The first bit of excitement was a layover in Iceland, and watching the sun out the window, never setting, just hovering above the horizon for the time I watched it, intrigued the hell out of me. The layover was short, and not long after we departed for Amsterdam, which was stop number one. I was invited to speak at an event there, followed by another in Prague, then Warsaw, and had a large time gap in between. A client in Ireland asked me if I had time to check out a new manufacturing facility they were considering, so of course I said yes! They paid my way there, put me up in a nice room in Dublin, and from there we drove up to the northern coast of Ireland–Donegal–my first time being driven on the left side of the road. The one thing that I really wanted to see in Ireland was the green hillsides they are known for, and I got my share over that 290 km drive.

Watching young people travel so effortlessly from country to country, navigating borders, public transportation, and dealing with money, truly inspired me since I was overwhelmed much of the time.

And I said to myself,

and that is where the seed was planted which eventually turned into my website and platform, Travel Younger.

I had no idea that trip would change my life to the degree that it has, but when I returned I had lunch with a fellow writer (a millennial …) who was continually on the road, and asked her how she did it on such a meager budget. With her suggestions, and my realization that I truly WAS location independent and had no reason to live in California, or the United States for that matter, my life changed, and as they say, the rest is history.

We don’t always know what events or people will change our lives, but it’s important that we keep an open mind and heart to all of them.