Who are we and why should you listen to us?
Our number #1 goal is to open your mind to the possibilities that exist in your life. We want to teach you the practical steps – actions, attitudes, and relationships – that will get you where you want to go.
You don’t have to travel the world to have a fulfilling and adventurous life. But you do need to know what you really want to do and give some time and attention every day to making it happen. That’s where we come in.
Now let us tell you why
We are a recovering, 40-something, Type-A couple who learned that living large is not necessarily living well. We did all the typical things people do in their 20s and 30s: climb the corporate ladder, get married, buy a house, get divorced, climb the ladder some more, get married again, accumulate more crap, and keep repeating the process like hamsters on a wheel.
(Sound familiar?)
We were in love with each other but not with our lives
After a serious wakeup call, we decided to focus on what matters and get rid of everything else.
Betsy’s brother suffered a surprise heart attack at 35, and just one year later our good friend Maria had a brain aneurysm at 34. These events both shook us to the core, illustrating how little control we had over our well-planned future.
We then asked ourselves the question that changed our lives:
If we knew we wouldn’t make it to our 40th birthdays, what would we do differently right now?
At the time we were both well into year 37, and the thought of not making to 40 forced us to focus on what we really wanted in life: world travel. We joked about our ‘crazy’ dream for just a moment before we came to the realization that nothing was stopping us from world travel except ourselves.
How we made it happen
We asked that question on September 1, 2008, and we spent the next 25 months making our dream a reality. We sold everything we owned, saved a mountain of cash, and started this website. We left on our journey on October 1, 2010, celebrating our 40th birthdays within a few months of our departure.
We are still enjoying living the life we didn’t think we could have until retirement. (Click here to see an interactive map of our travels.)
Our big dream was a trip around the world, but we found through personal experience that living the life you crave does not need to require a passport.
We have made it our mission to share the practical steps we take to living our dream life every day so other people can translate those lessons to their own goals and dreams.
What is it you’ve always wanted to do
and why aren’t you doing it?
This is our favorite question because it gets to the heart of the matter fast.
- We wrote our first book, Dream Save Do, to show you how to flesh out you dreams and the financial and social tools needed to make them happen.
- Then we followed up with Getting Rid of It: Eliminate the Clutter from Your Life, to free you from the junk that doesn’t serve you anymore.
- To help you say what you want – and get it – we wrote, Strip Off Your Fear: Slip Into Something More Confident.
- And we follow these books up with collections of essays on hot topics like bolder living.
How to Get the Most Out of Married with Luggage:
- Website: You can get a new article on personal growth every week. These come in the form of how-to guides, interviews with inspiring people, or life lessons from our travels. This is what we’d call “evergreen” content that is helpful anytime. You can pop by the website and read it or sign up to have it delivered via email or RSS feed.
- Weekly email: Every Sunday morning we arrive in your inbox with a more casual letter from us, an original article inspired by what happened the previous week, updates on reader success stories, and fun extras like Warren’s recent 5-part garage decluttering video series (yes, he really cleaned out someone else’s garage just to make videos for you!). It’s a more personal connection and completely different from the blog, if you’re into that sort of thing (and we are!). Click here to get it delivered via email. Click here to read the last edition to see if it’s right for you.
- Podcast: Every Tuesday we share a new edition of An Action Plan for Dreamers, a 20-minute podcast where we provide practical and actionable advice about what it takes to create the life you crave. It’s short enough to listen on your commute or coffee break, but long enough to contain 3-5 practical steps you can take to make your dream life a little bit closer. Here is a link to our past episodes.
- Facebook: Need a fun or inspiring start to your day? These short bites of inspiration or instruction are exactly that and include funny and beautiful photos from our travels. Click here to Like us on Facebook.
- Google+: If you’re following us here, you’ll get first notice on our live Google + Hangouts, which are video chats where you can ask questions via chat after a 20-minute lesson on some aspect of personal growth or dream achievement. This is our newest feature and one we think is going to be a big hit. Circle us on Google+ here.
- YouTube: We like making videos for you, and these 5-minute chats add to the topics of personal growth on the website. Subscribe to our YouTube channel and you’ll get videos as soon as they are uploaded along with the replay videos from our Google + Hangouts chats as soon as they become available.
- Budgeting: Is your dream long-term travel like ours? Find out how much we spend every month as well as tips for traveling on a budget at our RTW Expenses website.
The message of personal empowerment and living your dream is important, and we want easy access to the this information.
If you want to know more about a specific subject, we have books to help with that. You can find all of our books here, and you can buy them in paperback or ebook.
- Dream Save Do: An Action Plan for Dreamers
- Getting Rid of It: Eliminate the Clutter in Your Life
- Strip Off Your Fear: Slip Into Something More Confident
We believe life is a constant series of small decisions that most of us leave up to someone else to decide. By taking charge of those decisions yourself – even the smallest ones – you can change your life from mundane to magnificent.
We’ve helped thousands of other people define their dreams, take steps toward making them happen, and realize a greater satisfaction in their lives than they thought was possible. It is possible for you, too.
(Find out more about us individually here.)
