There is no greater pleasure than traveling. Travel on your own terms is tenfold better.
Last updated: August 16, 2025
Why Do We Travel?
Traveling has always been an essential part of my life. Before I even started traveling, different cultures, languages, and natural wonders had inspired me to peruse hundreds of travel books and magazines. Adventure stories kept me awake all night long. On Sundays, I was glued to the TV exploring the undersea world with Jacques Cousteau.
My obsession with travel directly influenced my future career. I wanted, or more correctly, I needed to travel on my own terms. Desperately trying to escape being stuck in an office, I decided to major in German Culture and Intercultural Communication.
A few years later, I moved to the U.S. My limited English at that time prevented me from finishing my degree in Intercultural Communication. However, I was convinced that I had to have a degree. Math related subjects seemed to suit my basic English well. And thus, learning, adjusting, and figuring everything out along the way, three and a half years later I graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Finance and Business Management.
With this career path that landed me in a couple of banks and a few accounting offices, traveling was put on the back burner. If before traveling on my terms was a big issue, I could forget about it now. Yet my dissatisfaction and a feeling that something was missing never went away. At that time, even my daily reading consisted mostly of business books with occasional travel memoirs. I knew something had to be changed.
Traveling Once Again
Traveling was the answer. Together with Roshan and Dylan, we started taking more trips. Our first travel attempts included only short, weekend trips from Los Angeles. Eventually, we expanded our territory and started traveling abroad.
Road-tripping through California, deciding if street food in Marrakech was appropriate for a toddler, sitting for hours in front of the Capilano Suspension Bridge in Vancouver waiting for a baby to calm down didn’t make our lives easier. But it added excitement that seemed to be lost. Moreover, these little adventures made that “corporate life” look less dreadful.
We don’t aim to visit every country (maybe every U.S., though). We travel on our terms and enjoy exploring the world, different countries, and cultures. Traveling is a very personal thing. Whatever works for us may be out of the question for somebody else. But this is our travel story and this is what quenches our curiosity.
Travel on Our Terms
Traveling hasn’t changed our lives completely. We choose to travel on our terms whenever we can. Our weekdays are still filled with work, school, doctor’s appointments, and now taking care of our little dog, Muffin.
What has changed are our weekends and occasional longer “vacations”. This is the time when we put that “travel on our terms” plan into practice. We plan in advance and use this short time to travel locally and abroad. Exploring our home state California and the nearby places is on our agenda for short weekend excursions. To travel to faraway destinations, we wait for longer weekends (thanks to those federal holidays that fall on Fridays or Mondays) and vacation time.
Is it enough time to travel the world? The truth is, we’d love to spend a few more days exploring a new destination. But you can’t always have everything you want at the time you want.
That being said, we travel kind of fast. (Update: It’s definitely slower now, choosing to spend more time in one place.) Our journeys and travel terms can be exhausting for some. We create our own itineraries based on our interests and time on hands. In the end, what matters is our ability to travel on our terms, which does not always mean having everything laid out and worked out perfectly.
READ MORE: Photos to Inspire You to Travel with Kids
