About Us
Hi guys! We’re Claire and Peter, two young adults from North Carolina currently on a trip around the world. We left our corporate jobs in March of 2022 with $45,000 saved up to see as much as the world as we possibly could in 365 days. In that first year, we visited 19 countries, 4 continents, and came to the decision that our corporate lives could wait a little longer. 31 countries later…we’re still at it!
We tracked everything we did as well as every penny spent in our first year of travel. This was mainly to keep ourselves accountable, but now we are sharing it all in hopes of helping you guys dream, plan, and book your own travels.
Our Story
Buckle up! Our story starts in Chicago, Illinois in 1994 when Peter was born. Nothing else interesting happened until 1995 in Tianjin, China when I graced the world with my presence. From then on, the universe placed upon 1-year old Peter the greatest life mission of all: to find me. (kidding ha)
Fast forward about 22 years, its 2017 and I moved to Charlotte, North Carolina as a fresh college grad for what I thought was my dream job. I’d been working my entire life towards this point, minus the short stint when I thought I was going to be a professional ice skater only to grow a little older and realize my parents are Asian and I should probably be a doctor… only to come to terms with the fact that I was a very average student on my best days…only to give engineering a try as strongly suggested by my parents…only to give up on that and land on…finance. Funny how things work out because that first job is where I met Peter. Fast friends turned into best friends turned into a short period of Peter being too shy to talk to me because he really liked me…turned into dating.
In June 2020, the world was on pause and we were working remote. A good friend of ours decided to drive out west with his work laptop and work remote there. The second I heard his idea I was pretty much packed and in my car. Just kidding. I wish. First, I had to go through an excruciating convincing process because, if you guys don’t know by now, Peter is the biggest rule follower you’ll ever meet and has been climbing the corporate ladder since he could climb. I viewed my job as a means to make an income, and he viewed his job (remember we’re basically working the same job) as his entire world. Peter’s biggest concern – WHAT IF THERE’S NO WIFI IN COLORAD? Yeah…I tried not to roll my eyes 100 times. We’re both pretty stubborn but I definitely win in this category, and off to Colorado we went!
Here’s what went down in Colorado. First, Peter discovered Wifi. You’re welcome Colorado! Just as quickly, our 2-week road trip got extended to 4 because we were having so much fun working east coast hours and spending the afternoons hiking outdoors. It was also during those first days when I, a 24-year old, discovered YouTube for the first time. Yes, you read that right. You can imagine my surprise when I found so many travel vloggers all at once who had taken time off to travel. I was a few minutes into my first video, when I decided in that moment that I too, wanted to take time off to travel.
Peter’s sense of adventure in that moment must’ve been at an all-time record high because when I proposed this crazy, yet still well thought out idea (I am a Virgo, after all), Peter didn’t say no. He said “Hmm interesting”. That’s all I needed to hear! We spent the next 2 years carefully planning out our trip. It was an excruciatingly long waiting period. However it was fully necessary in order for us to frantically cut costs and save up enough to fund the upcoming travels. In March 2022, we finally set out on our big trip…
