I am Chris Davidson, a 27 year old Brit, now travelling the world with my wife and daughter.
Waiting for the Wawel Dragon to do it's thing.
I've always liked the idea of maintaining an online presence and blogging, but I've just never had the willpower or consistency to see it through before, I'm planning on making this time different.
So, to actually introducing myself a little more... I am currently a Freelance Linux SysAdmin / DevOps Engineer (you can read more about my technical experience at my personal site, if you're interested). A father to a beautiful 5-year old Daughter, and a Husband to my wonderful Wife.
I am currently sat in an Airbnb in Krakow (yes, it's cold) after we sold 90% of our possessions, put our house up for sale, and left England, in January. We've been to Budapest, Vienna, Bratislava & Prague since then and we have 2 more weeks left in Krakow, before heading to Athens, Sofia, back to England for a couple of weeks, Portugal and then America. It's been quite a roller coaster ride.
When I reflect on the fact that we've even got to this point I am so happy that we actually did what we wanted to do and followed our dreams, so many people just talk about it but we actually did it, we actually executed and made such a huge change. I'm sure I'll write more about our travels, both the good and the bad.
Leaving Budapest...
So how did we get to the point where we could do this?
Well, aged 16, and with no idea what I wanted to do with my life, a really great local IT company in my native England approached my former school looking for leaving students who were interested in joining their company as a trainee, I was put forward by my former teacher, and after impressing at the interview (I'll write a separate post about this soon, as there was a real light-bulb moment in that interview for me) I was offered the job.
Over the course of the next 9 years I worked myself up within the company, to leading a team of 15 people, and was even gifted a small share of the company, as a token of appreciation of the hard work put in over the years by the owners. Eventually the company was bought out by a larger company, as time progressed I realised I was not passionate about this new role.
I knew that it was time for a change.
Given that this had been my only real job (save the 3 months I spent flipping burgers at McDonalds) I was very anxious about finding a new role and moving out of my comfort zone, but I found a really great role working remotely for an Australian based company which meant that I was able to work from home, I knew this was the perfect stepping stone to seeing more of the world and scratching the travel itch that I had.
I left that job after just 9 months, again, due to an acquisition, but with the new found self-confidence I wasn't concerned, and began applying for other remote roles.
Whilst applying for other roles I was keeping myself busy with freelance work. After a couple of months of looking and not really finding a suitable role, I had been making enough money with my freelance gigs that I knew I could keep doing this full time. This was when we realised that the chance to travel full-time had become a reality.
So we did it, we sold everything, packed up and just did it. We're still adjusting to this life on the road (especially with a 5 year old!) but I'm hoping to be able to share some of our experiences here. As well as posts about our travels, I expect I'll be posting about "life", running a freelance business or my aspirations towards making passive income.
I think that's about all I should mention in an introductory post but if anyone has any questions feel free to leave a comment, happy Sunday!