Why are you doing what you are doing? I ask myself this often and I am sure it will be a question that we are asked whist on our travels.

It’s fairly obvious that there is not anything particularly wrong with my life. I’ve played it fairly safe, worked hard and received the rewards. I could continue doing so and add extra things to my life like a new TV, a better car, some children!, but I think I’d always be wondering what if. As soon as there is even an inkling of an idea to go travelling for an extended period of time, and make a real change to your life, I don’t think that that idea ever leaves you. As the cliché goes, you catch the travel-bug; it’s an itch that’s got to be scratched, and I don’t want to kick myself 10 or 20 years down the line for not having a good scratch!

A lot of people will wonder why we are doing this when we are in our 30s, rather than having ‘got it out of our system’ on a gap year or before our careers took off. It’s a good point, but I don’t think we would have been a) brave enough and b) secure enough in ourselves and our desires to do it, and to do it properly.

So other than scratching an itch, what is the why for me? It’s a curiosity that was only ever tickled by holidays. It’s a need to really experience something outside of what I know. It’s a longing to see our earth; it’s history, it’s nature and the depth of cultures and traditions that live upon it.

I’m looking for beauty, but beauty is not quite the right word for it. Beauty is easy to find in everyday life and it often gets me through the day. It could be that cheeky squirrel in the park or a flush of purple weed flowers alongside the train track. But finding a sense of awe, being awestruck, for something to be truly awesome, that is not so common in this life.

And why do I want to be awed? Firstly let’s define the word as it’s true meaning is not that something is simply really cool. Awe is a combination of surprise and fear. It’s that feeling that you often felt as a child when discovering something new but kind of scary. I think I need a bit of new and scary, I think I need to discover and experience and ultimately be humbled by our AWEsome world!