New feature! Suggested listening for this post: Counting Stars, by Onerepublic I don’t really need a huge or massive reason to plan a trip. Earlier this year, I flew around the world to celebrate my 30th birthday as well as a blogger I follow’s successful completion of a goal to visit every country in the world by his 35th birthday. Later, I went to New Zealand mostly on a whim simply because I found First Class availability on Qantas from Sydney-Los Angeles and built a trip around it. There was one common theme on these trips, though: I went alone. I’m used to traveling alone, although I don’t like it. I can play the part of an outgoing guy, but deep down inside I’m pretty shy so it’s hard for me to meet people. I like to say that my trips are really just me “scouting the world” for places to take my wife someday, but truth be told I get tired of traveling alone. There’s a certain rhythm that people fall into when they’re alone, and that extends to when they travel alone. A certain inertia, if you will. Breaking that inertia is tough. More on that later. Where to go? For those of you who don’t know me, I do CrossFit. For those of you who don’t know CrossFit, it’s a high-intensity, constantly-varied exercise program that mixes in all modalities of fitness: running, lifting, gymnastics, (for me) being tired, taking water breaks, panting, and so forth. There are... read more