One year ago today, I got on a plane and headed to New Zealand for two weeks. I had a ticket, my backpack, some cash, and not much else. I hadn’t even cracked a book about New Zealand; I had no plans; I had no reservations. It was perfect. I knew I wanted to snowboard and catch the tail end of their winter.

This was the second time that I’d hopped on a plane, headed for another country, and had NO idea what my plan was. Both times, I’ve had a brief moment of panic as I stepped off the plane. “What have I done?” “What am I going to do?” “How can this possibly be fun if I have no plans?!?!” But both times, everything has worked out fine. Having no plan is… freeing. Every day I woke up and thought to myself, “I don’t HAVE to do anything today. But, I’m in New Zealand… I have to do something today.” It freed my mind from thinking about the things I needed to do, the things I had to do, and let me start thinking about the things I wanted to do.

On top of that, I had just come back from Burning Man and from a trip to Zion. Both trips - back to back - gave me time to think a lot, meet new people, reflect, and relax. Plus, I met an amazing, beautiful, interesting, adventurous man at Burning Man and he invited me to Zion. Having the trip to New Zealand on top of that allowed me to continue my reinvigorated sense of adventure, let me think a lot about myself and what I wanted, and gave me something to look forward to after I got back. That guy I met - Tom - and I have been dating ever since.

Looking back through those photos brings back some of my feelings from last year - adventure, excitement, freedom. I’ve also just made another huge change in my life - which I’ll write more about later. I posted pictures from the New Zealand trip up on Flickr..