I am a passionate traveler of 32 years old, born and raised in Belgium.
My only addiction is traveling. The problem is, that this is an "expensive" one! Budget-wise, I'd rather be addicted to chocolate, candy or coffee, but believe me, traveling is way better for the health, spirit, and excitement. The good thing is, I know how to live frugally, while saving up for my next adventure. And, I never owned anything or somehow gained responsibilities. Living life this way, I managed to stick to a healthy schedule of: travel a year - work for two - travel another year - work for two - being on the road for 5 years, which is where my routine failed and money is becoming an issue...

I graduated in 1997 as a teacher in the Flemish part of Belgium. To "celebrate" that, I packed my backpack and went on a six-month long trip in South East Asia with friends. Back in Belgium, I found a job teaching for two years. Then, I convinced my principal to let me go for a year, on which I explored Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand and more of South East Asia. I'd promised her to come back to teach in her school, which I did for another two years. Then, I left indefinitely. I joined Karl (whom I'd met in Western Australia) and his dog Caesar in Maryland. Soon, we took off with a travel trailer, and visited the South Eastern part of the US. In Texas, we "traded" our annoying set-up for a truck with a slide-in camper. In this, we crossed the rest of the country, covered the east of Canada, and enjoyed Alaska. Then we followed the coast back down, to get to California, and ultimately Mexico.

But... In Oakland, California, I met "the loves of my life", an American named Mark and his two lovely, smart Australian Shepherd mixes Kali and Darwin. And, for the first time ever, I gave up my trip (and company)! Mark had been thinking of buying a sailboat for a while. Since that sure sounded exciting to me, I let him know how open I was to that idea. A month later, he owned a 25-year old Islander Freeport 36 (feet). We started working on it, sold his furniture online, had a yard sale, and moved into our new home. After 8 months of solid and hard work on the boat (and 5 months of living on her), making a couple of trips in San Francisco Bay, and learning a bit how to sail (me), we set off.

The Pacific Ocean was rough. I suffered from seasickness, the engine broke down, the main sail ripped, and most importantly, the dogs were stressed and being unhappy. Two days later, we reached Monterey, and made a tough decision...

In five weeks time, we sold the boat, bought a used truck and camper, and determined to make our initial trip overland. So here I was... back in a truck camper, on my way to Mexico. Only this time, I had a tad more space and two dogs instead of one. Ironic???

Mark, Darwin, Kali and I ended up spending a year in Mexico and Central America, driving all the way over the Panama Canal and back. Finding places to camp and coping with the heat were very challenging. So was our being together for 24/7. We did see a lot of stuff and did do many things, collecting memories, pictures and adventures, and breaking up along the way.

Lots of stories to tell, or better, write about! A little while ago, we finished our trip and stayed at Karl's place (yes, my ex-boyfriend Karl) in Austin to sell our truck and camper. And ... Mark and I are back together. Irony is the side story!

In April, we left Austin with a small truck, the dogs, and all our belongings, in search of a used catamaran. For two months we lived in a tent, checked out a few sailboats, and visited a couple of places along the way. In Annapolis, Maryland, we found what we were looking for: a 1998 Fountaine Pajot Tobago.

Before the deal was done, I went back to Belgium for a couple of weeks. When I tried to get back to the States, Homeland Security gave me a tremendously hard time, ruining our plans to go sailing. Luckily we did find a solution. I managed to get back OK and Mark, the dogs, and I spent a few months getting our catamaran ready to go.

We named our boat "Irie" (It's all good!) and followed the Intra Coastal Waterway all the way to Florida. Then, after making our last preparations, we crossed over to the Bahamas, where we did some island hopping and exploring for four months. Next in line were the Turks and Caicos Islands, a less visited country. Another month later, we made the jump for the Dominican Republic, where we will sit still until hurricane season is over.

Our next plan: hauling the boat in Puerto Rico to work on the bottom a bit and visit the Caribbean next winter. Maybe we finally find that "magical place" to settle for a while? I am also taking pictures and writing articles, stories and maybe a book.