About Derek
I’ve wanted to go since the day I graduated from college in 2009. As is usually the case when it comes to traveling, life got in the way – most notably that whole work thing. Since that day in May of ’09, my travel bug’s legs had been moving, and in 2012 it reached a full-sprint that I could no longer ignore.
I left my job as a digital strategist for a nationally recognized web-development company to travel the world. The tour began in Paris before moving to Southeast Asia. I left my plans loose, as the most common piece of planning advice I’d received was to not plan at all.
I’d be lying if I didn’t say there wasn’t a bit of anxiousness and nervousness running amuck in my mind alongside the feeling of exhilarating excitement upon leaving my office for the last time. Leaving your financial stability behind (your friends, family, dog, and virtually everything you’ve become familiar with goes without saying) is a scary thing, but there is no better time than now to pursue happiness, which for me comes in the form of worldy exploits.
The Preface to Atlas Footbrint
I started my mini-retirement (some might call it a quarter-life crisis, but believe me when I say that crisis is the opposite of what this is trip represented) with a 5-day trip in Telluride to celebrate the 39th Telluride Bluegrass Festival. Rarely will anyone describe a place as magical (sorry Disney), but Telluride has the uncanny ability to evoke this adjective over and over again. The scenery – with its jagged mountaintops, surrounding waterfalls, and many hues of red rocks and green trees/brush makes this box-canyon in the southwest part of the state a hidden gem.
Landscape and backdrop aside, my five-day trip in Telluride helped me to realize the true meaning of what I would be experiencing through the latter half of 2012. What I didn’t know is that evoking these feelings would last at the time of writing today, in September of 2017. Certain events cause moments of total lucidity and euphoria – be it getting lost in a novel, hearing your favorite song, skipping an afternoon in the office to hit the links, etc.
For me, Telluride brought about this feeling of clarity time and time again – the music (hearing Greensky Bluegrass play the Isley Brother’s “Shout” at one of the world’s most intimate concert venues), the people (camping with total strangers who become great friends when the time comes to pack up), the stars, the parties, the conversations, the sunsets, sunrises, food, beer, parades, smiles– in a word, the adventure.
My first backpacking experience began in July of 2017 in Paris. A few months later, I crossed paths with Elliot in a hostel in Bangkok. This chapter of my backpacking life ended in December of the same year in Otres Beach. But the book remains largely unwritten.
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There are quotes and clichés aplenty about travel: Life begins when you leave your comfort zone; all who yonder are not lost; the world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.
Throughout this blog, I, along with Elliot, hope to create our own clichés as we I attempt to put quest into words. We will explore and revisit in an attempt shed light the places we’ve been, the people we’ve met, and the adventures we’ve found ourselves a part of.
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