Global Road Trekker

roadtrekker

New member
Global Road Trekker checking in!

Hi Haven,

Thanks for finding us and posting us here. Wendy here. I've relied on my travel partner Jim as the Expedition Portal liaison for the team and it seems he reads a lot more than he posts so I'm going to chip in and introduce ourselves and start the conversation here about our trip. Yes its true - we have a truck and a plan and we've set off on a RTW adventure beginning with Central and South America. We left our home on Nov 11, 2011 and we've been on the road since. We're currently at base camp #5 in Southern California getting ready to cross into Mexico in the next couple weeks. Its been pretty hectic getting everything together! I'm still ordering parts for Amazon delivery every day and trying to figure out all our technology as well as truck needs. Anyway, Jim tells me I need to start a page about the expedition so I will do so. Also we'll be coming through AZ in the next couple weeks and would love to come say Hi to you and the Overland Journal / Overland Expo team so I'll reach out separately on that. Yes you can find us online at the following places:
http://globalroadtrekker.com
http://www.facebook.com/globalroadtrekker
Twitter: @roadtrekker
and here our login is roadtrekker.

thanks and looking forward to keeping everyone up to speed!
Wendy & Jim Pearson

PS the DAY you posted that link above I had a guy in AUS helping with my site and he messed it up for 24 hours. Oh well. :)
 

adam88

Explorer
What happened to you Wendy and Jim? Are you okay? I see your website and facebook are down. What happened to your trip?
 

adam88

Explorer
I did a bit of digging and I am guessing this trip was "called off" possibly due to some.... personal issues/relationship stuff. Looks like the last post made to their blog in May/2012 was about them fighting about their dog. The conclusion was they were going to drop off the dog before going to Mexico. Here was the last sentence:

And other Repercussions?

The unlucky happenstance if you will of this whole ordeal has made me start to question the length of time I really want to be gone. I can hear all you non-dog lovers out there now who are undoubtedly incredulous at my twisted thinking. Could I seriously be considering truncating the trip of a lifetime because of a dog? I don't know. All I can tell you is we'll have to see. The script has not yet been written. And the writers are half dog lovers.

For now, we are dropping Neva in So. Cal before we run off into Mexico.

Oh well. I hope this trip gets back on track one day!
 

adam88

Explorer
Actually, here was the last post. So there it is.

Travel Changes You In Ways You Can't Anticipate


06/14/2012 | By Wendy Pearson | 19 Comments




You may have noticed we've been silent for the last couple weeks about our locale. Many of you have reached out to ask what is going on, where we are, what is happening. After much contemplation, we decided to write this post and lay it all out… in all its raw honesty.

People told us when we embarked on this journey that travel changes you in ways you can never anticipate. It will make you see life differently, reset your priorities and bring out the truth in every situation. And after six months on the road, we can officially say “they” are right.

This trip was about two people on a journey to change their lives for the better, to escape from the mundane every day and to see this world together. But dig one layer deeper and the trip had additional purposes:


•For Wendy, getting the courage to jump off the corporate treadmill was the most important aspect of this trip. After 20+ years of 50+ hour work weeks and never a single day of unemployment, she felt like an indentured servant to the salaried lifestyle. Quitting never seemed an option, yet she craved the opportunity for mental downtime and a chance to build an income stream somehow while keeping some semblance of freedom.
•For Jim, perhaps more relaxed about the financial situation and his future ability to jump back in, this trip was more a journey to tour the world alongside Wendy. It was a trip to explore their relationship and cultures together, to grow as humans.

But considering we were neither doe-eyed 25-year-olds without the burden of an existing life to quit, nor 65-year old retirees with a monthly pension to float us into old age, money remained an issue. Trip savings would keep us alive, but living without income for three years remained a daunting challenge. In addition, Wendy was never wholly fully vested in spending our nest egg, so she planned to work part time and replace the income as we went.

As the trip began in November 2011, we traveled with ease through US and Canada for five months.


Jim enjoys beach sunset

Wendy kept a steady consulting income and continued with phone service, Internet and telco relationships. She felt good about combining work with the nomadic lifestyle. But moving in to Mexico in April posed new challenges. We'd planned ahead of time and had all the best tools to communicate back to the states, but still could not achieve the most simple thing – a basic cheap phone call. Wifi was abundant and affordable, but good connection phone calls from our mobile phones back to the states were next to impossible. Solutions either cost too much for long calls, did not work with our phones, or were available only through a crappy IP phone connections.

Driving south from the US border, Wendy became more agitated, panicked and isolated as her social and business ties began melting away.

And while friends dealt with poor phone connections, it was not suitable for consistent business. Jim fought Wendy's desire to remain connected to the States, suggesting she give it up and go lounge on the beach. But Wendy just couldn't do it. With every passing day she fell deeper into her own little mini heart of darkness, the trip feeling more an albatross around her neck than path to freedom. It became clear that this “business” part of Wendy was core to her and not to be dismissed as optional.


With Camp Dave in a town called Ahome

It didn't take long before Wendy began shortening and shortening the trip in her head – from three years to one year – then to six months – then to three. Soon she'd settled in her mind on a July end date to simply return for good. But when change looms on the horizon, sometimes it cannot wait.

By the end of May, these issues about money, work and isolation rose to the top of conversation.

We'd just made it to Puerto Vallarta and Wendy hit the wall. The lack of a schedule and overall chaos that came with trying to both work remotely and concurrently travel for pleasure was overwhelming. She felt ready for her “vacation” to be over, and craved a somewhat structured life again. She felt like she'd accomplished her trip. She'd left the cubicle, launched her consulting business and had some income to show for it. And she didn't want to lose momentum. A few intense days of conversations followed.

Finally at an impasse about what to do next, Wendy ended her trip and returned to the states.

It was not Jim's desire, it was not at all what he wanted and he was not happy with the turn of events. And in many ways that stinks. But for Wendy it was the only way. Her anxiety over the change and realization about what the trip really meant to her drove it all.


Sunset at San Blas, Mexico

So what happens now?

We know. It's crazy. So much hope down the drain, so many adventures left undone. So much upheaval just for more upheaval. Frankly, both of us are not sure what is next. We're reeling from it all, trying to put our lives back together in some fashion. And we feel like we let many people down. But what can we say? It's our life. We sought a change and we found it. We're just sorry to bring you all into our lives so deeply and then cut you off as our hearts shifted and it suddenly became less about the travel. But I suppose we all knew it was the risk when we started

Wendy has settled in Southern California for the time being. As for Jim, his path remains uncertain. There may be motorcycle trips in the future, a US based road trip, its all up in the air.

In closing…

We always said this was an adventure in life, and I guess we meant it. And so as we move on to new adventures, perhaps less about travel, I'm not sure what else there is to say on this blog. We will keep it live for the past content and sponsor information, but we won't be updating it with trip info until Jim decides whether he continues by road on motorbike.

In the meantime, we thank all of you who believed in us and inspired us to live differently, to be brave and seek the unusual in life. If we had it to do over again, perhaps next time we'd reduce our audacious goal to a single continent or just a single year. We're not sure. But we're not sorry about the changes that have transpired as a result of our embracing the fear and just trying something completely different. It has changed our lives and for the better.

If you have comments or thoughts please feel free to share them with us or reach out by email which you can find on our contacts page. For those adventures we missed, we are sorry. But life in and of itself, well its just one big adventure, so we continue.

We wish there was an easier way to end this. But for now we'll just say, thank you for joining us on this voyage.
 

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