I hope this blog has been in the least entertaining, but my goal was to paint a visual picture of my travels and experiences to share with everyone who is as passionate about exploring what this world has to offer as I am.  I’ve always enjoyed writing and hope that excitement has translated into my work.

As expected, my trek to, from and through Europe has changed my life in ways completely unimaginable.  I’d like to keep traveling to far off destinations and fill you all in, but the information and stories I have provided thus far will have to suffice for the time being.  I’ve been gathering a lot of information and advice from those around me since my return and need time to process which direction I want to head with all of this new and exciting knowledge.  As always, I encourage anyone to leave comments (if you really want to get a hold of me email is the best option, steveo@hobodrifter.com) and post anything they feel pertinent to the topics covered in the website, or even anything that is random that they would love to share.

Thank you all again for your ongoing support!  With that said I leave you all with this:

You don’t have to be a “person of influence” to be influential. In fact, the most influential people in my life are probably not even aware of the things they’ve taught me.
Scott Adams

Prior to departing for Europe I had this idea in my head that all the questions I had in life would somehow be magically answered once I returned from my travels.  I wanted to discover who I was, what was it in my life that was missing? This was my chance to leave everything behind, then come back and pick up that which I loved and simply discard that which caused one too many headaches. Well let me tell you, it didn’t quite work out that way (does it ever really?).

It’s been roughly two months since landing back on American soil, and I couldn’t been more confused about who I was when I first landed.  Only now am I starting to find out more about myself.  The interesting thing is that it’s not the positive “self focused” qualities you would expect to uncover after a long journey on your own.   Such as, now I can travel and take on any task alone, now I’m more self-reliant, now I can do this and do that on my own.  My whole focus for those three months I was gone was how much I could accomplish by myself.   Looking back on it, that’s how the majority of my last 26 years on this planet have been.   If my foreshadowing hasn’t been obvious enough, the most important lesson I learned after thousands of dollars spent and 3 months of being away from home is that I AM SELF CENTERED.

Weird huh? After 13 countries, 2 continents, over 25 cities, a good size credit card balance and roughly 3 months I’ve come to this conclusion? If I had to be honest, that was the best time and money I have ever spent. It wasn’t obvious at the time, but life doesn’t care if you want to take a break and try to figure your life out, it’s an unstoppable force and by no means am I an immovable object.  I like that I can feel confident about myself and my abilities after going through such a incredible experience as a Europe backpacking trip, but there’s more to it…

My original intentions were to see the world, different cultures, unique architecture and expand my understanding of the world… which I feel as if I accomplished on some level. But those intentions quickly became muddled with an excuse to escape the challenges that were already present in my life.  So I wasn’t thrilled with my job, I was feeling stagnant in my living situation and the thought of settling down in one place for an extended period of time just freaked me out.  So I did what any self centered person would do, packed up and left, leaving not only my troubles, but loved ones behind.  I don’t regret going on my amazing trip, I just wish my intentions had remained pure, and the way I handled various situations before leaving would have been different.  Now I am living with the consequences that you never imagine would be so hard to live with.  I’m trying to regain focus, working on not talking so much and doing more.  Friendships and relationships change and it’s never too late to ask for forgiveness and make things right, so I’m swallowing a shit load of self-righteous pride and facing those challenges.  The bond you form with every person in your life is unique and I am finally realizing that it’s not everyone else’s fault when something goes wrong…  I’m just as big of an idiot as the next guy.  If you know me personally, then you know the relationship between my mom and I has never been Brady Bunch-esk, and if you didn’t then you do now.  That mother-son bond is one that is like no other and I have been holding on to teenage angst for way way too long.  It was all about me for such a long time that it’s easy to take for granted the unconditional love a family member supplies.  It’s been a long time coming, but I’m slowly learning to communicate, more importantly LISTEN, to what my mom and others I care about have to say.   I’m merely 1 of the 6.5 billion people on this planet, so if my trip wasn’t humbling enough that stat kind of puts things into perspective.

After all my rambling and personal stories, I guess all I wanted to say is that it’s not all about ME and it never will be.  No matter how much you plan for something, it’s your reaction and ability to adapt to the unexpected that creates all those small moments you will never forget.   Look back, were all of those moments by yourself, or with people that you encountered along the way? It’s great to be self-reliant and confident, but never forget about the people that genuinely love you and how they would do anything to make you happy.

By no means are my travels over… I have a trip planned domestically to San Diego in June (which is sure to produce some pretty entertaining photos) and am waiting to use the second half of my free Southwest plane ticket (the one I used to get to New York in January) before it expires in July.  The fact that I have only a one way ticket at my disposal creates and interesting possibility and gives me the chance to try something I’ve always wanted to do.  Here’s the plan:  I approach the ticket counter at Denver International Airport with a certain swagger in my step, an air of confidence that will certainly win over the lucky attendant that gets to aid me in my adventure.

“Why hello young lady/sir, how is your day going?” says me to show I have a certain 1950′s class.

“Why just great sir, I love dealing with obnoxious and overbearing people all day that don’t appreciate the work I do” says the ticket counter attendant with a large teeth filled smile that stretches from ear to ear.

“Fantastic, glad to hear it, so could you be a kind soul and provide me with an extremely cheap ticket to any destination that your airline flies to in which you are looking to fill up the plane?” says me with a weak attempt at a wink immediately following (unless of course it’s a guy, I don’t want to give the wrong impression, oh what the hell if it’ll land me a cheap ticket.  Oh yeah, and I am a horrible winker so I’ll try my best).

“Of course you kind young gentleman, I would love to help out a strapping young buck like yourself” said with a returning wink, one that is much better than mine.

“Oh you, you’re making me blush… so where am I going and for how much?”

And that is where the story gets interesting, because you just don’t know where you might end up!  It’s what I like to call “aviation roulette”.  If you’ve made it this far, you must share my concept of time; it’s better when it feels as if it’s non-existent.   Now that we’ve established time is not an issue and are willing to spend the day in an airport trying to find a flight to any random location that costs you under $50 (it’s possible), let’s talk about that symbol in front of the 50.  Dollars are much like time to me, their importance is overvalued and often too much of that time thing is used trying to accumulate a large sum of them.  You can call me an idealist, say that I live in a fantasy world, but it seems simple to me; the less time I spend trying to make money, the more time I can spend traveling, training for triathlons, watching movies, enjoying beverages with friends,  or whatever else it is that I enjoy doing.  This brings into light my current project to fund my next adventure.   The details are uncertain at this point in time, I’m just striving to accomplish this so-called unrealistic goal within the next six months so I can quit washing cars for $4.26 and hour and get back out on the road listening to Ace of Base and providing you all with more pictures,videos and exciting experiences.  I’m here for the long haul, so bear with me and I promise some good times in the future.

(Oh yeah, check out the deconstruction of my beard on the photos page if you haven’t had the wonderful opportunity to do so already on facebook, it should give you a good chuckle)