Upcoming Changes to TKP: Our Year Abroad!

I've been getting a lot of questions about our impending {Current? We are probably somewhere over the Pacific Ocean by now!} travel: Where are you going? WHY are you going? For how long? Will you be blogging? About food or about travel? What did you pack? What are you going to do? How will you support yourselves? Will you go back to Bozeman? Will we ever be able to talk to you again!?

All valid questions, friends! I'll try my best to answer them in this post. If I miss anything, please feel free to leave a question in the comments! In addition to filling you in on our plans, I also want to make sure you aren't shocked by the changes coming to TKP!

{here we are at the Bozeman Airport, ready to take off!}

We are flying into Hanoi, Vietnam. We left yesterday!
The general plan is to spend some time traveling before finding one location to "settle" for the remainder of our time abroad. We're hoping to find a smaller city or town where we can surf, do lots of yoga, eat good food, meet fabulous people, and generally enjoy our time in a new community. Before finding that one place, we plan to spend a few months traveling around Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. Perhaps Thailand.

We are going for fun! And because we can!
Derek just finished his Masters degree (woohoo!), and both of us now have jobs that we can do remotely. Location isn't a limiting factor, and we want to see the world! SE Asia, and Vietnam in particular, has been at the top of both of our lists for a while. Technically, this is our honeymoon! We haven't taken one yet, and with Derek's degree taking longer than anticipated it kept getting pushed further and further. While we won't be lounging in luxury most of the time, we do plan to travel at a slower pace than normal (and spend some time luxuriating, in addition to adventuring!). While we don't particularly subscribe to the "kids tie you down" theory (because we don't plan to give up an adventurous lifestyle when we have kids), now is the time for us, as a couple, to be abroad for an extended time.

Why Vietnam??
We originally planned to spend a year abroad in Europe (France or Switzerland, likely), but still had plans for a honeymoon in Vietnam. As our plans evolved, and our budget solidified, it made a lot more sense to actually LIVE in SE Asia — a prospect I was thrilled about (I'd been pushing for a year in Nicaragua!), and was pleased when Derek finally came around (WITHOUT MY SUGGESTING IT!) to the idea. Lots of people are choosing to live for a year abroad. In fact, some who have retired are doing it! Financing it can be an issue, I guess that's why an equity release can be so appealing. You can visit https://www.keyadvice.co.uk/equity-release to find out more. Woohoo! Vietnam, and all of SE Asia, interest us for a lot of reasons. There is SO much history there, both recent and ancient, as well as incredible food (omgomgomg), beautiful surroundings, WARM weather, beaches, volcanoes, fun animals and weird fruits — need I go on? It's going to be an adventure.

The timeframe "1 year" has been thrown around a lot, but we're keeping an open mind!
We know we have to return to the US for a variety of events at the end of the summer, which means we've changed our plan a little bit… we may travel around until we return, then head back over to a specific location and stay there. That said, we are really taking this "be flexible" attitude to heart! We are leaving every possibility open, not feeling rushed AT ALL, and letting things unfold as they will. We're also leaving the end-date very open: if we feel like coming home after six months, we will. If we reach one year and aren't ready to come back, we won't! We're confident that our communication with each other is strong and open enough that we'll be able to re-assess every few months and figure out where we should be!

I will be blogging! So will Derek! Both of us on a variety of topics!
I will continue blogging just as much, if not more often, than I have been! While TKP is first and foremost a food blog, I'm learning more and more that I don't need to get bogged down in a specific hole. I'll be blogging about our travels, often! Some posts will be purely personal, to show you what we've been up to, and some will be more informative for other travelers looking for information. I will still be posting recipes, which will look EXACTLY like what I've been posting for the last year! I want to maintain some continuity, so I've actually been working double-time to build up a back-log of recipes. I'll post a "normal recipe once each week, in addition to other helpful cooking posts, local food posts (for wherever we are), and travel posts. If you're interested in only subscribing to food, click here for a "food only" TKP email subscription. You'll have to unsubscribe from your normal subscription if you don't want to see travel posts. If you're interested in subscribing to everything I post, click here!

We aren't sure where to where we'll return, but we have a few strong front-runners!
I won't dive deeply into this, but both Bozeman and Portland are calling our names! I have loved my time in Bozeman, but will always call Portland home — and my family is there! Of course we will, again, keep an open mind in that decision (whenever it may come), but hopefully our income will still be a location-independent and leave "finding a job" out of our decision making.

We packed super light. SUPER light.
We each packed one carry-on-sized suitcase, along with a little (large-purse-sized) backpack. Fo reals. These will, in theory, sustain us for the next 4 months with no problem. We'll then be back for a few weeks and likely need to suplement our wardrobes, but will probably return to Asia with the same small carry-ons! I'll maybe do a post in the future about how/what I packed for such a long trip. The bottom line on that is: COORDINATION. I'm not a super stylish person, so this took a lot of thought, but everything I brought can pretty much be worn with anything else in my suitcase. Lots of grey/black/white and a few light denim pieces! Last time I travelled for a few months, in South America, I felt so gross and ugly after three weeks of wearing nothing but "travel clothes" that I learned it's REALLY nice to have "normal" clothes to feel, well, normal!

OF COURSE YOU CAN TALK TO ME! I'm not going to 1970!
I'm amused by how freaked out people have been about communication. WE AREN'T FALLING OFF THE FACE OF THE EARTH! I'll have my iPhone with a Vietnamese data plan, so I can receive emails, check instagram, call/text using my google voice number (contact me if you want it), and do everything I do here EXCEPT use my normal phone number. If you call that you won't get me. We have Skype, if you want to see our beautiful faces, or Facetime, or google hangouts — the possibilities are really endless.

Bottom line for The Kitchen Paper: I'll be showing you more of my life, which will be abroad for the next foreseeable future! Hopefully you want to stick around for that ride! As always, I'm really eager to hear any feedback — what posts you like, don't like, want to see more of, etc. Let me know! Are you curious about a specific _____ in Vietnam? Let me know and I'll try to fill you in! Are you sick of seeing bowl after bowl of pho? Let me know, and I'll try to tone it down! (No promises on that, though).

You may have noticed the theme of my answers above is "go with the flow." My goals for this year are to truly live in the moment, not distracted by what to do next, where to see next, what activity we MUST do, etc. I want to enjoy where we are, take life in, be leisurely, and absolutely be more of a traveler than a tourist. I'm excited to share our journey with you all!

PLEASE keep in touch with us, too! I'm sure a day will come where we're a bit homesick, so hearing about what's happening with everyone we love will be absolutely wonderful!