Pause and Wander

Date: November 5, 2025

Place: Technically in Arcade, Spain — but mostly in the gray matter between our ears.

We didn’t leave the house once today. Our watches say we took only about 1,000 steps. But mentally, it felt like we traversed continents. We spent the entire day blowing up our travel plans for the rest of the year. We even canceled our onward ticket from Vietnam to New Zealand. Which begs the question: why are we completely rethinking the shape of our trip?

It all circles back to the same thing — our why. Every journey needs one. What’s ours, and how has it changed over time? And maybe more importantly, is it allowed to change?

When we first dreamed of traveling for a year, it was long before we had kids. Back then, we were young adults eager to experience the world together — to see new cultures, taste new foods, and have adventures in places we could barely pronounce. But once we became parents, and especially after the girls started at their Spanish-immersion school in Reno, our vision evolved. The trip became about family and language — about deepening their Spanish in real life.

In theory, it made perfect sense. We’d be in Spain, surrounded by the language all day. Surely that would be enough to pull us into full immersion. But reality didn’t line up. On the Camino, we were in the heart of Spain, yet surrounded by pilgrims from all over the world — people who almost always spoke English as their bridge language. Arya and Max spoke more French than Spanish during those 48 days! Our why of linguistic immersion quietly unraveled, even as the Camino itself gave us something far richer: unfiltered family time and conversations we’ll all treasure forever.

But now, looking at the months ahead, we don’t want to simply replicate that rhythm in different locations. We don’t need to walk across the world just to keep talking. We want to experience the world — to make memories through shared adventures, foods, cultures, and the small, everyday ways people live. To do that meaningfully, we realized we need both time and some financial flexibility.

That’s where New Zealand started to break down. We’d dreamed of exploring caves, boat tours, guided hikes, and cooking classes — but when we looked at the budget, it was clear we could only afford to exist there, not experience it. Between transportation costs (New Zealand doesn’t do public transit well), peak-season accommodation prices, and $6,000 in school fees just to enroll the girls for three months, our “experiential fund” would vanish fast. We could make it work, but it would mean constant stress and compromises. And honestly, that’s not the kind of growth we came looking for.

So we hit reset.

Here’s the new plan: there is no plan.

Okay, that’s not totally true — we’ll still move forward through Madrid, Istanbul, and northern Vietnam. But beyond that, we’re going to let Southeast Asia unfold one week at a time. The region offers everything we’re looking for — affordability, cultural depth, adventure, and freedom. We can live comfortably, eat well, and fill our days with activities without the constant pressure of a dwindling budget or rigid schedule.

Our guiding principle now is flexibility. We’ll listen to locals, follow other travelers’ leads, and let curiosity steer us. We’ll take things as they come — a week or so at a time — and only plan farther ahead when something truly requires it. Visas will shape our time limits within various countries, but otherwise, we’ll flow with opportunity. Maybe after a few months we’ll feel ready to move on; maybe we’ll stay until the very end.

Sure, this looser approach comes with risks — missed connections, the occasional scramble — but it also brings lightness. Today’s long gray-skied session of re-planning gave us something precious: relief. The weight of having to know what’s next is gone. We’re lighter now, freer to follow the moment, and better equipped to stay present together.

We might not have left the house today, but in a way, we set off on a whole new adventure.