We’ve seen so many things in the last year: nearly twenty-five countries, the ruins of civilizations, four oceans, new continents and perhaps thousands of new people. We prepared for this trip by saving money, researching the practical financial, health and emotional considerations, but one thing we hardly touched was our itinerary. We hardly knew what to expect and while we had an idea of our initial direction, many of you may remember the answer we gave last year when asked where we would go…everywhere. While our route hasn’t surprised us very much, there has been one thing that we hadn’t relied on, the kindness and incredible hospitality we’ve received. The best experiences of the last year are by far those with other people, generally people we don’t know that well that extend an invitation for a drink, dinner or a place to rest.

Both Danny and I have written a lot about our couchsurfing experiences, and often these are the memories we hold- not the museum, ruins or places we’ve been. It’s true that travel is about people, for had it not been for a swiss couple in Honduras we never would have done La Moskitia. Had it not been for the other four on our salar de uyuni trip I would have thought the whole thing rather boring. Had it not been for the man we met hiking in Argentina and his invitation to stay with his family, the garden route would have been another beautiful coast not a place we’ll always fondly remember. In fact, had we not struck up various small talk conversations on buses, tours and even boats over the last year we would have missed out on getting to know some pretty incredible people who have given us memories that we’ll never forget. They’ve given us a home, a place to rest, a welcome into their lives, often not knowing much about us beyond our names and faces. Without knowing it these people have provided us so much more than a comfortable place to rest our heads, or good conversation. They’ve given us the comfort of being with a family again, the feeling of hanging out with old friends, and the sense of normalcy.

No amount of preparation and planning can prepare a traveler for what its like to be away from home for a year. It might sound weird to those at home, but we miss the everyday routine and normalcy of home. It’s a strange bout of homesickness when you start to miss getting up for work everyday, but trust me after a year it starts to happen.

So if you’re one of those people, and I believe many of you are, who we’ve met along the way, and who stay in touch through our blog: thank you, gracias, merci, danke for everything. For adding a bit of normalcy to our lives, for unknowingly relieving our homesickness and for making us feel welcome. There is no way we can express our appreciation for what you’ve done except to pass it forward and to say we couldn’t have done it without you.