One Way Ticket

Cheers All!

Peter and I are starting a new adventure & we want to share it with you. We've booked a

ONE-WAY FLIGHT TO THAILAND!!!

We leave on December 31, 2019. It’s a 24 ½ hour flight, with a 2 hour stop over in Taipei, so we will be spending New Year’s Eve in the air. We arrive on January 1st at 10:30 am, with an 11-hour time difference - so 11:30 pm in Canada, just before the ball drops on New Years. Hopefully we can figure out how to make a phone call home before midnight.

We are heading to Chiang Mai, in Northern Thailand where we start a one month in-class Teaching English as a Second Language (TEFL) course on January 6th, 2020. The goal is to get a teaching job in Chiang Mai and stay there for up to 2 years. If this doesn’t work out as planned (i.e. we are too old to get hired, we suck at teaching, we melt in the heat, we run out of funds, or other), our trip could be considerably shorter, but for know that is the going in goal.

We’ve booked a “nice-ish hotel for $22/night(!!!) close to the school for the first month - a bit more expensive than the school recommended but we wanted our own bathroom (aka we aren't their usual 22 year old backpackers). From there will have to find a full-time place to live, depending on job location.

Why are we doing this, you ask? Well, first off, we love the idea of having a new adventure, a pre-retirement “next career” so to speak, while we are still young and healthy enough to do so. Hoping this adventure will be filled with great travel (and photo) opportunities, an opportunity for personal growth, for Peter & I to re-connect as a couple like in pre-kids days, and new cultural and food experiences. We are looking forward to travelling to cool bucket list destinations, chatting with monks, learning Thai cooking (or more likely enjoying Thai street food), exploring elephant sanctuaries, relaxing on beautiful beaches, and embracing all things in "the land of smiles." I am sure it will also be extremely challenging, and at times lonely and difficult too (just think, the only person we will know is each other – yikes!)

We are calling this next chapter: “EMPTY NEST ADVENTURES ... The Kids Didn’t Move out, So We Did!.”

Gillian is helping me to build a website so we can share thoughts, photos and videos. Eric will ensure we are up to speed on communication technology so that we can be a phone/Skype/Facetime call away, and Ian is planning the kid's trip to come visit us. Hoping many of you will also come and visit, but if not, that you follow our adventure on this site.

Love you, and miss you already,

Susan & Peter

Ok, maybe we need more luggage than this for a 2 year adventure!