Hi friends!
So we get a lot of people who ask us how we can afford to move and travel with the lack of job or trust fund! Truth is – we can’t.
Emily and I started dating in 2016. I was trying to figure out the next step – the next place for me. I had just graduated from college with my undergrad, a dream I had wanted for ten years previous, and I felt stuck. Stuck in the same small town, stuck not knowing the next step in my career – in my life. And in the middle of all of that confusion, Emily walked into my life – again!
After a couple months of complete bliss and too much fun, I started applying for a masters program anywhere but where I was. I wanted to travel, to live a life that didn’t look like anything I had ever experienced before. I believed that in order for me to take that leap I had to be responsible and do so with a purpose in mind by obtaining a graduate degree. To my surprise I was accepted into a program in Scotland for Communications with a concentration into Environment and Culture. Why?
Simply because I wanted to make a difference. I wanted to live a life that wasn’t ordinary.
After my acceptance I quickly moved to Scotland – with absolutely NO preparation what so ever. I didn’t even have the money to even get to Scotland, let alone rent a place or pay for my education. I was broke. I was beyond broke. But here is the thing, when people say it takes a community to make things work – they are telling the absolute truth, well my absolute truth. I wouldn’t have been able to make my graduate degree work out without the help of an amazing friend of mine who purchased my one way ticket to Scotland with their points, my beautiful grandmother who helped me put a deposit and first months rent down on my flat, and my 6 month girlfriend who believed in all of my crazy dreams! A lot of finding our place in life and discovering new opportunities have been because we had a net of support from friends and family. People we knew would catch us when we fell – which is inevitable when you take risks. Not everyone has a net, and we know how privileged and blessed we are to have such wonderful people in our lives; we wouldn’t be who we are today without those people.
After we left Scotland we moved to Louisiana to get married. We got engaged in Scotland and it was important to us to marry in Louisiana at the same place where we met and reconnected. So we spent that next year planning out our wedding and researching our next leap of faith. We took on another dog and another cat during that time totaling us out to 2 dogs and 2 cats and 2 women total in love with each other! We had a plateful! Living in Louisiana reminded us that we weren’t finished discovering the world! So for our honeymoon we decided to move to Washington state! What a lot of people don’t realize is that I’m (Tara) the one with the travel bug – and that Emily just enjoys the ride; however, our move to Washington was completely Emily’s choice. We felt stuck again in Louisiana and we were ready to discover a new place for us. So I asked Emily. If she could pick anywhere in the world she wanted to live, where would it be?! So two weeks after our wedding we packed up all of our things, loaded up the pups and cats in the car and road tripped it to Spokane, Washington.
Living in Washington was amazing – truly! The hikes, the mountains, the people, the weather! I could go on but that will probably be a different post! But like that bug usually hits about once a year, we were ready for a new adventure. We really missed Louisiana’s culture and food and our family so for us the next place was New Orleans! Nola, the most progressive city in Louisiana embracing all forms of love, life, and food we quickly made friends and had the best time! And then a year later… the pandemic hit. And it took things from Emily and I that were unexpected. So we made another decision after a year to pack up all of our things and go camping for a few months! Loaded up the pups and cats again, and hit the road!
That is just a brief synopsis of our life together – but I’m hoping you get the point! We have a passion to be a part of this world in every aspect rather than just exist within it so we make our decisions on that truth.
Now, I am not advocating that kind of approach for everyone – in fact I absolutely hate that I was so desperate in the first place. However, I do want to mention that people who travel the world aren’t always billionaires, hell they barely have a 9-5. What I am realizing is that these people are making their dreams a reality by simply putting in the work – by believing so desperately in themselves and not settling for the normalcy of what most others do!
Ever since I could remember I never wanted a normal life. I wanted to explore the unseen, to create works of art, to discover cultures, and to love so deeply and so passionately that my life would be consumed with every waking moment feeling so fulfilled. I did not want the all American dream – at all. I have made every decision in my life to make sure that I fulfilled my passions instead of someone else’s. Now – I’m not saying that your life isn’t fulfilling because you work a 9-5 and live in suburban America, in fact that might have been your dream! And you aren’t wrong for wanting that! But for our life and how we spend our days, that was never an option for us. We know there is so much more to this world than the bubble of merely existing.
Bottom line, I am a dreamer! I believe in the magic of the world, and how manifesting its power can create universes within us to live our best stories. I am the bird flying high up into the clouds believing in the bigness of life and letting it consume me. Emily is the tree, she is the one that grounds my anxious energy and believes in all of my fantasies! She is full of more kindness than I have ever known and she shows me new ways of love and understanding. Together we fall into unknown territories and grow fully within ourselves. We make it work because it is important to us. When we want something we put all of our energy and passion into it and let me tell you – it f’ng works. Let me be perfectly clear, not every fantasy I come up with makes Emily automatically jump towards! Actually she usually spends a good couple weeks trying to pull me back to reality! I usually also spend that time creating different scenarios for that idea to really work out for us! But usually when it comes to choosing which fantasy to follow – I go with Emily’s gut. She is the most grounded person I know, a true empath that knows the ebb and flow of energy. And when her gut says ‘ok’ then I will create a plan to make it work for us! If her gut immediately rejects it – then I move on to another idea!
But here is the harsh reality in what it means to be a dreamer and how we get to live the life we choose: The ability to dream and to create is a privilege that most people take for granted. In reality when people are stuck in survival mode from consistent trauma there or systematic racism and bigotry, there is little to no room left to dream or fantasize about a different reality or life. A really good friend of mine asks me all the time how I can afford to live the life I dream of, and I always give them the same answer, the same one I gave earlier – we can’t. But here is the thing, I will always dream that one day we can. That one day we will live our life the way we see it in our dreams. One day we will have our cake and eat it, too!
So here is to one day all of your dreams will come true.
And that maybe we can help along the way.
The Roaming Hippies 