Cocktails and a One-Way Ticket

October 2013. Chris and I were out for drinks in San Francisco when he said, “I think we should take a sabbatical.” It wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t a plan. It was just one of those offhand comments that landed heavier than it should have. A few cocktails later, we’d committed to taking six months off and starting the trip in 2015—plenty of time to wrap up work, organize our lives, and ease into the idea.

That lasted about a week.

One night we found a great deal on a one-way ticket to Rome. And because waiting has never been our strong suit, we bought it. Just like that, we left just 4 months after those cocktails. No grand reason. No perfect timing. It felt right, so we went.

What was supposed to be a six-month sabbatical turned into something else entirely.

The Traveling Years

We worked while we traveled, which let us move at our own pace. No itineraries. No pressure to “see everything.” If we liked a place, we stayed. If it didn’t click, we left. Simple as that.

We weren’t backpackers or luxury travelers—just people who liked a good restaurant as much as a good dive bar, walked everywhere, and figured cities out one neighborhood at a time. Over those years we visited more than 250 destinations.

What started as documenting the trip turned into a body of work. We created visual stories about the places we lived in—nothing staged, nothing overthought. Eventually that led to collaborations with brands like Four Seasons, Waldorf Astoria, Delta, and BMW, and features in Travel + Leisure, Condé Nast Traveler, BBC Travel, and CNN.

What No Destinations Means Now

In 2018 we settled in Amsterdam and started our family. Life looks different now—shorter trips, more logistics, two boys in the mix—but we still travel. Just with a different style and a different pace.

We'd love to hear from you. Contact us