A few months ago Tim and I decided we were going to pack up and go travel the world together for a year. What we never expected was how much work it was going to be to make it happen. Now that it is all over and we have finally begun our journey, I can say that despite all the hard work, it was definitely well worth the trouble.
Our first step was to start selling everything we didn’t need anymore. Apart from our couch, futon, TV, and mattress, we sold all of our furniture. Then we started selling small appliances and other random things we felt were unnecessary to keep. In total, we made a cool $1200 (mostly through Kijiji) which was a lot more than we ever expected we would have made. It was really liberating to slowly free ourselves from so many possessions.
Next step — selling my car. This seemed like a really daunting task but as predicted, right on the day we were moving I received a call from someone. 2 days (and an unexpected 4 hour wait at Canadian Tire) later, we watched a man drive away in my his car.
We packed a little throughout December before we left, but let’s be honest. We packed all our boxes 2 days before we moved. We were getting pretty tired and fed up, but persisted and managed to get everything done. Apart from a few casualties (RIP Microwave) and 2 extremely long drives between Ottawa and Montreal (4 hours each way stuck behind the snow plow trucks) the move went relatively well. We are extremely fortunate that we have very nice families and we were able to store all of our stuff in various people’s basements.
The next week was spent visiting with everyone we knew and slowly saying all of our goodbyes to everyone. It was pretty hectic at times, but we are glad we got to see most of our friends and family before leaving. We collected enough good memories to last us the year!
Finally, on January 8th, we woke up and enjoyed one last breath of –15 degree air and walked into the airport to catch our flights to Mexico City. All I could think in my head was “So long Canada!” I will definitely miss the people, but I will definitely not miss this weather.
