SANJAY & IVANNA (SanVanna)
After spending over 20 (successful) years in corporate America, we realized we didn’t want to be defined by our titles and our work accomplishments. While our jobs provided an extremely comfortable living, we didn’t feel fulfilled. We spent an excruciating amount of time to uncover our true passions and to understand what was truly important to us. It became obvious we were spending the least amount of time on what mattered the most. Inspired by Minimalism, material possessions such as fancy cars, huge houses, expensive jewelry, liquor and wine collections began to lose their appeal and we had no desire to slave 50 to 60 hours to acquire any of that. The saying “Collect Moments Not Things” now began to resonate more than ever before.
After months of discussion and a lot of introspection, we realized we would never have all the answers and never be able to plan for every possible scenario. It was time to take the plunge and quit our jobs. It was the biggest, hardest and by far the scariest decisions we’ve ever made. But it was also totally liberating. Being able to set your own agenda for the day and focus all your energies on your priorities is the true definition of being one’s own boss. Soon thereafter, we started shedding our “stuff”. Although we have a long way to go, we already feel lighter and freer.
We have a list of 35 countries we plan to visit over the next few years and plan to use our part of our savings, frequent flyer miles & rewards points (collected over 15 years) to fund our budget travel. Since we are fortunate enough to have homes in USA, India and Ukraine (not Minimalistic), they will serve as a home base for our travel adventures.
The purpose of this blog is not just to share pretty pictures that you can marvel at or preach to you the best itineraries, there are plenty of others who are doing that already. We want to share our journey and bring you along for this ride so you can get a sense of the local food, culture and idiosyncrasies of the cities we visit. And who knows, you might get a chuckle out of our stories and experiences, discover something insightful or even get inspired. Currently, we have no plans to monetize this blog by pushing products and flashing annoying pop-up ads at you. At this point we have no idea how long this break will last. We are enjoying our time together and every single day is a new adventure.
