How we got here…
TL;DR: 2022 was a big year. Justin finished his MBA at Kellogg and ran the Chicago marathon. Britt got an opportunity at work to move to London. We sold our condo in preparation of the move. Then everything unraveled. And now… We’re taking a sabbatical!
The Full Story
Britt has always dreamed of moving to London, and this year was going to be our chance. In November 2021, Britt worked to get approval for a global deployment (essentially an internal transfer), and we started preparing to make it happen. In January, Justin started taking MBA classes full time so that he could accelerate his graduation date. In July, we sold our condo and all of our furniture, and we minimized all of our belongings down to 10 “London boxes” and 10 “Chicago boxes”.
Since then, we’ve effectively been nomads. We lived in our camper van for a few weeks, then subleased an apartment downtown Chicago, and then spent a couple weeks with our friends Blake and Steph before moving to Phoenix for the last three months of the year to live with Britt’s parents (thanks fam!). In that time, Justin finished school and ran the Chicago marathon… and we received unfortunate news that Britt’s offer to transfer to the UK office was frozen with no timeline on when things would move forward.
So, after the marathon in October, we moved down to Phoenix to figure out what we were going to do next. We brainstormed a few options:
Wait until Britt’s UK opportunity went through, which did not seem promising.
Apply directly to jobs in the UK.
Follow our dream of traveling the world for 6-12 months with only a backpack.
After many discussions, we ultimately landed on Option 3. We figured that since our plans were turned upside down, we might as well lean into the ambiguity and explore the world.
What’s Next?
We’re kicking off our adventure on Jan. 1, and we’re full of emotions — joy, excitement, gratitude, fear, anxiety. The list goes on. Most of all, we’re grateful for the ability to embark on this adventure and we are excited to learn, explore, relax, recharge, get inspired, and grow both as individuals — and together.
We intend to use this blog as a way to document our experiences, and we’d love for you to join along as we embark on this adventure. We aren’t sure how often we’ll post, but our goal is to send out at least a monthly update via email and post short thoughts / reflections on this page as we cruz the world together.
Feel free to drop us a note! We’d love to hear from you. We can be reached at our usual phone numbers and our email addresses are listed below. Also, feel free to request a postcard if you would like some old fashioned snail mail.
Love you all,
Justin & Britt
