My life in a nutshell: I was born in Oakville, ON on July 25, 1975; the first child to Caryl and David Phillips. Caryl, a school teacher on maternity leave (which stretched for about....21 years). David, a young chiropractor who just began his practice in Milton, ON. Apparently I received my wings early in my life, as we flew from Oakville back to my new home out-of-the-womb in Milton in my Dad's little cessna. I was an only child for about 16 months and three days. From my highly overweight baby pictures, it looks like I was lucky to have finally received this brother. It seems my parents were feeding me both of our rations until Jeff came around. Suitably, I was nicknamed, "Little Heifer". Six years after Jeff entered my life, and I lost my excess weight, Susan came along.

The one thing I remember vividly from my childhood is the vast amount of travel our family did. It seemed that we were constantly on a road trip somewhere. In fact, the first words I learned to read were "Next Exit". We travelled all around South and Mid Ontario, the northeastern States, Quebec. I have more memories of highway 401 in our Chevy diesel van than of my own bedroom. I attribute my travel and roadtrip bug purely to this (and the fact that I'm a Leo who loves to explore). We flew too: Dad's cessna all around Ontario, and even to Florida (I was much to young to remember this). Mom and I ventured out to the west coast on the train, and as a family, we did a roadtrip from Calgary to Victoria one summer. That road trip, with all five of us in a Pontiac 6000, kindled my addiction to the mountains. For years after this, Jeff and I desparately wanted to live out west. Luckily close friends of ours moved to Kelowna in '90, giving us an excuse to venture out once a year for snowboarding at Big White, or canoeing in the lake.

This love-affair with the west temporarily disappeared upon admission to the University of Toronto. I had no time to eat, let alone travel. But then, three years into my engineering education, a dream came true. In 1998 I scored an internship position at Nortel Networks in Calgary. I was finally out west. There is something in Western Canada's air that makes existence so pleasant. Maybe its the dry weather, the laid-back attitude, the dome-like sky, the mountains, the mullets. I can't pinpoint it, but its something that continued to draw me away from the east, and persists even today.

Tony and I met in Calgary while on this internship. Need I say more? Unfortunately for both of us, I had to return to Toronto to finish my Industrial Engineering degree and make something of my life. We toughed out the long distance relationship by flying back and forth between the two cities every 3-4 weeks. It seems that Air Canada had much better prices back in the day, (round trip $300, incl. taxes) making this affordable. Couple this with the fact that I lived no more than ten kilometres from the Toronto airport, things were really convenient for us.

Finally graduated in 2000 with a job at Imperial Oil in Toronto (so you ask: why did you accept a job in Toronto? I still don't have the answer to that one). After accepting my iron ring, Nadine and I took off to Europe for a month: France (Paris, Nimes, Vimy Ridge), Italy (Rome, Cinque Terre, Pisa, Pompeii, Florence, Venice), Switzerland (Interlaken, Grindelwald, Lauterbrunnen), Austria (Salzzzzzzburg), Czech Republic (Prague - wow), Benelux (Brussels, Ghent, Brugges, Amsterdam). It was here that I discovered how international independent travel is the most stressfully-rewarding thing I could ever do. I was hooked.

The memories from this Europe trip are numerous, but perhaps the grandest memory I have is calling Tony from outside a hostel in Paris only to discover that he was leaving his job in Calgary for one in Chetwynd, BC - could you repeat that? Where in BC? Is that near Vancouver? No, its not, its nowhere close to Vancouver (unless you are from Siberia, where a 13 hour drive is considered close). For this reason, I quit my job at Imperial Oil after one year to move up to the northern wilderness (Sept 2001). I must say, this decision was one the best I have ever made. If you ever have a chance to visit northeastern BC, do it. You won't regret it. Go to Chetwynd and climb Baldy. Go to Moberly Lake. Bike to Natural Springs Golf Course. See if you can weasle a Duke Energy Gas Plant tour. Eat at the Swiss Inn. Listen to 94.5 CHET-FM.

Every once in awhile, the isolation and cold of this area gets to ya, and ya need to leave. I've manage to take a few trips out-of-town. In addition to the requisite trips to Grand Prairie, Prince George, Edmonton and Calgary, we've been up north to Watson Lake, in the Yukon Territories (whoa mosquitos), and to Mt Robson Park for a jaunt around to Berg Lake. In November 2001, my friend Ian and I took off to Costa Rica for a rainy adventure to see wildlife, volcanos and more rain. Its a wet country during rainy season. Many highlights that trip, but one in particular was caving in La Fortuna. I recommend that one only to those with excellent medical insurace. April 2002, Tony and I took a trip to our Shangri-La: Thailand. This is by far the country most conducive to independent travel, and would appeal to anyone, beach-goers, adventure travellers, cultural buffs. It's incredible. I also managed to squeeze a last-minute trip to visit friends in London, England. This unique trip had us down in Switzerland for a one-week road trip through the western part of the country. I could go on about the blast us four girls had renting a car (Heidi) and traveling through the Alps, and I probably will, but not here. If you ever go rental car shopping in Europe, make sure you get one with a navigation system in it. We named ours Heidi, and she saved us countless hours of map searching and cat fighting; "At the next roundabout, take the second exit"

That brings me to now. Since I moved to Chetwynd, we had been saving money like crazy with no idea on what to spend it on (if you want some tips on frugality, I've got them). Should we buy a house? Not ready. Should we invest it? Too risky. Should we spend it on a wedding? Nah. Finally the idea popped in my head - Let's travel the world. We searched and searched for a reason NOT to go (besides fear of the uknown). Couldn't find one. And as my Dad said "you'd be stupid not to". So with this website, you will have the opportunity to read about us spending our life savings...Hope you enjoy it as much as we will.

In the next few paragraphs, I'll try to give you a bit of background on myself. I'm not sure there's all that much to tell, but as they say, everyone has a sotry to tell.

I was born in Scarborough, Ontario, Canada, but my family moved to Western Canada a couple of years after I was born. I grew up in several Southern Alberta communities of increasing size. Barons had a population of less than 500, and I lived there until I started grade 4. My family then moved to Picture Butte, which had population of 1700, and we stayed there until I started grade 9. When I started grade 9, my family moved to Lethbridge, with a population of almost 100,000. Although Lethbridge seemed like a very large city at that point in my life, I now know that it is a rather small center. I finished high school in Lethbridge, and also took my first year of university at the local university. The echoing hallway was definitely a highlight of the University of Lethbridge, as were the narrow hallways in the residence (they are about 3 feet wide). After a year, I transferred to the University of Calgary to complete my degree. University was a blur of studying and exercising (the University of Calgary has great facilities for indoor climbing, running, weight lifting, and playing squash, to name a few).

After graduating from U of C with a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering, I found a job working as a project engineer at a small oil and gas consulting firm, located in Calgary. After working there for 2 years, I met Krista, who was on an internship working for Nortel Networks in Calgary. She finished her degree at the University of Toronto, and then took a job with Imperial Oil in Toronto. Before she started her job, I moved to a small town of 3000 in Northeastern British Columbia - Chetwynd! This was definitely the best thing for me, as I was not enjoying city life (traffic, pollution, crime...). The move relaxed me greatly, and this relaxation, combined with small town life, gave me more time to get to know myself better.

Travelling has always been foreign to me, and the move to Chetwynd increased the distance I have ever travelled from Lethbridge substantially. By moving to Chetwynd, and by watching Krista travel through Europe and Costa Rica, I saw the direct benefits of travel - increased knowledge of the world, and an overall increase in understanding of yourself. This is the main motivation for me to go on this trip.

In 2002, Krista and I managed to take a 3 week trip to Thailand, which was a huge eye-opener for me. Up until that time, I had not travelled out of North America (and not very far south into the USA). There were several things that I was not necessarily prepared for - seeing a third world country first hand, being in a buddhist country, and being in a country where I barely know any of the language (my one phrase was - where is the washroom?). I think I made it through alright, with a lot of help from the Thai people, who are some of the happiest and friendliest people that I have ever met. My experiences in Thailand gave me a taste for travelling and definitely made up my mind to travel as much as possible (and to return to Thailand to see the Northern areas!).

In 2003, timing of various things (age, jobs, maturity, money) came together in such a way as to lead to the initial planning of our trip around the world. Thankfully, I was given time off from work for this trip, and this set the trip into full motion! As I am writing this section well into the trip, I know that this trip has already been what I wanted (and more), and I know that I will be a better person for it. I would highly recommend anyone thinking about a visit to another country to do it, even if you are unsure that you can do it - it's surprising what you can do when you put your mind to it!