Life begins at the end of your comfort zone
We’re pretty adventurous eaters and over the past year we’ve tried everything from beef tongue hot pot in Japan and cow brain soup in Turkey to – yes, INSECTS in Thailand. And honestly we walked away from each of those three meals with a smile on …
Walking the streets of Cusco, Peru, about one hour away from our flight back to Toronto got Will thinking about if he’s ready to go home. Share if you know someone who is thinking about a gap year off and may want to talk to …
Well, Father Time waits for no one. As we glance at our rear view mirror, we have some treasures from Peru we have to share. We are very inspired to share tales of our adventurous experiences in these mystic lands.
We can honestly say that when speaking with unique people, going to a spiritual medicine retreat and hiking the mountainsides, we have found one common ground; that is, in life nothing is forever, everything is in constant change and to embrace your future as an ever moving roller coaster. You’ll have times of enjoyment and times of sheer terror, times of pleasure and times of agonizing pain, times of sunshine and times of pouring rain. That’s what we really got to soak in on this visit to Peru! You will have good days and then you will have bad days but you need one side as much as the other to understand and appreciate both. It’s a yin and yang game, baby.
One version of the definition of yin and yang is “two principles, one negative, dark, and feminine (yin) and one positive, 
bright, and masculine (yang) whose interaction influences the destinies of creatures and things.” And during our spiritual retreat we had our first sip of yin and yang. We would have amazing connections with people and enlightening visions during the spiritual ceremonies, and the very next night be completely shocked at how the energies shifted and how awful, painful and full of suffering the experience made us feel. How could the same medical treatment take you from a positive, euphoric, illuminating encounter to one that was quite the opposite?
It was an eye-opening, experiential learning for us to really understand and very personally and privately feel. But the maestros at the Etnikas centre helped us through this rollercoaster of emotions, already knowing that this is how life really is, full of ups, downs and complete turnarounds.
Another example of our yin and yang experience was our partially unenjoyable 72km Salkantay Trek to Machu Picchu. The second day we neared the top of the Salkantay Mountain at 4630 meters gasping for air, walking at an incline for the last 3 hours and soaked by the cold, relentless rain along our trek. But in this moment of misery you have in front of you the opportunity for a building block of your character. To be aware that this is not forever and everything shall always pass, to be grateful for the fact that you are safe, guided and had the freedom to choose this trek, and to look at your comrades who are struggling alongside you, part of your team.
You can in that moment of understanding the yin and yang have your perception shifted. You can alter your reality!! This was something that only by being aware and going threw the experience that we could really take away a valuable lesson. That this to shall pass and when the sun comes out to touch our skin and the scenery reveals itself from the cloudy curtains, we have a real appreciation to spend time loving those moments.
Never hold on too tight to any perception because it was never yours to have in the first place. It’s just a present moment in time that you are enjoying or rejecting, craving or averting. These yin and yang moments of our reality engage the attention of our body mind. It takes on every cell of our body when we cling to the experience and can
pull us too far in either or direction.
Understand that feeling the ups or downs are what makes us human, it’s a privilege to have this time in space. It can be more of an easy ride if we adopt philosophy’s of the mind into our worlds. To get something you’ve never had, you have to do something you’ve never done. That’s the essence of growing into the person you want to be. We are humbly grateful for having the chance to learn a bit more about ourselves during our time in Peru and to hopefully open a door of curiosity for you to experientially learn as well.
Stay tuned for more gorgeous pictures of our time in the Peruvian Andes and Machu Picchu.
Getting lost is very much a frustration and a thrill for us as we explore new cities, towns and villages. Sometimes we’re physically lost and other times we’re emotionally or spiritually lost. Sometimes one person is super stressed out and wants answers and the other …
We initially bought this book because we were both interested in learning more about genetics. But specifically we wanted to understand which DNA test (ie. AncestryDNA, Family Tree DNA, 23andMe) was best for Will to take. We were hoping to learn more about about tracing …
It’s very common for many people to go into something and not think of all the things that could go wrong. But that’s okay because if you had to know all the consequences then you may not ever do a majority of the things you want in life. It’s what makes great stories and tests your character during those moments of making a mistake. We have to say we are the furthest thing from the perfect travelers and have made many of our own mistakes thus far.
“Mistakes are the growing pains of wisdom.”
We have fought, got lost, had items stolen, pooped our pants and have gotten injured. We wanted to share with you the top five whoopsies we’ve done so far so that perhaps you can avoid doing the same mistakes during your future travels.
1. Getting denied entry. We were waiting patiently in Honolulu at our
boarding gate, ecstatic to be heading across the Pacific Ocean to our next spot
only to find out 30 minutes before boarding that we were denied entry into Japan; we would have to book a flight out of Japan in order to enter. We had to run to the other side of the airport to book on a staff computer for the cheapest destination out of Japan.
Travel tip: Use Expedia to book an emergency flight you’re unsure about because you can cancel the flight within 24hrs and get 100% reimbursed.
2. Arriving at the wrong airport. We arrived nice and early to the airport in Istanbul, excited to start our first Workaway in Turkey. Having 
booked our ticket in advance, we assumed that the airport we arrived into (IST) was the one we were departing from versus the more domestic one (SAW). Well we lost our money on that flight, had to rearrange our plans with the Workaway hosts and book another flight.
Travel tip: Never assume! Double or even triple check your flight information.
3. Buying $150 dollar soup. We’re nice people, we worked hard for our money, we deserve a nice, warm soup to fill the belly – but not $150 soup. 
Sometimes the conversions are really simple, like 100 YEN equals $1 CAD, and sometimes we make stupid mistakes not counting all the zeros on the YEN pricing. We thought we purchased a $15 soup until we received the bill…
Travel tip: Get an app on your phone that does the conversions for you. YEN to CAD was a simple one and we still managed to screw it up. Also when converting in your head you are doing rough estimates which may throw your budget off at the end of the month.
4. Not planning far enough ahead. Sometimes waiting for last minute deals is great and can be worth it but more often than not we’ve found it hurt us. For example, getting to London, England was cheap to travel to but a nightmare to leave because it was 5x the cost and every day we spent in London waiting for a good deal would just be eating away at our budget.
Travel tip: If you’re restricted by dates and times you have to be places, plan far ahead! If you’re on a one year trip and can be flexible, you can take the risk and watch for deals or book an around-the-world ticket!
5. Partying. Not much more we need to say about it. Although some places alcohol is cheaper than bottled water, a long day of drinking is money down
the drain, either out one end or the other. When your having fun sometimes you lose track.
Travel tip: Allot a percent of your budget to alcohol or like we’ve learned, leave your cards at home and only take with you how much you’re willing to spend.
We say these are mistake but really we think of them as memory investments. All and all, we keep things in perspective and love that we are imperfect and always learning. If we knew it all then life would be boring.
So to help you with your future, remember to triple check the airport your leaving from, look at the countries laws for entering and what conditions you need to meet before hand, keep a money conversion app on your phone and become super familiar with the currency exchange rate, plan ahead with your trip – and party … hey, you’ve saved money on everything else why not!
Stay tuned to find out What We Did Wrong Before Leaving on our Trip, how we neglected parts of our business and real estate and what we learned.
We want to let you know that if you don’t have money coming in while you are traveling and you are running off savings, you will soon notice the pace of money disappearing. So let’s talk about it … disappearing money. The world is abundant, with …
Us too! That’s why we can only ask ourselves the question of “Why not?” rather then the excuse of “Not now.” Our writings will warmly and chillingly introduce many moments of our life that have unfolded and that are yet to unfold as we continue …