There is no turning back now. Not that I would want to, necessarily, but as I write this on an iPhone from 33,000 feet somewhere over Idaho it’s a little late for cold feet.

I first hatched the idea of this trip about a year ago as a joke after a particularly stressful day at work. My friends in Cape Town had just told me they planned to open a bar. After some particularly annoying moment I turned to a colleague and said “well if this journalism thing doesn’t work out I might just run away and be a bartender in South Africa.” The idea of African beer, sunshine and the beach sounded quite appealing.

The joke turned out to be quite a piece of foreshadowing. Over the next few months the idea continued to float around in the back of my head. A conversation with my American-turned-South African friend Oliver convinced me that heading to Cape Town was in fact a good idea.

Later when I realized things were getting serious with my girlfriend Ali I put an important asterisk on our relationship. I told her there was a good chance I might run away to Cape Town for a bit at some point. She wasn’t thrilled with the idea but has been 100 percent supportive. The compromise we reached was me buying a return ticket instead of my planned one-way.

Countless times over since I made my trip official the same question has come up: “why are you going to South Africa?” It seems like given the magnitude of this decision I should have has an articulate answer at the ready. I never did.

I probably gave 20 different answers to that question. Sometimes the answer focused on my professional goals to write and expand my longform journalism skills. Sometimes I gave the granola “I want to find myself” answer. Sometimes I gave the “I want to surf and learn to scuba answer” (although I don’t think anyone close to me ever really bought that as the primary motivation. It’s more of an added bonus, really).

I am lucky enough to have the time and resources to make this trip happen, so I decided that no matter the goal I needed to just go.

I loved the intensity of running a news website at KATU but at this point in my journalistic career I crave something with more depth. I plan to write as much as possible in South Africa and attempt to sell some articles. Truthfully I have no idea if this will work, but I’m gonna give it a shot. I’ll be blogging regularly here and saving some of the longer stuff to hopefully sell.

The stunning cultural and natural beauty of Southern Africa should provide adequate inspiration. Google a photo of Cape Town if you don’t believe me on the physical beauty part. I plan to write some travel pieces to start and then branch out into some wider topics about life in modern Africa. I also desperately want to write about elephants. Since my first encounter with elephants on a previous Botswana trip I have been enchanted by these awe-inspiring creatures.

I also decided to take this trip because I just needed a break. I was burned out working at KATU and started each day dreading the drama that would inevitably pop up. This trip is my reset button.

Thank you to all my friends who have been so supportive. Tauber deserves a special mention for his late-night stop hours before I took off to deliver a Blazers shirt for “Wear in the World.” And of course the biggest thanks
goes to Ali for agreeing to let me go on this adventure while she watches over all my stuff piled up in her basement. I can’t wait for her to come visit Cape Town in nine short weeks.

My next post will be from my new home in Hout Bay, Cape Town. See you then.