrative career to chase a dream”, I reckon it’d be apt for me to do a similar piece, based on the questions I’ve been asked.

P R E P A R A T I O N

“For what gives value to travel is fear. It breaks down a kind of inner structure we have. One can no longer cheat — hide behind the hours spent at the office or at the plant.”

– Albert Camus

1. How did you finance your travel?

The first round of our travel was meant to be a sabbatical and we didn’t get much business done. Matt and I earned some money from keynotes and the sales of Travel, Learn, Earn, but the revenue was not enough for us to get by. Most of the time, we were dipping into our savings. The second round of travel, which begins in March 2016, will be different as we focus more on building both a lifestyle and incomes that are sustainable.

2. How much did you pack for a long trip like this?

I was carrying a 38-litre backpack which weighed about 11 kilograms. Below is a picture of all the clothes that took me through days ranging from -4 to +40 degree Celsius.

Living out of a suitcase made me realize how I had taken many things for granted. Things that would not pose a problem in the short term become enormous inconveniences if we live by them daily in the long term. On the other hand, packing up and leaving for a long-term trip is the best way to reflect on our wants and needs. It’s also the fastest way to transform our lives to living like a minimalist. A side note: Being a minimalist isn’t only about the things we own, it also includes how we think and what we allow to enter our consciousness.

These are all the clothes that I packed for the seven-month trip.

3. Were you backpacking?

What does backpacking entail? I’m not sure. I was carrying a backpack. We had a budget to work with but it wasn’t a shoestring. We tried to cut back on transportation costs by taking buses and trains instead of private cars and airplanes. We tried to save on accommodation too—choosing homestays, airb&b and pensions over hotels; but once a month, we would pamper ourselves and check into a five-star hotel or luxury resort for two to four nights. Matt and I agreed that the monthly pampering was a beneficial commitment—while in the short-term, it may seem like we were being short-sighted, spending between USD200 to USD600 a night for a room (instead of the usual ~USD50/night cap) and dipping ruthlessly into our savings; in the long term, it has helped us to maintain the abundant mindset. Staying emotionally connected to the good life can be such a strong motivator for us to want to do well in business.

 4. How did you plan your trip? Did you pre-book accommodation and transport in advance?

The only thing we planned in advance was the duration we wanted to spend in each country. Once we were in the country, our schedules were set a day to at most four days in advance. Most accommodation and transport were booked a day before arrival. There were other times when we arrived at a new place without accommodation and had to scout around for a place to stay. In the more remote areas, most homestays were not listed on the internet.

T R A V E L

“The huge masses of stone gripped me; on one side a mighty waterfall plunged far down. Everything was granite — it was like driving through the earth’s backbone.” 

– Hans Christian Andersen

5. What’s your favorite country from the seven-month journey?

In seven months, we traveled to Switzerland, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, Georgia, and Armenia. We weren’t moving fast—spending between two to 14 days in every city/town we visited—and didn’t cover many places in each country. Based on the limited experience, I would pick Armenia as the most memorable place I’ve visited. I can’t say it’s my favorite country because every country has something unique to offer, especially Italy. I’ll probably never be sick of visiting Italy.

When planning for the trip, I had Armenia as a priority for two reasons. One, the country fascinated me mostly because of Armenians’ contribution to Singapore. Two, the tragic history; I wanted to be there to learn about their side of the story. During our three-week travel in Armenia, that fascination morphed into something in the same shape as an obsession.

Armenia is packed with nature candies—completely untouched, expansive plateaus with a few peaks in sight. The people in Armenia are some of the most strong-willed, loving, fun, and driven people I’ve met. Not to mention the women living in Yerevan, the capital city of Armenia, are gorgeous… drop-dead gorgeous. Based on my two weeks stay in Yerevan, Armenia, I would consider it as one of my favourite/most liveable cities—with nature within easy reach, smart and beautiful people, an abundant of historical and cultural learning points, relatively low cost of living, international F&B options, and a wine scene that is moving through a renaissance period in history.

One of our favorite activities in Yerevan, Armenia, was the weekly wine tasting session held at a restaurant called The Club.

6. Which country is the most beautiful?

Without a doubt, Georgia is the most beautiful country I’ve visited. The only thing missing from Georgia’s beauty is a cherub and handbell choir.

One of the many beautiful sights in Georgia.

7. Which country has the nicest and friendliest people?

I think the Italians make the most charming friends. The Spaniards are the most fun friends. The people in Turkey (Turks and Kurds included) are the most helpful. The Armenians ang Georgians are the most hospitable.

Lunch with Laura, whom we befriended in Bologna, Italy.

8. Which country has the best food?

All of Italy offers the best of everything edible. San Sebastian is a haven for budget-fine dinning. A ten-course, pintxo-hopping dinner—including dishes like foie gras, uni, octopus, and beef cheek—can be obtained at under €50. But if I have to choose one cuisine to eat for the rest of my life, I’ll pick the food from Turkey.

A typical meal in Turkey is filled with vegetables, grilled meat, and healthy colors.

9. Which country in the Caucasus region makes the best wine?

In that part of the world, outside of the capital cities, there’s little success in popping into a bar and expecting a decent glass of wine. Nevertheless, Turkey, Georgia, and Armenia—all three of the countries that we visited in the Caucasus—had offered us a few good tipples. It’s easier to find wines that suit a palate accustomed to international taste in Armenia. If you are tired of tasting the same things day in and day out, then the natural wines or qvevri wines in Georgia will be an interesting option to explore. The Caucasus offers a unique window that looks back into a forgotten chapter in the history of wine. For most of the wines there, their stories alone will make them an interesting wine to drink; and for some wines, they stand out with organoleptic merits. Here are a few recommendations:

Turkey

• Corvus Zeleia Vasilaki (dry white made from a native variety called Vasilaki)
• Turasan Emir (dry white made from a native variety called Emir)

Georgia

• Schuchmann Blanc de Blanc Chardonnay (dry sparkling white)
• Lagvinari Tsolikouri (qvevri-style, dry amber made from a native grape variety called Tsolikouri)
• Pheasant’s Tears Chinuri (qvevri-style, dry amber made from a native grape variety called Chinuri)
• Khareba Otskhanuri Sapere (qvevri-style dry red made from a native grape variety called Saperavi)
• Kvaliti Otskhanuri Sapere-Tsolikouri (qvevri-style dry red made from native red and white grape varieties, Otskhanuri Sapere and Tsolikouri)
• Lagvinari Saperavi (dry red made from Saperavi)

Armenia

• Karas Armavir (dry white made from Muscat)
• Armas Uru Qu Karmrahyut (dry red made from native varieties Karmrahyut, Areni Noir, Kakhet, and Meghrabuyr)
• Zorah Karasi (dry red made from Areni Noir)
• Tariri (dry red blend of Areni Noir, Merlot, and Cabernet Sauvignon)

10. What’s your fondest memory from the trip?
Meeting winery owners and winemakers make up some of the fondest memories during this trip. Special thanks to these people too for inspiring me and Matt through the wine glass:

• Armen from Old Bridge winery
• Bruno from Nada Fiorenzo winery
• Eko from Lagvinari winery
• Matteo from Ascheri winery
• Stefano from La Vite Turchese wine bar
• Vahe from Semina Consulting
• Sue and Matt from my circle of trust
• Zorik from Zorah winery

Qvevri and concrete vats found in the Zorah winery.

11. What was the most dangerous encounter you had?

There wasn’t a single moment that I felt that my life was in danger. The only experience that came close to that was when we were making a technically difficult descent from the Kackar mountain range in Turkey. However, there were a few unusual or upsetting encounters:

• In a few parts of southeast Turkey, where some people refer to as “Kurdistan”, armor tanks were a common sight but the vibes in the street were always normal and relaxed. One morning when we were having breakfast at an upscale hotel’s cafe, two fully armed men in military clothing marched up and stationed themselves at two ends of the patio. At one point, one of them had his rifle raised and looked like he was sharpening his aim. The staff at the café seemed nonchalant about the whole situation so I figured there was nothing to worry too.
• My ass was grabbed once in a crowded street in Istanbul, Turkey.
• In a hiking/tourist town called Mestia in Georgia, I was out alone around dinnertime and was followed twice, by one guy right after another. I could have easily considered them as stalkers, but “getting stalked” is a story. The two Georgian men probably wanted to chat or get to know me, in a manner of curiosity and not creepiness.

The world is less scary than we think. It’s beneficial to be cautious but if cautiousness consumes our openness to see people in a good light, then this life and world wouldn’t be worth exploring.

12. Were you able to maintain your workout and clean-eating habits while on the road?

Maintaining a strict workout routine was difficult, but it was mostly my fault because I didn’t try hard enough. The hiking, moving around with an 11-kg backpack, occasional pushups, squats with furniture, and hill sprints kept me in good shape but not in the same fitness level that I used to be. My weight remained the same as before the trip but I lost substantial muscle mass and strength. Eating clean was no issue at all in every country. All of the countries that we were in steered clear of processed food, except Portugal.

D E V E L O P M E N T

“It is not about how to get more things done; it’s about how to get the right things done. It doesn’t mean just doing less for the sake of less either. It is about making the wisest possible investment of your time and energy in order to operate at our highest point of contribution by doing only what is essential.”

– Greg McKeown

13. How does it feel to be location independent, working and traveling around the world simultaneously?

It feels free, we feel freed, and the freedom we have is all in exchange for the security and certainty we give up.

There is less societal and peer pressure. We are able to think and make choices independently based on our value systems and not on societal expectations. We have more freedom to live the kind of life we want, without the fear of looking bad or feeling judged. At work, being away from our usual community and environment enables us to be more creative, think differently, and more willing to take risks. The location-independent setup also helps us to focus on work and our own priorities, particularly for finance, because there is no pressure to keep up with social life and the cosmopolitan city lifestyle.

The challenge is around being disciplined and creating a routine that makes us deliver output on a regular basis. There’s always the temptation to ignore work for a day and go out to explore an unknown place.

 14. How is it like traveling as a couple?

Heart-breaking at times, annoying sometimes, and beneficial all the time. Matt mentioned his views here. The crucial thing is to be self-aware and make an effort to stay independent—crafting the time to be alone, meet people, have your own share of fun, and work on your own development. Overall, I find the working-together part more difficult than traveling together.

15. What’s the hardest thing about this transition from living and working in Singapore to traveling all the time?

The biggest challenge is getting family and friends to understand what I’m doing and why I’m doing what I’m doing. A calculated risk to you is often interpreted as foolishness and irresponsibility by other people.

The hardest thing to leave behind in Singapore was not the physical possessions and comfort, but my sense of identity. For a long time during the trip, I struggled with low self-esteem and feeling like a fraud. I had difficulty introducing myself to people. What comes after a name in an introduction if I’m not working somewhere, I don’t have a respectable income,  I’m not a friend of someone, and I have no creative work of my own to share?

Often, we box ourselves in with self-definitions influenced by the physical environment and the context we live in. We forget that we can change those definitions at will, and we can also close old doors and open new ones by doing so.

What’s your name? What are you passionate about? Why are you here today? What’s your intention for the day? What’s one thing you hope to change in modern parenting and education? These questions are more likely to lead us to sturdier definitions for ourselves.

16. What’s the hardest part about being constantly on the move?

The hardest part is learning to let go, constantly getting pushed out of my comfort zone, and not getting sucked into the story of “I’m tired” or “It’s nice here so let’s not move on”.

While we often hear people lament about how travel is great for character-building, this betterment isn’t a straightforward process. Most days, I felt challenged instead of nurtured. My life, energy, body, belief, and faith were constantly getting chipped away; and things often looked bleak for a long time until the epiphany moment when I realized I was being a myopic, whiny baby all along.

17. What are the biggest lessons you gained from travel?

This is the most frequently asked question and my answer to it has been a little different each time. There are so many things that I’ve learned about life, people, and the world in the past seven months that it’s hard to pinpoint a few useful lessons to share, but here’s my first attempt at sorting out my thoughts and condensing them into 10 points:

• Travel can shine a light on the trivialities of life and the emptiness inside us. From that point onwards, only we can save ourselves. Consumerism and validation will lose their power to cure the hollowness in us. The gorgeous, glamorous, and clever people will lose their entertainment value. Many things will lose its enchanting shine.
• Long-term travel can help us to whittle life down to the baseline of what we want in order to be optimally happy.
• There are distinct differences between a job, a career, and a purpose or calling. We all want different things and have different definitions of those things. What matters most is that your position is defined by how you view your own work and not the value that others put on it.
• Success is irrelevant; it is a story we tell ourselves. Believing and causing others to believe is what’s important.
• Our greatest source of motivation is a compound of our fear and excitement.
• The only equalizer in life is time. Don’t let society tell you how to spend it.
• Don’t let society tell you how to spend your money too. Money is a raw material for building the life that you want. No one gets to tell you what kind of life you want.
• Our value system is the single most important compass in life. It can save us from guilt, unhappiness, and mediocrity.
• Self-entitlement causes expectation and frustration in life. If you expect the traffic to be smooth so you can be on time for your appointment, if you expect pleasant service from the waiter, then you are a self-entitled prick.
• We are all privileged. Acknowledging that can make us kinder and more generous.

F U T U R E

18. What’s next for you and Matt?

The travel will go on and the ambition to build a location-independent business will continue to shape our choices.

Travel, Learn, Earn remains on sale on Amazon. Related to the book, we also deliver author keynotes and “Design Your Life” workshops. The Travel, Learn, Earn product was meant to help Matt move out of his chiropractic business and into a speaking career, but right now and into the near future, most of our attention will be on building a community for Exotic Wine Travel. Through Exotic Wine Travel, we aim to propagate wine culture, share wine information particularly on lesser-known wine, and connect wine explorers from all over the world. The ultimate goal is for us to move into wine consulting so we can raise awareness, expand appreciation, and increase demand for lesser-known wines. It’s a long shot but we are hopeful and determined. The stories of the Barolo Boys, Robert Parker, and Gary Vaynerchuck also comfort us that we are not so off the beaten path.

For travel: we are planning to spend early-March to mid-May in Western Balkans—mainly Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia. We’ll be back in the USA briefly in end-May to early-June for work and to visit family and friends. After that, we will head to South America—Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay—where we will begin our sommelier training.

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The post Reflection: Long-Term Travel And The Journey to Becoming Location Independent appeared first on Wine Travel.

Seven months have now passed since Charine and I both left our very lucrative jobs in Singapore to travel around the world. We left a comfortable life to chase our dream of building a location-independent business, to live all over the world, to experience diverse cultures, to eat great food and to drink incredible wine.

I have always loved traveling and am no stranger to taking a chance and betting on myself. After graduating from chiropractic college in the Spring of 2009, I hopped onto a plane the next day and traveled around the world for seven months on a limited budget, found a new country to call home, got blacklisted from that country, relocated and built a successful clinic and business in another country. The lessons learned from that experience were priceless and are documented here .

Life was great in Singapore–the patients were getting well, the business was great, and I met a wonderful girl who shares the same interests and desires as me. I was extremely fortunate for a life that was going fantastic, there was nothing to complain about. Charine and I were eating at the best restaurants, sporting great stuff, and had a legendary social life. We were doing so well in Singapore that in our last year, we were in the top tax bracket. We wanted more though–the freedom to travel, the freedom to work for ourselves, and the flexibility to work from anywhere in the world.

On 29 May 2015, we launched our first book Travel Learn Earn and two days later we left to travel around the world. The last seven months were a romp through Switzerland, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, The Republic of Georgia, Armenia and USA. I planned those seven months as a sabbatical to enjoy life and to think about what the next chapter would bring. The last half of a year has brought much enjoyment and excitement while at the same time brought challenges, fears, and contemplation.

When I left Singapore and shared my plan with one of my best friends, I told him, “The worst thing that can happen is I fall on my face and get up to dust myself off.” He responded, “No, the worst thing that can happen is you learn a hell of a lot.”

So here it is.

5 TRAVEL LESSONS LEARNED AFTER BEING ON THE ROAD FOR 7 MONTHS

Wine is awesome but enotourism is better

On a wine boat tour along the Douro river in Portugal.

Wine played zero part in my upbringing. The only memory I have of wine as a child is when my parents forced me to attend church. The only time I enjoyed going was during communion. I loved how the wine danced around in my mouth. Growing up in a small and rural community, cheap beer was the choice of drink much to my disdain. In fact, I got so sick of drinking economical tipple that from the age of 16 to 21, I did not have a drop of alcohol. It all changed in 2004 when I watched a film called “Sideways”. The intellectual facet of wine was fascinating to me and in that moment I decided to drink wine.

Throughout university and graduate school, money was short so the wine that I consumed was in the $10-15 range which didn’t bring much diversity. After graduate school, expendable income began to exist in my life and with it came better and better wine. Charine and I soon found ourselves at wine-pairing dinners in Singapore at least bi-monthly and often weekly. Our enthusiasm for wine grew with every meal.

The love for wine and enotourism was taken to another level during those last seven months. Visiting a wine producer will do the same for you too. The beauty and smell of the vineyards coupled with talking to winemakers who are full of passion will stir something up inside you. Your understanding and knowledge of wine will increase exponentially just by talking to wine producers and other people in wine regions. Sometimes the tastings are small and intimate, where owners and winemakers would walk you through their facilities and share their personal stories. Other times wineries have huge tasting rooms complete with well trained staff and great food to pair with vino.

Even if you are a novice drinker or just remotely interested in wine, go visit a winery. Better yet, go to a winery that produces your favorite bottle. Drinking that glass will never be the same again.

If you want to learn more about different kinds of wine, you can check out our YouTube channel Exotic Wine Travel or view the videos on our website www.exoticwinetravel.com.

Leaving comfort is never easy

Using a “primal toaster” for our bread while hiking through the Kackar mountain range.

I love to travel and got bitten hard by the bug since first stepping foot abroad, on a trip to Iceland, in 2006. Since then, I have been fortunate to travel to 27 countries and one thing doesn’t change: I get nervous every single time before I travel.

Last May, Charine and I had just packed up our apartment and gave away most of our stuff. We were also fresh off of a book launch and got to see most of our friends at the event and said goodbye to them. The time was right to go. During the drive to the airport, my hands started shaking and an unsettling feeling came over me. A voice in my head said, “WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING? Things are great here, let’s just turn this car around and go back to the familiar.” That wasn’t the last time I heard from that voice.

During the last seven months, the general rule of thumb is that we would stay at a place for three to four days before moving on to the next place. Every single time on the last day of our short stay, worry and wonder would bubble up and I’d be tempted to just stay instead of moving on. That happened every time without fail. It’s a good thing that I didn’t listen to that little voice because if so, who knows what Charine and I would have missed out.

I thought that it would be easier and easier to step outside my comfort zone the more that I do it. The truth is it is still difficult every time. Don’t get discouraged, just push forward.

Traveling with money is more enjoyable than doing it on a shoestring

Superb view to accompany a local wine at Kayakapi Premium Caves, Cappadocia, Turkey.

There was another fear that kept rising in my mind before we set out. Would this trip be as exciting and organic as the previous trips I did, all of which were on a shoestring?

There is a certain romanticism that comes with traveling on a tight budget. You are forced to come up with creative solutions on the fly. If you miss a bus and it’s late, sleeping on the parking lot outside the station doesn’t seem like such a bad idea. No money for food? That free tomato and cheese sandwich a fellow traveler offers you might just taste like the best thing in the world. When I was a younger traveler, everything happened organically and everything seemed to be the greatest story in the world.

After the first month of eating our way through spectacular restaurants, buying several cases of wine, and dodging traffic with our rental car in Italy ,the bill was just short of USD 12,000. To some people that might not be a lot of money; to others it may be a helluva lot. I will put it into perspective based on my prior travel experiences. Just six years ago, my total tab for a seven-month trip was under USD 8,000.

Was the first month of the trip any less fulfilling than slumming it in one-dollar beds in India? I certainly was not longing for street food while eating at the Michelin-starred La Ciau del Tornavento and buying cases of some of the world’s greatest wine in Piedmont, Italy. Were those experiences different than budget travel? Yes, but they were not necessarily better.

I am a big advocate for extended budget travel and recommend it to anybody who wants to learn and grow. It teaches you many different things about yourself and the world like I mentioned here. Do it once or do it often. Immerse yourself in the sights, smells and sounds of an exotic place. Then try it again when you are more established and tell me what you think.

Not fretting over two dollars when choosing a hostel may make memories, but so does a five-star cave hotel overlooking the different shades of red in a Cappadocian valley.

Traveling with a loved one is a real test

Charine and I in the Republic of Georgia.

For five years, most of my focus and savings went towards the dream of taking an epic solo trip after five years of private practice in Singapore. When we started the relationship, Charine and I agreed that we could make a long-distance relationship work. It seemed like we had it all figured out but then something changed. We both ended up leaving our jobs to travel together.

No matter how strong the bond is, traveling together, spending 24 hours a day for months on end with a loved one is a real test. I have a personality that can be described as “irritating” so just having dinner with me is a big enough challenge for most people. Charine had to deal with it all the time over a course of seven months. I’m lucky she hasn’t snapped.

Dealing with each other’s quirky traits while on long-term travel is challenging because even if you are good friends with someone, or love somebody dearly, things start to chip away at you. When traveling with someone you love, it is best to acknowledge when you are irritated, think about why, and then look at the bigger picture. For example, Charine is always hungry. I can turn off the part of my brain that controls satiation; when there is a long period without food, I choose not to be hungry. One time we were in Armenia and were about to take a long minibus ride.  I suggested not having lunch that day. She looked into her bag and realized she had brought along only one banana and  a piece of chocolate. She then flipped out on me. She got hangry (hungry+angry). The first instinct was to be defensive but after taking a step back, I understood that she was probably upset that her hunger would take over–she was mad about that, not mad at me.

Communication also has to be crystal clear when you are on the road together. That is often the source of misunderstanding, which then leads to irritation, which then leads to fights. Going back to the above example, if I had asked Charine if it was possible to skip lunch instead of stating that we were not having lunch, she would have been able to express her concerns about how it wouldn’t work for her. On the other side, if she would have told me that not eating lunch was not a good option for her instead of panicking and lashing out, we could have avoided an hour of being bitter and working to clear things up.

If we were at home on a daily routine, it would be easy to escape each other’s presence and cool off for a while. Being on the road and together all the time, things get magnified. Anyone who thinks that they have found the right person, go buy two plane tickets and travel around the world together. If you are not ripping each other’s heads off, then great; if you come back with a stronger bond, even better.

Travel teaches you humility

Our guesthouse owner preparing a feast for our breakfast.

This is something that I am embarrassed to admit: by the end of my time in Singapore, my ego needed a little bit of a check. It was something that I didn’t want to happen to me, something that I tried to fight off as it crept closer and closer. With success comes more money, with more money comes power, with more power comes a big head. I told myself that it would not happen to me, but it was inevitable. There were many times that I found myself judging people that were not doing as well financially as me–it was stupid, it was pig-headed, it was immature. Regardless, it was how I felt and viewed people around me.

Before leaving for the trip, my good friend and I sat down over two bottles of wine and spent four hours discussing life at large. Him being 20 years older than me, I always pull a few nuggets out of our conversations. That night he reiterated a statement that is common knowledge, but that night for some reason, it finally sunk in. He said, “There’s always going to be someone with more money, or a bigger car, always…”

Getting on the road this time has finally enabled that statement to internalize. The trip has taught me that everybody at their core is on a similar playing field. People can be wonderful, kind, and pleasant no matter what kind of socioeconomic background they are from–whether it was a taxi driver ushering us around in Turkey for free to make sure we weren’t stuck, or a lovely guesthouse owner who made tarts from scratch every morning.

The funny thing is that the tables have turned, almost everyone I met on this trip has a leg up on me–now that I’m technically unemployed and homeless. In the past, it was all about what kind of watch I had, where I was going for dinner, and what bottle of wine I was ordering. All that stuff is great and it is nice, but it’s better to enjoy it for the sake of enjoying it. Lesson here: Don’t take yourself too damn seriously.

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When I read the article about Chanel Cartell and Stevo Dirnberger who left their advertising jobs and now fund their world travels by cleaning toilets, I asked Matt, “Why do you want to travel?” While I believe that travel can be inherently valuable—and I admire the couple’s determination and fortitude—I wouldn’t make the same choice and let health, career, and financial well-being take a back seat just to be able to scrape by and see the world.

For Matt, travel is an end to an end. As a child, he always dreamed of seeing the other side of the mountain. The only way to quench his thirst for adventure and aliveness, and to fuel his creative engine, is to put him on the road perpetually.

For me, travel is a means to an end. When I first committed to this journey, a few people asked if I am “finding myself”. Not at all, I wasn’t feeling remotely “lost”, there was no need to find anything. I loved my life in Singapore, my social circle, and my job. But I wanted to travel to expand myself—to open up new latitude for success while fulfilling my needs for freedom and lifelong growth. I had set out the goals to achieve financial- and location- independence and couldn’t see that happening soon enough if I had gone with the default choice of living in Singapore. So I chose a different trajectory: focus on building an investment portfolio and bootstrap a startup while on a round-the-world trip; and with that switch, I could instantly achieve a location-independent lifestyle and keep 100% of the returns on my productivity.

So why do you want to travel? Whatever your drivers are, travel should expand your calibre, enhance your well-being, or improve the quality of your life.

“Travelling is a fool’s paradise. Our first journeys discover to us the indifference of places. At home I dream that at Naples, at Rome, I can be intoxicated with beauty, and lose my sadness. I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea, and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me is the stern fact, the sad self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from. I seek the Vatican, and the palaces. I affect to be intoxicated with sights and suggestions, but I am not intoxicated. My giant goes with me wherever I go. ”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Travel should not be an escape. It should be an expression of your life, no better and no worse than your life at home. If you are so displeased with any aspect of your life and where you live that you fantasize about getting away frequently, then it’s a wake up call to work on the indispensable parts of your life and not think about how to avoid reality or how to scrimp and save for the next vacation. There’s a difference between wanting a change in scenery or to gain new perspectives and needing to run away from, in Emerson’s words, your giant.

Travel only if you want to and if you genuinely enjoy it. It is perfectly fine if you don’t appreciate visiting new places or detest being on a plane. It is understandable that you feel your best at home. Packing and unpacking, spending hours in transit, and the uncertainty by dint of a foreign country can be exhausting. Don’t let the travel hustlers fool you into thinking that travel is an extension of wisdom. It can be but it doesn’t apply to everyone. Not everyone thinks diversity is the magical spice of life. Not everyone is interested to extrapolate their future developments from travel lessons, and not everyone can thrive in ambiguity or unfamiliar environment. The bigotry among the travel hustlers is like a crusade. Some people jump on the bandwagon of travel and think it is wrong to not enjoy travel, then they judge the people who don’t like to travel or travel differently from them. To think we often hear or say that travel opens the mind, the narrow-mindedness among some travellers are as mind-boggling as the unique places they boast about visiting. Going to “off the grid” places? Package tours are “for tourists”? Going to and eating at “a real local place”? Staying at guest houses because they are “more organic experiences”? Do those statements ring a bell? Come on. Travellers should feel honoured and privileged to have a glimpse into an understanding of the world that not everyone gets to see, instead of promoting snobbery.

Travel in your own skin and travel so you can be in your own skin. Ask yourself what is holding you back from experiencing life in its totality. By and large, we are products of our environments and influenced by prolonged exposure to our set of circumstances and cultures. Consider your comfort zone. Think about where you want to be emotionally, financially, intellectually, and spiritually. Then go out and search for the adventures, people, places, and sights that will help you unlearn your self-imposed limits and get you to the level of excellence that you want. When you focus on what matters to you, the budget travel or the dinner at a Michelin-starred restaurant, the luxury hotel stay or the penny-pinching night at a hostel, the famous monastery or the hippest cafe in town, the learning new language or the unlearning of your own cultural habits, the checking off landmarks, and counting number of countries visited may just become pointless.

As I looked through Cartell’s and Dirnberger’s website, I realised they too are on their ways to achieving their purposes. In one article, Dirnberger wrote that they started their journey to look for creative inspiration and it seems like now they have a consistent flow of it. Check out their creative portfolio here. Also as Cartell wrote, “There’s nothing quite like swapping million rand [the currency of South Africa] advertising budgets for toilet scrubbing to teach you about humility, life, and the importance of living each day as if it were your last.”

Character is built when we challenge ourselves. Inspiration is fuelled by an intentional course of action. As with travel, we need to proactively guide the course of travel and seek experiences that will spark creative thinking, push our limits, and fulfil our purposes. Don’t just sit around and wait for the proverbial apple to fall on the head. Both life and travel can be carried along on the prevailing winds, it may still be fun and it may be easy. But would it be valuable, would the journey be worth it?

“Originality only begins when we dare to be thought a little mad, when we allow our curiosity to be spontaneous, when we undertake the heroic effort of worrying a little less what the crowd and the guidebooks think. Part of growing up, and learning to travel well, means daring to take our own interests a bit more seriously.”

Alain de Botton

Hold on to the sense of wonder, Charine.

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Why am I taking all these photos? For memories? Just so I can look at them and remember the trips? Why not just be in the moment? By attempting to capture it forever, am I missing the actual thing? Or am I subconsciously mucking about in the choose-your-favorite-filter vanity bubble of the digital world? So I can bake a cake, have it all to myself, eat it in front of everyone, and gnawed by worry over how many like’s I will receive? Shouldn’t travel be about meanings? Shouldn’t people be the core of bringing meanings to travel? And not the places, food and wine in these photos? How do I photograph meanings? How can I document human connections? Is there any point in immortalising these moments and sights?

According to Viktor Frankl, anything can have meaning if it changes you for the better.

In the process of capturing these moments, my awareness of the surroundings is enhanced. I am making a purposeful attempt to seek out details that reveal beauty, like the tension between textures and the subtle colour that tells a story.

At Sagalassos, an archaeological site in southwestern Turkey.

By being conscious of what captures my attention, what I deem worth remembering, and what I intend to accomplish with the photos—ultimately and ideally—I hope to learn more about what really matters to me.

At Amadeus Winery, Oliver Gareis the winemaker shares the obstacles to wine production in Turkey.

I hope that these photos will remind me where I’ve been, not just physically but also internally—my mind and what went into every inch of my gut.

In Batumi, Matt and I tried Khinkali for the first time.

Maybe these photo can keep me anchored to empathy and openness by illustrating that life can be lived perfectly well and differently from my own.

Cappadocia isn’t all about whimsical fairy chimneys and hot air balloons. Some of the caves are still used by the locals for businesses and residential homes.

Perhaps someday these photos will teach me that environment dictates possibilities and possibilities are endless if I consider the varied environments out there.

In Svaneti, a historic province in Georgia, life is as good as chilled beef.

In every photo, I hope it will act as a time machine, taking me to a positive feeling in the past and teleport my mind to a future moment that I will intentionally construct based on this positive memory.

A dream-come-true moment for me to spend an evening in Porto, Portugal. Crooked Vines is one of my favorite Portuguese wine finds and I can’t wait to share the taste with my loved ones in the near future.

Why take all these photos? Steve Jobs said that we can only connect the dots when we look backwards. Then maybe the question should be why not? So why not #yolo, take a #selfie of your #ootd with #foodporn on the table as you plan your next #fitspiration post at a place that qualifies for #wanderlust?

That said, I think we can all learn to strive for an environment or Facebook feed that is less about ourselves and more about what we are surrounded with; perhaps even go beyond picture-perfect essentialism and create vivid frames about how we feel, not just what we see.

I’ll continue to document my trips but will also keep in mind to do it in the least intrusive manner. Enjoy and savor the moment first and if an unobtrusive opportunity arises, maybe I’ll create a tangible memory to fall back on. We can all keep moving and document our own trail as long as we remember to look back and connect the dots of those experiences. In the process, let’s continue to ask ourselves “why” and “why not”.

To perception, reason, will, intuition, and imagination—much love, Charine

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When I first learned about the history of Yugoslavia—I couldn’t wrap my head around it. How could a country break up, dissolve and disappear? I mean, it’s there, it’s on the map, it’s a piece of tangible land! But the puzzle slipped my mind as soon as the next plate of food arrived on the table; at that age to me, there were more important things in life to care about than the citizenship of Mother Teresa.

Fast forward to today, I’m sitting at a cafe in southern Turkey, considering whether to offer my loose change or food to a child refugee from Syria. As I travel in Turkey, many of the world stories become real problems. Every refugee I meet takes a chunk off my mental block. Suddenly, Syria and Iran are in my backyard. The Kurds and Laz people are my friends. The residue of the population exchange between Greece and Turkey make up some of the great sights for my evening strolls. The Armenian genocide becomes a common reference in breakfast conversations. The turbulent affairs in Abkhazia is a personal interest. Every day, I am surrounded by the contrast between picturesque beauty on the surface and furtiveness of a bloody history.

Old Greek Street in today’s Ayvalik, Turkey.

As the world continues to skid on chaos, we often fail to keep track and care enough to find out what’s happening in a random blob on the map. The benefit of travel is it can transform any blob into a personal link; it can shift our passive interest in history to a first-hand perspective; it can galvanise nonchalant comment into action; and for the more fun part—this enhanced worldly awareness can also enrich our travel experiences.

A former Greek church in Ayvalik that had been converted to a mosque. In the 1920s, the desire to create homogenous nation-states on the Aegean prompted a population exchange between Greece and Turkey. The exchange was based not on language or ethnicity but upon religious identity.

We don’t need to visit famous ancient ruins like Ephesus or Sagalassos to remind us that cities, civilisations and personal achievements are fleeting—though visiting them can provide a handy context as we anticipate problems of the contemporary times. What is particularly interesting is that many of these ancient cities were wiped out by natural disasters. Now, borders are created and redrawn, people are grouped and divided based on political motives or human errors.

At Sagalassos, an archaeological site in southwestern Turkey.

Today, I can fully comprehend the impermanence of a country and the fragility of a culture. On one hand, societies consisting of religious and ideological diversity are always fragile, but they also have the opportunity to bring radical progress if they choose to work in unison. On the other hand, a national culture can easily slip into self-defeating nationalism and blood-and-thunder games of politics. The point is that a valid constitution is more complex than we think and trickier to enforce than we can imagine.

While travel has certainly made me think more like a global citizen, simultaneously I feel more proud to be a Singaporean. It’s so easy to notice the chips in our lives, to criticise the society we live in and to reproach the government that shapes it. A first-hand experience of how fortunate we are on a global scale can instil some empathy and gratitude in our opinions.

Let the BBC News hit home–Charine

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I cannot believe that it is all over…

After nearly six years of practicing chiropractic in Southeast Asia, I chose to move on. Move on from what though? Things were going fantastic. I had a big and successful practice, great friends, a great relationship with Charine, and a handsome income. It was not the smoothest journey to get there but it was a lot of fun, dosed with copious amounts of learning. (You can read about the journey by getting a free downloadable copy of my book HERE. Shameless plug!)

Life was going so smoothly. I was playing tons of basketball, indulging in great food and wine, my social life was fantastic, and things were just easy. There are many great things about living in Singapore especially if you are doing well financially, it becomes a paradise. Many people who come to Singapore end up staying there forever. Life there can be very comfortable. You can move from great street food and be at a world-class restaurant in a matter of minutes, be it by bus, train or car in complete confidence of your safety. It was that though—the comfort—I was caught in a routine, things were just easy.

At work, practice was going very well. The practice was busy, people were getting well, and the staff was happy. I had deep feelings of contribution and appreciation. The practice was generating an annual revenue in the seven-figure range in 2014. There was a great support network there, as well as a valuable group of people within my profession to mastermind with. However, something wasn’t quite right. I wanted more out of my life—more adventure, more travel, and more freedom.

In 2009, I arrived in Southeast Asia, knowing no one, and with 50 bucks left in my pocket. During the the next few years, I would start several clinics, get blacklisted from a country, meet a girlfriend/business partner, and build a thriving chiropractic practice/business. In Singapore, I found myself in a conundrum. There was a lot of money coming in and a lot of people getting well in the clinic but I really did not want to be there in the long term. Questions flew around in my head all the time. Should I just wait it out and save more money? How much was enough? Should I just settle down in Singapore and keep practicing?

You have two options when it comes to the direction of your life. You can alter the course of it voluntarily in the direction that you want or life does it for you, often with a twist of unpleasant surprises. Neither of the choices is comfortable because it stretches your core inner being. It can be exciting, fun, and scary all at the same time.

I chose to redirect the course of my life. There had been the dream of long-term travel that existed deep inside me for the past five years. It basically was screaming out immediately after dropping my bags from the last globetrotting jaunt that led me to Singapore. With every passing year in Southeast Asia, that vision of travel kept getting clearer and clearer. The voice telling me to go became louder and louder. It was time to choose a different direction.

This might not be the rational choice, and it’s definitely not the traditional one but it is the one that I’ve made. Once that choice was done, things moved on and progressed very quickly.

The last month in Singapore consisted of closing all my accounts, saying goodbye to great friends, saying goodbye to all the patients whom I had the privilege to take care of, and planning for a book launch. After the nice routine that had been developed over the last five years, the last few months became a bit stressful. My longtime girlfriend and business partner Charine was so supportive but as the leaving date drew closer, our relationship became more strained. It was akin to bending a piece of your sunglasses frame to near breaking point. My previous travels had always been solo, traveling with another person was an unknown territory.

The last few weeks in Singapore flew by at a breakneck pace and before I knew it, the last week arrived with a jam packed schedule: Monday is the last day of practice, Tuesday is set aside for the book launch, Wednesday is for my last basketball game, Thursday is for packing the last of our things and move to Charine’s parents’ place before our flight out of Singapore in the evening. In that very short span of four days, emotions and adrenaline ran at their peak.

The last day of practice was very enjoyable with emotions flying all over the clinic, gifts and hugs all over. The next day, the book launch for Travel Learn Earn was successful and friends from the last five years, new and old, came out of the cracks to attend the event. Those two days were really special, I was blessed to see everyone that meant a great deal to me one last time. The end of an era took shape and passed much faster than it came.

The day after the book launch, Charine and I were at her parents’ home hours before our flight and doubts crept in again. Both of us were taking a step into the unknown, we were giving up our careers, very BIG incomes, and the comfort of our friends while living in an ultra-convenient city/country. We both want more, I don’t even know how it looks exactly. We want more travel, more adventure, more experience, and more income. We may not always have the answers, but what is most important is taking that first step into the unknown. Richard Bangs once said something about taking action:

It’s too easy to succumb to the low hum of ordinariness; the drone of stability… you are
most alive when you can imagine your own demise… risk is the flame of the evolution of
consciousness… I would rather die trying something new than live a long life of mediocrity.

So we set off. Our first stop was Switzerland. My father had always wanted to go back to Europe after been there as a teenager and my mother had never been. As a gift for their wedding anniversary, I arranged for a two-week travel for them in Europe, accompanying us in the first leg of our journey. The uneasy feeling of going into the unknown still sat heavily with me during those two weeks, albeit I did my best to hide it. We made our way through Geneva into Italy. One Sunday evening in Florence, most of the restaurants were closed in preparation for the Italian Independence Day. The four of us–my parents, Charine and I–chose a small-hole-in-the-wall cafe to eat dinner.

We started off with some great Tuscan red wine, as the cafe began to pick up customers and the atmosphere soon took a turn for the merrier. My father, not a big drinker but still high on the velvety red wine, ordered a Tuscan grilled pork dish. We received our first plates and minutes later when the mains came out, our table reached a new level of nirvana. As the pork was set in front of my father, his eyes grew to the size of a grapefruit as he mouthed without making a sound for awhile then said, “WOW, this is GOOD!”

Just seeing that look melted away all my doubt and anxiety about this new phase of my life. Charine and I have no idea what the future looks like, we don’t even have a clear idea of the business we are going to move into, we founded a company but have little direction. All I can do is move forward with the enthusiasm my father showed over his food. To repeat Richard Bangs, I am taking the risk that is the flame to the evolution of consciousness. I may see my own demise, or climb to Everest-like heights. All I know is, I am happy that you are along to share the ride with us. Be well and be alive!

Dr Matthew Horkey

At the book launch – photo by David Teng, XCalibre Photo.

Charine

The hardest part about making a plan, a trip, or a change in lifestyle, like this is reaching out and grabbing the choice to say, “Let’s do it.” Taking action is in fact the easier part (once you know your goal). Matt and I are fortunate to have each other—we are both risk takers; we are restless in the face of monotony; and we are ferociously curious about the world, people, and personal growth. So for the umpteenth time in our relationship, we acted as a catalyst for each other and said, “Let’s do it… together.”

Four years ago, we made the decision to act and for four years, we kept moving and acting in the direction of this choice, without absolute certainty about when this vision was going to materialize. During that period, in the intimate tango with uncertainty and fear, there were many times that I felt like we weren’t going to make it through and reach our goal together. At times, especially in the past one year, I even doubted that we were going to make it through as a couple. There were stress and pressure from different sources—finance, family’s responsibilities, career trajectory, and personal belief. Regardless, we continued to act in the face of fear, move to the sound of excitement, and practice faith in the commitment of a vision and accountability to each other.

Here we are today—a “self-employed” couple with a flimsy foundation of a business, perhaps fighting the society’s status quo, and insisting that we can absorb the world’s lessons beyond activities of the armchair variety. It may not be a wise choice to some people, but as far as the journey has gone, Matt and I have learned many lessons about business; about working and living together; taking risks; working hard; locking up our ego and pride; communicating with complete vulnerability; and throwing ourselves at the world with open arms, curiosity and courage.

George Bernard Shaw once said, “Life is not about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” When we intentionally create and design our life, we can shift our environments and uncover serendipity; realities and circumstances begin to reorder and realign themselves to support what we stand for. When we commit ourselves to a vision, our possibility moves from an abstract idea to a viable plan. Just remember: it’s not a plan until it has accountability and a deadline.

With light and love, keep going –Charine

On the first week of our travel, in Zermatt Switzerland, we did a two-hour hike up a mountain and were rewarded with this view.

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