Flight Risk
We’re heading to South America.
In September of 2007, Magda and I packed up our complacent lives into boxes and everything changed. Within days of leaving we were living out of our backpacks, driving across southern Africa and quickly realizing this was what we should have been doing all along. A year later we returned home, a bit lighter, a bit worn around the edges, but more alive than we’d ever felt. Immediately we began planning the next journey. Unfortunately we returned at the crest of the financial storm of 2008 and our plans were put on hold. In the years that followed, we unpacked complacency and returned it to its place on the proverbial shelf. Oddly, we got no younger. We gradually moved forward with our dormant plans though, preparing ourselves to be in a position to leave once again with greater ease. Saving as much as we could, we bought an apartment in Brooklyn that we planned on renting out if we ever left again. Gradually we sketched out a route we might take and started calculating the cost, the schedule and the locations that might afford Magda some rich photographic opportunities.
Finally we had a plan. We had the means. Working together, we rebuilt the will. The decision was made to travel from the southern-most tip of South America up to Alaska.
Last month, both of us gave notice, me at my permalance turned fulltime job as ‘Senior Design Illustrator’ at Cornerstone Strategic Branding and Magda at Metropolis Magazine where she worked part time as Photo Editor. Neither of us grabbed two beers off the food-service cart and slid down the inflatable escape slide, we do hope to return to New York after all. Most people we worked with at some level seemed to understand that we’d always been what the judiciary terms to be a ‘flight-risk’.
Soon we will buy our tickets south. Ideally starting in Santiago, Chilé we’ll make our way down to Ushuaia, the southernmost town in the Americas and one way or another, brave the Straights of Magellan and spend some time in Antarctica. Starting here at the bottom of the earth will be the biggest financial challenge of our travels thus far. It’s difficult to hitchhike to Antarctica after all (we’re still trying to figure out if its possible) and as far as we know there’s no one to couchsurf with. We’ve decided therefore to go out on a limb and try to rally the troops, offering our artistic services in return for some financial help in order to reach the ice covered continent. If you get a chance, follow the link: ___ and watch our informative video, narrated by highly paid voice talent.
But even if you don’t feel like investing, please watch this space: this blog should soon get very interesting. Or at least pretty entertaining as we head back on the road for another year of travel.