30 Days Of Indie Travel: Kick Ass Day

This month BootsnAll is hosting a project encouraging bloggers to look back on a year of travel and share stories of travel and fun. Sometimes we forget about the great places we go or the fabulous experiences we have; or perhaps there is some travel that we don’t at first consider to be ‘travel’. This is a great way to re-envision what travel means to us and realize that we all travel more than we think!

‘I think that’s her over there’, I whisper to Jason.

I peer harder, not wanting to embarrass myself by approaching the wrong person but anxious to see if it is her.

I take another slug of my beer and head over.

‘Kim?’

I see her smile as she turns and envelopes me in the biggest hug. And so begins one of the most Kick Ass Days of this past year.

We’re in Portland to attend the first ever World Domination Summit and are lucky that Kim and Brian live there too. Not only does Kim write one of my favorite blogs with a passion and directness that is utterly compelling, but they also have a love of beer that, I think, might outweigh our own!

Excited to visit a city that has such a reverence for beer, I can honestly say that Portland did not disappoint and that Kim and Brian were the best tour guides we could have had. We sampled IPA’s, port-barrel-finished-ales, Pale Ales and some that I honestly can’t remember as they showed us around their beer-soaked city.

The night ended late, filled with laughter and stories, secret fears, a friendship formed and future plans to meet again.

It’s always about the people. That is what drives me to seek slower travel; to be able to meet more people and learn through, and from, them.

We met Dave that weekend too. Dave who, with his outspoken manner, passion for travel, and can-do attitude inspires me to continue on with my dream; showing me, again, how to step through fear and uncertainty to reach for what might be possible.

Thinking about that weekend reminds me of other travelers we met along the way.

Keith and Amy; who I think we have a serious couple-crush on. We finally met in Laos and had the best 5 days ever as we shared our love of scootering with them exploring the karsts of Vang Vieng. Our hearts skipped a beat when they showed up in Victoria toward the end of their world tour and we were able to show them around our part of the world. We are still hoping to visit Philly one day and see their corner too.

Jeremy and Eva; who have to be the coolest cats I’ve ever met. We followed each others stories as we traveled around the world and were thrilled when, they too, came to Victoria as part of their Home Is Where the Hops Are tour. We gave them the best winery, ginery, brewpub tour we possibly could and, now that they are settled in Seattle, we are hoping beyond hope that, one day, we can get there too.

Kick ass days? They are about the people…always.