Hey y’all,

Welcome to my travel blog. The point of this blog is first to keep everybody updated on what I am doing and verify to the world that I am still among the living. Secondly, this blog will chronicle my story as I make my way through uncharted waters. Hopefully it can serve as encouragement for anybody else out there considering doing the same thing.

So as of about a week ago, I am a resident of Hanoi, Vietnam. I have never been to Vietnam before… or Asia… or this side of the world for that matter. I do not speak a lick of Vietnamese, nor did I really even like Asian food before I came here. I am also 6-4 and white sooo I will stick out like a sore thumb. In short, I am just a n00b in every possible way, which should, at the very least, help create some memorable stories for me to share with you.

Why Vietnam? In a nutshell – because I was afraid of it. I interviewed for jobs all over the world leading up to and after my graduation from college. Vietnam was sort of a whim. I’m not sure if I ever had any serious intention of coming here. But after just a little exploration into what life here would look like for me, it became pretty clear that I was outside of my comfort zone just thinking about it. Southeast Asia was definitely the place in the world that I knew the least about. I remember having interviews on Skype with people that barely spoke English and where I could see the tin roof over their head. It scared me. But I really didn’t like how scared I was. I was disappointed in myself. So I said ‘fuck that’ … and here I am.

I’m not gonna lie, the nearly 40 hours it took to get all the way here were pretty terrifying for me. And since arriving it has been an emotional roller coaster ride every day. But I will be here until June. And after that I will hopefully be in Africa for a couple months to travel. All of the details (that are internet appropriate) will be posted right here with supporting pictures and videos. Everything I post will be on a slight delay depending on how busy I am and whether or not I have Internet but it will all get posted eventually.

It is pretty awesome here though. This is going to be an interesting year.