In case you don’t know me personally my name is Mark Underhill and I’ve been traveling around the world including a good bit of travel within the United States continuously since January of 2014.   At one point I set up a home base in Nicaragua and kept a house there for 18 months while traveling in Central and South American and now in 2018 I have a home base outside of Barcelona which allows me to explore in Europe and closer to Africa as well.

My circumstance of being able to do this is multi-faceted including a good deal of luck in life, a decent stack of ability in career choice and business sense in addition to having the drive and personality to do this.

To answer the first question many people ask at this point when I meet travelers and tell them I have been traveling for nearly four years by now (and maybe longer when you read this), I am able to afford this because I owned a successful software business for seven years and I saved most of my money while I was doing it.   In addition while I am not a backpacker who is tallying every meal and making decisions like whether to walk 2 miles with a backpack to save on a $7 taxi, I travel frugally and stay in budget hotels so that I can spend money on the experiences that I am getting to enjoy.

To answer the next question that everyone asks – My favorite country is “The World”.   People understandably want to know what my favorites are and it’s almost impossible at this point.   I have a few places that I would rate low on the list of places I have been (sadly Greece and Northern Cambodia for me) but for standouts there have been so many amazing things I have seen and done it’s just not possible to be honest and choose!   On the other hand I can certainly make suggestions based on what you are trying to accomplish but it’s a mix of how far you want to go, what type of adventure (city? beach? museums? hiking? surfing? food?) and how much you are OK spending.   This would shape my answer to something that you might like.

People ask how long I plan to travel and the answer is that I simply don’t know.   With social media and things like a phone plan from T-Mobile that allows me to text and stay in contact in 120 countries I don’t really get homesick.   My personal relationships may bring me back the states sometime in the future near or even far but until that who knows – I think I can go on indefinitely – it’s a huge world and I still have really only scratched the surface.

I’m happy to have you stop by and hopefully you will follow me.   I have friends at home who tell me something along the lines of that I am living a type of dream but most of them don’t think that they could do it even if they had the opportunity and I tell people the same thing when I hear this comment – that their world of stability, immediate friends and family near by and all of the niceties of staying in one place provide so many things that this crazy adventure of mine doesn’t so I completely understand and in this I offer them a window into other places and other perspectives which is what I offer you as well.  I hope you enjoy.

Mark