18 Days & Counting...

It's insane, but we only have 18 days until we leave our home in WA and start this new adventure. 

We plan to start our U.S. Tour on the 9th and stop in atleast 21 states (over 5,000 miles) to see friends and family before the big move to Mexico on Dec 28th.

If you'd like to follow us on the tour, check out this link.

Stay tuned for updates - we plan to blog more so we will have a record of our adventure.

-Tarah & Keith

Funny How Life Works...

I found a draft post from many months ago talking about how we were planning to move abroad in 2 years... I had to post it as we decided to move much sooner than that. This whole blog started at my 40th birthday trip and life has changed since then...

Since my birthday, Keith and I have decided we don't want to live the life we were living anymore. We want more! In the time since my birthday we have decided to move to Mexico full time. We found a place to live, got our temperary visa's started and have started selling all of our belongings.

We sold our business, the boat, Keith's car, my house and are working on selling the house we live in. OfferUp has become a staple of our life as we have sold so many of our belongings. It's quite a process to sell your whole life... The weirdest and saddest thing is seeing all the hard work you have done to have all these nice things and then have strangers offer you $10 for those memories. At the end of the day, it's just stuff. It's rather liberating to get rid of your belongings and makes you look at things more as "do I need this". I'm finding the answer tends to be "no". ;)

Where We Are Going

Keith and I have been researching places to move since we met as retiring early has been a goal. Ecuador was high on the list until they had a huge earthquake and are still recovering. Mexico presented itself and we started researching areas. We stumbled upon an expat couple, Two Expats Living in Mexico, and we were hooked! They gave so much great info we had to go check out the area and see if it really was as great as they said. After my birthday trip we knew we wanted to be on the Caribbean so traveling south to Mexico to check out Akumal seemed like it may be a great fit.

Paul & Linda, of Two Expats, met with us when we arrived and introduced us to several other people while there - everyone was so great! We checked out the area, asked a lot of questions and then, like magic, found the perfect place for us to live. It was the best and craziest week ever and has been quite the adventure ever since. Not even 2 months has passed and we are only 3 months from moving out of Washington. When we set our minds to something, we don't mess around!

The Plan

We officially leave WA on Sept 30th, unless something crazy happens... We plan to drive my car with a small u-haul and our two dogs across the US through about 18 states. We are hoping to see Mt. Rushmore, Chicago, Cape Cod, Boston, Hershey factory tour, Mystic Pizza in CT, My family in OH, Many friends, and whatever else we find along the way.

I'll keep a log of our travels - mainly for us so we can look back years from now and re-live it all. We are both really excited for the drive!

Keep us in your prayers and thoughts - we have a ton of change coming our way!

Love,
Tarah & Keith

Figuring it all out...

Ever since returning from our Caribbean trip we feel we are missing out on the life we want to live. We have spent many hours researching how we can move away, work/not work, be a couple who manages a villa, work as a crew on a boat... The list goes on. I literally save all the links I find, send Keith numerous tid bits of info on certifications we need, classes we should take, language lessons, etc. Thank god he loves me and is down with idea or he would have totally left me by now. When I get focused on an idea I do al I can to try and make it happen.

We are following several other bloggers who abandoned the life they once lived for a life of travel and I really want that to be us. I am on a mission now.

I think we have given ourselves a 2 year goal but honestly we are ready to go now. If we didn't have jobs, a business, houses, cars, pets... We'd just sell it all and go. Stupid responsibilities!

Turning 40 in the Caribbean

This year I turned the big 4-0. We decided awhile ago that we would take a trip for both of our birthdays as they are close to 6 months apart.  So, for my 40th we took a Royal Caribbean cruise to the Caribbean for 7 nights. We took a red eye and flew to San Juan, Puerto Rico and boarded the ship - it was NOT a short flight.

Our cruise plan for the week:

- San Juan, Puert Rico
- St. Croix, U.S.V.I.
- Philipsburgh, St. Maarten
- Roseau, Dominica
- Bridgetown, Barbados
- St. George's, Grenada
- Cruising
- San Juan, Puert Rico

I won't bore you with all the details as you really had to be there to experience it firsthand. We did enjoy an excursion in each port, except St. Croix. We opted to hire a cab driver and to just explore the island. He charged us $25 a person and drove us to see a beer drinking pig, the rain forest, the beach where Christopher Columbus first landed, where Captain Morgan rum is made (we opted to just hit up the gift shop as it's an hour long tour), had lunch at a local stop and then returned back to the port where we arrived. St.Croix was nice but not the best of the island - it's an island the US should put more money into as it could be a lovely destination but it felt more like a run down New Orleans ward.

St. Maarten was our favorite. We opted for a day out on the Golden Eagle catamaran where we snorkeled and drank rum punch for many hours - the crew was amazing.  It was Keith's first time snorkeling and it seems to have open up a love for him as he couldn't wait to go again. We checked out the French and the Dutch side of the island.  After arriving back to land we grabbed some burgers and beer and Keith found a local cigar shop and enjoyed a few hours of relaxing before having to board the ship.

Dominica was next on the agenda - we booked a river tubing adventure, which was a TON of fun. More rum punch was involved, along with hours of fun floating down a river with other tourists and our guides. We did stop at the Emerald Falls on the way up, which were beautiful! We would do it again!


In Barbados we did a 4x4 island safari and Harrison's cave expedition - seeing the island by 4x4 was fun but the cave wasn't as exciting as we had hoped. We had to ride in a tram so you aren't really getting to explore the cave as we had hoped. The highlight for me was holding a monkey... Barbados was beautiful - we would go back here to explore!

Grenada was the island we visited on the day I actually turn 40 - we opted to take another catamaran ride where we snorkeled an underwater sculpture park and then traveled to a small island where we ate local lobster and drank champagne while relaxing and chatting with other tourists. 

On our last day at sea we had a tour of the ships kitchens and had a delicious brunch from the 4 on-board restaurants. We went to an art auction, played bingo where we won another 7-9 day Caribbean cruise and then had a lovely dinner in the dining room with the staff we came to love.

That's the quick run down of our cruise - we can't wait till our next one in July to the Mediterranean and then again in Dec to the Caribbean. We do love cruising!!