Choosing Our Adventure

March 9th, 2026

• Journal

Be Here Now

So here we are, March 2026. The start of year five of choosing this adventure just days away. Four years ago, I whispered to the universe and the universe shouted back ... GO! So I went. Sixty-one items in a bag on my back, nothing else but endless possibility. If you want to know where my head and heart were at before the adventures began, take a quick detour and read this (Surrender to the Flow).

In some ways, I can’t believe it’s been four years already. In so many other ways, it feels like decades. At the beginning, I could hardly imagine what things might look like six months in the future, let alone several years. The vastness of what lay ahead felt exhilarating and daunting in equal measure. Everything was bright, shiny and larger than life.

I’m happy to report that things are still like this. Each day still holds wonder and amazement.

Yet beneath that familiar sense of wonder, I can feel how much has evolved. The adventure hasn't dulled, it has simply become my life.

Life has slowed down. No longer do I rush through the day, jumping from one exploration to the next. I stay longer in each place. Where once I would spend one or two days, now I spend weeks. I develop relationships with and feelings for these places.

Reaching a slower pace was both necessary and inevitable, but still took mental and emotional adjustment. The first to go was the FOMO. The arrival of the opposite, JOMO or the joy of missing out, was just as necessary. Learning that it was ok to take a day where I did nothing was hard at first, but it has allowed me to last four years on the road. Looking back, in my old life, weekends were spent mostly at home, on the couch, watching soccer and YouTube. It was necessary then, just as it is necessary today.

The slow life is important for my physical wellbeing, but also extremely important for my mental health. It might seem like one giant holiday to people on the outside. I can assure you it is not, and this way of living can be exhausting. Decision fatigue is real and can be devastating. Slowing down removed the near constant requirement to be researching, planning and booking — all of which takes its toll. As does the need to navigate and problem solve. So staying in a place longer allows me to plan less often, and getting to know the city allows me to operate in near autopilot after a short time.

The acclimation time feels like hours instead of days now. I become comfortable and at home sooner. One walk through a neighborhood, and I generally have a good sense of how to get around. The visual cues register more easily in my brain. And if it’s a place with metro or good public transportation, I learn the stops and lines near instantly. I acquire local spots rapidly and frequent them often.

I’d never say I am a local, but I can at least live like them. I cherish the sense of accomplishment this gives me. Navigating a city with confidence feels amazing, and it’s something I never noticed back in Minneapolis.

This slower pace has given me something I never expected … the ability to notice. To really see, to feel. Not just the big moments, but the thousands of tiny ones that make this life what it is.

A few days ago, I was scrolling through my nearly 25,000 photos trying to find a particular picture to show someone. I got caught up in the scroll. I started to see photos from so many random, small moments. It’s easy to boil down these last years into a few large buckets, or to plot it all on a map. But it’s these little moments that define this journey and make it all truly special.

Quiet alleyways when the sun hits just right, making me feel at the same time both out of place and at home. My “park vibes” messages to my dear friend Thako, where each park calmed my heart and made me slow down and see the life happening right in front of me. That first hostel in London, so ghetto and sketchy, making me think twice about what I was about to embark on.

Then there is my absolute favorite recurring moment. A moment that comes out of nothing. Where I suddenly stop in my tracks, look around, and simply marvel at it all. My mind says, “Wow, I’m just a kid from some podunk town, and now I’m in (insert place name here), I can’t believe it.” A chance to marvel, reflect, and ultimately be grateful. These little moments number in the thousands now, but all matter. I hope this never stops happening to me. I hope these moments continue to bless me. And that the gratitude never fades.

Time is our most precious commodity, yet we so easily give it away without getting anything in return. I now live life on my terms, in control of my time. I exist in a space with a one-to-one exchange between the energy I put out and the energy I get back.

It’s quite a space to be when you don’t have to stress about time because you always have it. I have time to enjoy the blueberry and chocolate notes in my single-origin pour-over to read that extra chapter in my latest book and to dive deeper into conversation with a new friend. Time to sit with my thoughts, to linger with a view and savor the moment longer.

More than anything, I always have the time to be present. I used to spend so much time with my heart in the past or my head in the future. I’ve come to understand I can’t change the past, and I can’t control the future. What I can control is me, in the here and now.

Be. Here. Now.

The insane thing is that I no longer need to remind myself to do this. I just AM. Here. Now.

So much time to just … live life.

All of this time spent being present in these little moments has led to the most profound discovery. It is a reflection of a shift within myself.

The freedom of self I now possess has allowed me to open up sooner, and go deeper, with people. The number of incredibly emotional and thought-provoking conversations gives me chills, even now as I think about them.

During one recent deep conversation, I had an ephipany. My friend Felipe said he loves arriving in a new place and meeting new people, because it gives him the chance to be whomever he wants to be. To reinvent himself if he so chooses.

I wholeheartedly agreed with him. But, as I thought about it and remembered so many first encounters, I realized that the person I wanted to be in all these situations was ME! I wanted to be me. Not pretend to be someone else, but to be my true, authentic self.

I realized that the best thing I could give another person was a truthful, honest me. This realization had happened without my even noticing. At some point, I had shed my inhibitions. The fear of showing myself to others had washed away.

And guess what? I really like me. Finally! It’s taken a really long time. Years of feeling like I didn’t fit in … in with people around me, in my own skin. It’s taken years, and hundreds of thousands of kilometers to get here. But I’m here now, and I fucking love it.

This, perhaps more than anything, is the best thing choosing this adventure has given to me. More than the places or the cultures. More than the friends or the experiences. I had gained myself. And even better, I was sharing this self with everyone else, in a pure and honest way.

In that first post I wrote, announcing this adventure, I closed with this thought.

And maybe in finding everyone else, I did find myself. In a way, I feel like the me I was four years ago. Hell, if I think really about it, I feel like the me I was 20 years ago. The difference now is that I’m not trying to hide that me from others.

Maybe this is the “what’s next” that I was seeking.

This journey to becoming my authentic self hasn't been without its challenges. Opening yourself up means being vulnerable to everything. Not just the joy, but the darkness too.

Even the moments of loneliness, sadness or depression have contributed to this incredible period of growth. Funny to think back that my very first day being completely solo resulted in my passport getting stolen. I felt the loneliness so acutely on the ensuing four-hour train ride, and in the following days. But those first days after “the incident” helped me so immensely. Not only in the moment, but for the long term. Those days showed me I could weather the storm and keep going, even gripped by the emotions.

Being in an amazing place doesn’t stop the lows from coming, as my somewhat recent bout with severe depression showed me. If you’ve been keeping up on the blog, you’ll have read about my time in Vietnam. It’s one of my favorite countries in the world, yet for much of my time in the country, I was paralyzed by a deep depression. This was the most severe, and the most prolonged, episode I’ve had since before leaving the States.

It was a great reminder that you can’t escape yourself, no matter how amazing your surroundings might be. When traveling to a different place, you don’t leave yourself behind.

Yet it showed me how far I’ve come in knowing and accepting myself. I have learned to sit with my shadow, to embrace it and to learn from it each time it joins me on these adventures. This part of me is also available to others now. Because it is me. The vulnerability and honesty are necessary if I am to be truly me.

Learning to sit with my shadow made room for something else to grow … the courage to truly connect with others. All this freed mental space, all this slowing down, has allowed me to focus on cultivating relationships and building friendships.

As I reflect on all the incredible moments from the last four years, the ones that shine brightest are the ones shared with others.

Yet the first few months of the adventures were spent almost entirely alone. Days when I spoke to no one, other than to order coffee or dinner.

Then one day in Kotor, Montenegro, out of nowhere, I spoke up to chat with a couple of people at my hostel, and it was like something unlocked inside of me. Their friendliness made me feel comfortable stepping out of my own way and opening up. One of them, Ramona, became the first of my now many “forever friends.”

Later during my time in Montenegro, I stayed at a wonderful hostel, and exploiting this newfound bravery of mine, I connected with an entire group of people. But with all things on this journey, my time there came to an end far too soon. I remember leaving feeling very low. I was gripped with sadness for having left a great group, and full of anxiety that I wouldn’t again find my people.

Yet in my next location, on a whim, I joined an overnight mountain hike and found what is still one of the most amazing groups of people I’ve met. The first entire group of forever friends. That hike through the Albanian Alps still ranks as one of my favorite adventures, elevated into that upper tier because of that incredible group of friends.

In the days after that group dissolved, as I sat in a bit of sadness, I came to realize exactly what I had unlocked inside myself. Gone was the shy, intimidated person afraid to say hello to someone. I had upgraded to someone with the confidence to begin showing his true self. I’m so thankful I found this so early on in the adventure. I’ve benefited immensely over the last four years because I’m now willing to put myself out there. The result is a friend list so long I’ve had to split it into multiples by year.

I’m nearly overwhelmed when I think about all the people I’ve met around the world over these last years. An incomprehensible number. More amazing is the number of those meetings that turned into true friendships. My cup overflows with forever friends.

This also helps check off a secret desire I had before I began this adventure. I had hoped I would meet amazing people and make forever friends. But I also hoped that these people wouldn’t be one-time-only friends. I truly hoped to make friends that would last a lifetime. Friends that I would see again and again.

I’m so delighted to say this is now a regular occurrence. I went to a small surf village in Morocco because friends I met in Bulgaria were there. I went to Madagascar with friends I met in Kenya. I’ve visited friends in their hometowns, in places like Austimer, Australia, and Utrecht, Netherlands. I went on insanely wet multi-day hikes through stunning Irish countryside with my best Camino mates. I ran into my friend Steph six times, in three countries, in three separate years. And I spent an amazing week in Innsbruck, Austria with Ramona, that first forever friend.

Blessed and humbled is the only way I can put it. Grateful to have met such wonderfully kind, beautiful, open souls. Best of all, as 2026 begins, a large portion of my plans for the year revolve around reunions with these dear friends.

Four years is a long time. Long enough to circle the globe more than once. Long enough to learn metro systems in languages I don’t speak. Long enough to feel at home in places I once had to look up on a map.

As I reflect on these four years, my brain impulsively wants to organize it. It wants categories. Favorites. Highlights. It wants to draw lines on maps and make neat little top-five lists, as if that could somehow contain the immensity of it all.

It’s an absurd exercise, but let’s do it anyway.

Favorite places? Sure, I’ve got those. I’ll start by saying that I’ve yet to visit somewhere I didn’t like. Of course, I like some more than others, but every single place I’ve been has felt special to me, and I’m better for having visited.

Italy, Vietnam, Japan, Albania and Morocco have been my favorite countries, each for different reasons. The first three are all countries I could move to and live in immediately, such was my love for them and comfort in them. Albania keeps coming into my mind because no other place has surprised me more. Morocco just might have been the most relaxed I’ve ever been in a place. And I am currently writing this from the island of Siargao, Philippines, which is doing its best to squeeze itself into this group.

Drill one level down, and I’ll name a few of my favorite cities. There are many, and it’s impossible to rank them, so here are a few that consistently come up in discussions. Copenhagen, Fukuoka, São Paulo, Fukue, Saigon, Zagreb, Santiago de Compostela, Torre a Mare, Tel Aviv, Tamraght. I could list twenty more without thinking. But what I loved about them wasn’t their skylines or monuments. It was how I felt inside them.

Adventures? How about sailing around the western edge of Madagascar. Or the previously mentioned hikes in Albania and Ireland. The Camino. And, of course, Te Araroa. Notice anything? Apparently, I have a thing for walking absurd distances.

Blisters, rain, mud, exhaustion. Somehow, this makes me feel more alive than anywhere else. There is something about carrying everything you need on your back that strips you down to the bare essentials. Maybe I’ve been hiking toward myself this whole time.

And then there’s coffee. Of course, there’s coffee. The one constant in a life of change. These are a few of my favorite cafes. These places weren’t about caffeine. They were about comfort and structure.

Ratiños, in Santiago de Compostela, comforted me the day after my passport was stolen in those first months of this adventure. I literally lived at Pour & Twist, in Wellington, for a month as I slowly began my post-TA journey, arriving at opening and staying till close. The owners and teams at both Brighter in Sydney and Path in Melbourne made me feel so welcome and indulged my coffee nerd cravings. And Cogito in Zagreb just had this magical location down a hidden alley, where the sun hit just right.

Each of these cafes had a vibe and energy that made me feel right at home … my living rooms scattered across continents.

But when I think about what truly defines these four years, it’s those little-yet-profound moments I keep mentioning. The ones that felt ordinary at the time but somehow etched themselves permanently into me. Four years can’t be summarized. But maybe they can be glimpsed.

Biking through the Italian countryside. Giant baby Jesus in Alicante, Spain. Sitting at the clinic in Kamser Seka, Kenya. A rest area somewhere in rural Japan.

The flat I booked in the Perugian countryside had a bike, so one afternoon I took it out for a ride. It felt a lot like being back in Mt. Angel as a child. Farm fields of wheat and vegetables. The difference? Tiny cobble-street-filled villages that are a thousand years old. Outside the church in one such village, there was free water. I sat on the church steps, drinking cold water and basking in the sun.

One morning after coffee, my dear friend Thako and I ambled the narrow streets of old town Alicante. As we turned into a courtyard, we were surprisingly greeted by the largest nativity scene on Earth (not verified). It was alarming, yet not surprising for Alicante. We stood in awe and just marveled.

It’s hard to even call Kamser Seka a village. It’s more like a collection of houses spread apart from each other and separated by jungly bits. The clinic isn’t particularly close, or far, from anything. I was sitting on the patio watching a cow graze, while Caroline attended to her duties. It was calm, serene and utterly inconsequential. All seemed right in the world.

When I took the bus from Hiroshima to Fukuoka, it made several roadside stops. At one, I got up to stretch my legs. As I mosied about, I was struck by the preposterousness of it all. A boy from nowhere, in the middle of another nowhere. I felt the sun, and a wave of gratitude.

Four moments. One from each year. Not the best moments, not my favorite moments (although I love all these moments). Just points in time that make me reflect and appreciate my journey.

Ok, so maybe four isn’t enough. Here are four more.

Cooking meals and watching sunset in Dubrovnik, Croatia. Date night in Tamraght, Morocco. Lunch at the only place in Doany, Madagascar. Dodgy last hut on Te Araroa.

After months of eating out each day, I finally had a place where I could cook. Nothing extravagant. Simple pasta with fresh ingredients and cold beers. I sat on the deck of my place each night and watched the sun turn the sky blood orange.

“Date night” or “50 first dates” as we called it. The tiny village of Tamraght has a surprisingly good local market. Most impressive was the date stand, which easily has more than 25 different types of dates. The Kasbari crew and I were obsessed with dates. So we decided to have a “date night”. We each bought one or two types of dates, and that night we passed them around, tasting testing, and ranking them.

Doany, Madagascar, might not be big enough to even be called a village. As such, there weren’t shops or restaurants. There was just one place. Mostly a shack with a few snacks and some toilet paper, but they also happened to serve lunch. The menu? Whatever they were cooking that day. The ladies who ran the place laughed at us the first few times we came in. But when we kept coming back day after day, they warmed up to us. It was the highlight of my days there.

After more than 100 days on trail, our journey was nearing its end. The final hut of the trail might just have been its dodgiest. Some rotted wood and rusted tin, no floor but the muddy earth below. No light, no heat, no toilet. More creepy crawlers than I could count. Yet spending a night here with the tramily felt perfect.

Eight moments, pulled from thousands. Just standing on church steps, or in a muddy hut, or in a roadside rest stop in rural Japan, aware of the improbable gift of being exactly where I was. A collection of tiny fragments that, when stitched together, form something unexpectedly beautiful. A mosaic of this amazing adventure.

Four years. That is 1,461 days, 35,064 hours, 2,103,840 minutes or 126,230,400 seconds. A lifetime of memories.

I started writing this post almost a month ago. Each time I’ve started to write, I’ve gotten caught up in all the moments and memories. The places, the people, the adventures, the feelings.

I’m stunned by the sheer audacity of my choice to seek out these adventures. I swell with pride at the bravery to follow through on the choice. I am overwhelmed with gratitude each day to continue to choose my adventures.

I will continue to welcome the moments where I stop in my tracks and marvel. But now there's something different in that moment. It's not a surprise anymore … it's recognition. This is where I belong. Not in any specific place, but in this way of being.

Always present, always Here. Now.

A life lived. A life being lived. And the best part? I'm only just getting started.

Here's to year five. Long may it run.