About us
Our family is what it means to “Travel Uncomfortably.” I’m a 40 year old husband and father with anxiety and irrational fears. My wife is an immigrant from Vietnam still getting used to life in the United States. We did produce a carefree travel child who has traveled more in four years than many adults. Our love story was challenging and often uncomfortable. Long distance relationship, overseas engagement and marriage, wedding planning from separate continents, forced hard good-byes, immigration paperwork and that whole covid snag that shut the world down. With some help from a US Ambassador and some luck, we were able to navigate some of these challenges. We live “Travel Uncomfortably”, it’s how we met, how we came into existence, it’s where we thrive. We’re so used to “Travel Uncomfortably” that we are comfortably uncomfortable. We hope you’ll enjoy our travel journeys past and present as much we enjoy sharing the journey with you.
About Travel Uncomfortably
What does it mean to be “Travel Uncomfortably”? Is it wearing skinny jeans on a 14 hour flight when you should have gone with comfy pants instead? Is it a motivational phrase to inspire your feartful friend to go to Mexico City, when you should probably just help him live out his wildside by getting him to finally try the chalupa supreme? Is it a catchy slogan to slap on a t-shirt? Maybe it’s all of the above.
The word travel invokes joy, excitement, dreams, reality, stress, anxiety, fear. Visions of sitting poolside with a Mai Tai for the resort types, pre-emptive security line rage for others. Anxiety for Anxiety Anna, rigid planning for the stringent checklist types. Sweaty Palms for those who can’t bear a widow seat, twenty-dollar airport IPAs for the beer snobs, sixteen-dollar bud lights for the “whatever gets the job done” types, and eager anticipation of adventurous foods for the foodies.
We all handle travel differently. There are roles for every traveling type in this movie. What is normal everyday life for some is an exotic adventure for others. My wife Duc has been riding a motorbike since she was in the womb. She once told me she did handstands on the back of a motorbike when she was a kid. Until this day I’m still not sure if she’s serious. Next time I see my mother-in-law, I’ll use Google Translate to ask her. I on the other hand? Duc’s friends once compared me on a motorbike to a koala clinging to its mother. Hard to argue with the visual, although I would describe my state of mind as serene. If you’ve never driven on the back of a motorbike in Vietnam, travel uncomfortably.
Even the word travel means different things to different people. For me, it’s a fifteen hour flight to South Korea, a minor layover, followed by a short five hour flight to Ho Chi Minh City. I can do that trip standing on my head. For others commuting to work is travel, and let’s face it, going anywhere on the 15 in rush hour is the equivalent to a fifteen hour flight on China Eastern.
We have this idea that you have to journey to the highest peak, or cross some physical land and maritime boundary to be considered travelers. Maybe that is true. Or maybe crossing our own personal boundaries makes us travelers. Doing something uncomfortable, trying a new food, overcoming some fear, listening to a new idea, maybe that’s traveling. If we are going with cringey cliche sayings, maybe whoever came up with, “life is a journey” was onto something. We can choose to stand still, or we can choose to travel. We travel in every aspect of our lives. We can choose to travel uncomfortably, because travel shouldn’t be comfortable. We should push our boundaries. You don’t have to jump out of an airplane, just get on a plane. If that’s too crazy for you, maybe that ramen joint will take you to new places. If food is too adventurous for you, maybe do something completely radical and learn about other cultures.
It’s okay to be uncomfortable. Everything I love the most in life is a direct result of uncomfortable decisions. If I never overcame anxiety and that anxiety ridden first flight to Vietnam. If I didn’t move across the country four times. I’ve been so uncomfortable in my life that I’m comfortably uncomfortable. Push your limits, recognize it’s okay to be scared, recognize it doesn’t have to prevent you from doing something. Travel Uncomfortably.