Our journey, year by year

The year it began — a trial six weeks in Panama, selling the house in Utah, and pointing the family toward Costa Rica, all while the online business found its footing.

Our first full year based in Grecia, Costa Rica — settling in, a two-month swing through South America (Cartagena, Machu Picchu, the Galápagos), and the news that another baby was on the way.

Our youngest was born in Costa Rica, we moved from Grecia to Escazú, weathered a robbery, and at year's end left Costa Rica for a new base in Penang, Malaysia — by way of Hawaii.

Southeast Asia in full — Malaysia, Singapore, Japan, Vietnam, and Thailand — and settling into Ubud, the corner of Bali that would become a second home. Brandon also published “Why I Left the Mormon Church.”

More of Asia — the Gili Islands, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Cambodia — and a first long taste of Europe in Italy, alongside a run of honest, inward writing on emotion, belief, and healing.

Sri Lanka and Australia early on, then a long northern arc — a US West Coast road trip, Victoria, Ireland, England, and Barcelona — all while the house we were building in Bali took shape, and we kept writing about faith and life after the church.

Settling into the home we'd built in Bali, between wide travels — Dubai, Spain, our first time in France, the Pacific Northwest, and San Miguel de Allende — plus a solo silent retreat and a first journey with ayahuasca.

A season based in Nelson, New Zealand, with Fiji, more of Bali, and San Miguel — and the year we wrote much of our practical how-to on funding and sustaining a life of family travel.

A quieter year around San Miguel de Allende and the launch of the Family Adventure Summit, our gathering for traveling families, held in Penticton, Canada — with five weeks in Europe along the way.

Europe by road — Portugal, the Camino de Santiago with the kids, Ljubljana, and Transylvania, where we ran a family retreat. The year also brought the second Family Adventure Summit, another robbery (this time in Budapest), and a look back at years of worldschooling.

The last full stretch on the road — Kerala, India and Luang Prabang, Laos — as Emily released her Bali documentary and we began writing more about business and what comes after travel.

A single update, written after settling into one place at last — the new life phase that closed out eleven years of nomadic living.