Why we travel

This was never our plan nor did we ever expect that we would live a lifestyle where we will travel to over 65 countries and live in various parts of the world for the past 7 - 8 years with the possibility of traveling for the rest of our lives with our two children (of course, until the children want to live on their own). It was not planned, this lifestyle organically evolved due to various circumstances and experiences along the way. Here is a brief insight into why we are traveling and why we wish to travel for the rest of our lives. 

Kathi was born in Innsbruck, Tirol, Austria and she spent most of her first 18 years of life in and around that area. During this time she traveled to a few countries within Europe as part of her school trips or with her family. When she was 18, she moved to Kenya to volunteer at an NGO that worked on social change. This was the first time she went outside the culture she grew up in. This firsthand experience was eye opening and made her realize that people live very differently in other parts of the world. After her first stay in Kenya, during the next 4 -5 years she frequently traveled back to Kenya and lived there. During her University studies in Austria, she lived in Switzerland for a semester and traveled to a few countries in Europe and to the USA. After her studies she traveled for a few months around West African countries and then moved to Vienna for work. While living in Vienna she traveled within Europe and again to the USA a few times. Traveling was part of her life but it was not the main part of her life. She traveled during vacations, but working as a social worker at a women's shelter was a big part of her life. In late 2014 she quit her job to take a break from work and try out something new in life. She moved to Belgrade/Serbia and enrolled at the University of Belgrade to study the Serbian language, where she lived for 4 months. This was the first time in her life that she truly lived alone and free of any and all expectations and obligations. She could get up each day and do whatever she felt like doing. For the first time she felt that she doesn't need to worry about judgements of other people, worry about doing something that looks worthy to others, nor plan ahead of time what she needs to do each day. It was absolute freedom for the first time to live in the moment. It was also an opportunity to truly listen to her heart and do what she truly wanted to do each day. This opportunity helped her shed many layers of obligations and expectations that she had carried unknowingly until this point, and to live in-tune with her needs. It was during this time of freedom that she traveled to Montenegro and met Sam.

Sam was born in Kadapa, Andhra, India. He lived in the same town until he finished his undergrad studies. During this time he made short trips to nearby states with his family and friends which lasted only for a few days each. For the first time to do his Masters degree he moved away to North India. It was the farthest he traveled to so far. During his studies there, he traveled with his friends to nearby Himalayan towns for a few days. After his studies he started working near New Delhi and lived there for about three years. Until this point he never traveled outside India. From New Delhi he moved to the US to work and he lived there for more than a decade. During this time he made some road-trips with his friends and for work across the US. He did a road-trip by car from Miami to San Francisco for two weeks, and traveled to Hawaii, Yosemite, Las Vegas, New York and a few other places. He also traveled a few weeks across South Korea, Thailand, and Japan. Most of these trips he made was during his time off from work. His work was still a big part of his life. In late 2013 he quit his job as a IT Director at a national bank to try out something new in life. He didn't know what he wanted to do. So he decided to travel and figure it out. He backpacked across 10 countries in Europe for a few months. The trip was so freeing and wonderful, that he came back to California, sold his house, and donated/sold all his belongings and bought a one way ticket to London and started his travels. Similar to what Kathi felt during her stay in Serbia, during this time of backpacking alone across Europe, Russia, Africa, and Asia he felt the absolute freedom to do whatever he wanted to do but more importantly it also gave him the opportunity to truly listen to his own needs and follow his heart. After traveling for almost a year and half alone, his mind realigned his ability to listen to his heart and follow it and give very little importance to others and their opinions. It was during this time that he traveled to Montenegro and met Kathi. 

When we met each other, we both already had a clear understanding of our needs and we were both not willing to give-up the freedom in our hearts for anything or anyone. We spend the first 10 day with each other and it was the first time we experienced the feeling of freedom and companionship at the same time. Very quickly after that we talked honestly about almost every aspect of our lives and also about our future together. At this point Sam had plans to travel for another few years, but Kathi had plans to go back to Austria and live there. We found a compromise to travel together for some time and then come back to Austria and settle and create a life that is in-tune with the voice of our hearts. We traveled across Europe, Central America, South America, USA, and India during this time. Being together all day everyday gave us a chance to know more about each other and it was also a reconfirmation that we both have similar views about our freedom, honesty, and the way we wanted to live. After we came back to Austria we registered our marriage and lived in Vienna for seven months. As we wanted to settle in Innsbruck eventually, we did not see a point in starting our life in Vienna and then re-start again in Innsbruck in a few years. So we moved to Innsbruck in mid 2016. Just before we moved to Innsbruck we learned that we were expecting a baby. With the experience of traveling around the world, and also with the deep desire to follow our hearts, we started creating a new life in Innsbruck that was in tune with our idea of living. We started volunteering at an old age home, worked with a farmer, Sam started teaching Yoga, and also started a course to become a Massage Practitioner. We started making new friends and also reconnecting with Kathi's family and old friends. 

With time, our excitement slowly started fading away with the reality of living at the same place kicking in. Never had we thought that we would face so many challenges living at one place. The problem was not with each other, or our style of living, but to live in the context of a tightly organized society and rigid mindset of people. For us to be part of the community and society around us, we were expected to adapt to the already established ways of that society and culture. The idea of how one should live was so strong in the minds of people around us that they had very little interest to know about our style of living.  Frequently we had to face criticisms that we were acting out of norm and we were extreme in our ways of living and thinking. In addition to that, we frequently experienced racism in Innsbruck. We shared with friends and family about these experiences, but we sadly realized that most of them had no interest to fight this issue or to support us in speaking up about this issue. Very soon we were spending a lot of time dealing with people's criticism about our lifestyle. We realized that we didn't fit in this culture and didn't want to live here or raise our kid(s) in an environment that was constraining for us. We decided to move away, but to which part of the world? We had no idea where we'd be able to find a place where we would feel free to live the way we wanted to live. So we decided to travel again and see if we come across a place like that. This time, with four months old Nora and both of us. We traveled through Czech Republic for a month and half, Spain for a month, and Portugal for a month. We slowly started feeling the freedom to live again. After traveling within Europe for about four months we said goodbye to Europe and traveled through India, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, and Malaysia for almost a year. It was an amazing feeling to see Nora enjoy the changes and interact with new people and cultures. 

Wherever we went, we were always guests. We knew almost no one around us wherever we lived. During our travels, we focused on our physical health, mental health, spirituality, God, and explored ways to raise our kids. It became clear during our travels that the issue with the unhappiness and suffering in people around the world is their strong attachments to culture, ways of thinking, their religion, their likes and dislikes, their expectations from relationships and a lot of other expectations and obligations. As we studied various religious and spiritual scriptures, we realized that these strong attachments to identities were in direct conflict with one's joy and happiness. 

During these years of studying religions, cultures, people, and many other things, it became clear to us what our relationship with God is and what the true purpose of our life is. 

It was very clear at this point that we did not want to belong anywhere, to any culture, to any tradition, to any religion, to any obligation or expectation, or to anything else. We wanted to be free. We wanted to respect and understand all these aspects of various cultures but we didn't want to be part of any of these identities and expectations that came with them. 

Traveling together as a family and living in different places is giving all of us a chance to explore new cultures together and spending a lot of quality time with each other everyday. 

With all these amazing things in our favour, it was only a natural decision to continue this lifestyle of freedom as long as possible both for us and for our children. We might have to address many new challenges in life alone as there aren't many people we can talk to about the lifestyle we are living. But we both have a strong conviction from our years of travel and self exploration, that whenever a challenging situation will arise in future, it will also be accompanied by a solution corresponding to that challenge. 

So, we plan on not belonging anywhere and travel from city to city, village to village, country to country for the rest of our lives. The kind of life our children might want to live when they turn adults will be up to them and they will decide their own life paths.  But until they are ready to make decisions about their life paths, we will most probably be traveling together and living in different parts of the world.