Introduction to Marking Our Map
Hello there! Thank you for stumbling upon us somewhere out there while scrolling through the depths of Instagram – or wherever you found us.
Our names are Mark and James, and we are the couple behind Marking Our Map. If you’re here, you’re probably interested in finding out a little more about who we are and what our purpose is. Or maybe you want to find out how we manage to travel the world year-round with full-time jobs.
Either way, welcome. We are excited to have you here, and we are excited to share a little bit about ourselves – and hopefully our experiences – that can be yours too.
We are an ordinary couple who worked our whole lives, grinding to get to where we are now, and making a difference through our passions for our work. But somewhere along the way, we caught the travel bug and realized just how little we are and just how big the world is..
We have unfortunately experienced loss and suffering all around us. But in that loss, we became motivated to embrace the beauty that the world has to offer before it’s too late. People often wait until they are retired, or when life is a little “less busy”, to take that trip they’ve always dreamed of. But why not now?
We’ve been on a journey to make the most of every moment living in the present, all while keeping our full-time professional jobs. We are on a mission to see the world before it all slips away. Well, hopefully it never slips away, but we can’t guarantee our lease on life or good health!
You see, people always say “You only live once.” But you also only have good knees, a strong back, clear lungs, and a clear mind for who-knows-how-long. We refuse to wait for life to happen to us. We are making life happen for us right now. And we learned how to see the world while living our normal lives too.
You may be just like us, or perhaps somewhat similar in life or in ideas. Just working through life and trying to experience it in every way possible by seeing all that the world has to offer. And figuring out just how to do that best.
We are happy to share our stories, our travels, and our experiences so that hopefully you can be inspired and learn how to leverage your job and your life to live how you want.
Maybe all you need are our experiences to destinations across the world, and that’s okay too! We hope that our curated experiences could be of use to you as you plan your own adventures.
Mark – Creator Behind the Travel Instagram, The One Who Started It All
Hi, I’m Mark. I am a full-time, licensed Electrical Engineer and part-time photographer, videographer, traveler, and coffee drinker. I was born in the Philippines and moved to the United States on Christmas Day.
I was born with several moles throughout my body, one of them being on the sole of my foot. My mom once told me this mole meant that I would end up traveling the world. And that’s what I aim to do.
When I went on my first international trip to Japan before starting my career as an engineer, I knew I would have to see it again one day. And when I met James, someone also so passionate about seeking adventure, I knew that traveling the entire world could be our reality.
I became inspired to start Marking Our Map after we traveled to Costa Rica and Switzerland. I thought.. we are going to see all the world, and Mark Our Map as we go along. Slowly but surely, we’ve pinned at least a dozen US states and over half a dozen countries and counting.
James – Career and Travel Blogger, Appointed Cameraman, and Adventure-Seeker
Hi, I am James. I’m a Nurse Practitioner, born and raised in Los Angeles, and currently residing in sunny Orange County. I love helping patients get to their optimal health. But I also love traveling and seeking adventurous experiences around the world. The journey to get here was not easy and by no means was it a straight path.
Through years of feeling generational guilt because of the sacrifices my parents made for me, and then trying to find a career that I felt that I fit into, I spent basically my entire academic and working life just to get to where I want to be and be happy.
But at what cost? At the cost of life passing me by? Through three decades of life, I kept chasing a moving goal post and seeking happiness.
As a kid, I had the amazing opportunity to go on road trips thanks to my parents. But then I got immersed in school and career. Then years later, it’s as if I blinked and I’m here. A few wrinkles and some aches and pains.
Along my journey, I met my amazing partner, Mark, and our group of friends. One summer, we all decided to rent a big, crusty van in Costa Rica and trek our way through what would be the start of a lifelong desire to see the world.
Having met Mark, I found someone who grounded me in my constant ambitious struggle to make it in my career and make “enough”. Sure, I wanted to see the world, but I needed to be financially okay and find purpose in my career, right?
Wrong.
As I saw more of the world, and as I see patients every day who can no longer climb Machu Picchu or let alone ride a bike, I became motivated to see the world now before it’s too late.
With Mark’s inspirational mindset to adventure and seek freedom to travel, I found that this part of me was unlocked. It wasn’t just a dream, but it could be our reality.
So here I am. Here we are. Making meaningful differences in our everyday lives, while seeing what the world has to offer. It’s not always easy, but if you truly want it, you can see the corners of the Earth.
Our Purpose
Helping You Live the Life You’ve Been Saving For – NOW
We realized how important and how short life is. There is a whole world out there to see and people to experience it with.
We are not waiting for next year. We are not waiting for the next big milestone. And we sure as hell aren’t waiting for retirement to start living life now. To start seeing the world.
And neither should you.
Our goal is to be able to inspire you, teach you strategies, and have you shift you perspective to realizing the opportunities that are right in front of you.
The trip to Switzerland doesn’t need to wait until you retire. It can happen now – with intentional living, saving, and the right mindset.
If you stick around for our posts on Instagram and on here, hopefully we can help you learn a thing or two about how you’re underestimating your ability to live life now.
We are excited to offer digital tools and knowledge on our website so that we can help guide you there. In the meantime, take a look at all our free content that helps do that already.
Breaking the Traditional Mindset of Career and Life to Achieve Freedom of Time and Money
You’ve been told all your life that you’re supposed to go to school, get into a good college, graduate, get a good job, and work. Work hard and excel. Work and save for retirement. Work until you retire.
They told you to buy a house. Get married. Start a family.
“Why throw your money away with rent when you can buy a house?”
Does that all sound familiar?
It’s what we’ve been told over and over since we were born.
Sure, that mindset used to work. When homes were worth a fraction of the price now. When once salary was actually enough to buy a home and support a whole family.
It made sense, sure. But at a different time.
That time is no longer now. Unfortunately, we live in a different world with different opportunities.
The unfortunate thing is that a majority of Americans are still recommending this same traditional thinking of work and life that no longer applies to us.
We are not able to afford the life they used to be able to afford decades ago. And if you’re one of those not quick enough to realize that the traditional way of thinking no longer applies, you’ll be wasting years of your life heading in the wrong direction.
But it’s not all bad. We are also a generation that realizes we don’t need to sell our soul to a company for 30 – 40 years to live a good life. We can create a good life in a different way than how they made us think we have to.
I can go on and on about this. And I will! In all of our posts and life/career guides.
We are a generation that realizes we can do it differently. We can make life our own. We can see the world. And we will. Stick around and see how we can help you shift your mindset from the traditional way of thinking and discover a huge shift if perspective to allow yourself to experience freedom.
Sharing Our Strategies for Leveraging Your Job to Travel the World
If you haven’t figured it out by now, we are still working full time in our careers and we are still seeking out adventures to see the world. We can do both.
If we can do it, you can too. We can build the life we want.
We want to share our stories and how we can fit world travel into our normal lives. Through optimizing PTO (paid time off), job hopping, taking breaks between jobs, and making life work for you.
It’s not easy to balance life obligations, career, finances, and try to see the world all at once. With some tips and inspiration, hopefully we can share even one tidbit that will help you achieve a life of adventure – whatever that may mean for you.
Sharing Travel Tips and Information to Create the Best Experiences
What do you get when you put an engineer and a nurse practitioner together? Pretty awesome travel plans and itineraries.
What both of us bring is a desire to venture into the world and create some awesome play-by-plays for the best experiences out there.
We are lucky and fortunate to be able to travel the world in the way we do, something that our parents and generations before us weren’t able to do.
But we aren’t made of money. Trust me, we wish. Maybe we’ll win the Lotto one day.. So what we aim for are mid-Budget travel experiences. We’re not really into the cheap hostel stays, but we also avoid the bougie five star hotels and massages.
We figured if we save intentionally, avoid over-spending in everyday life, then we can afford to see the world.
From Mexico to Canada, Asia to Europe, and back. We have a library of shared experiences and so many more to come. All in the form of FREE guides, itineraries, and reviews in these blog posts.
Providing Transparent Trip Costs for Adventurers with a Mid-Budget
If we could all travel the world with an unlimited amount of money, we would never be home, right? Unfortunately, we are stuck to budgets and saving enough to make that big trip we always dreamed of.
But you would be surprised how much you can do with a budget! Our travels are typically for the mid-budget traveler. We’ve stayed in hostels, yes, but did you know you can have your own room in a hostel? This could be budget, and still give you the privacy you want.
You’ve always wanted to paraglide, but did you know if you just paraglide one city over from the main area, it could be significantly cheaper? Off-peak-season traveling is a huge hack we like to take advantage of! And that doesn’t mean you have to get rainy, wet experiences.
Our posts on here and on Instagram give transparent pricing of what we paid or what specific merchants have to offer. If you’re looking for answers to how much things costs, stay tuned for our upcoming breakdowns on the blog. And if you get one of our customized itineraries, prices will always be included.
Sharing Travel Inspiration
Marking Our Map is filled with pictures, videos, and stories to show you the beauty that we’ve had the privilege of experiencing. We love sharing this with you, and we always strive to dive deeper into our photography and videography to bring beautiful content for you to indulge on.
With each trip, we hope to create curated experiences for those of you who aren’t the best at planning and want something done for you. Or maybe you’re great at planning and just want ideas.
Whether you need that dopamine hit on Instagram, you’re looking for your next adventure, or you need details on the secret restaurants, we got you.
Explore our Instagram and blog for full details and information on all our previous trips. Most of our pictures and videos are original and taken straight from our adventures.
If you’re feeling the travel bug and need to figure out how to make it work for your career and life, explore our career and life/travel optimization pages.
Or if you’re looking for people to connect with and share stories, drop some questions, personal experiences, and tips in our comment section. And then join our newsletter to see what others have to say!
Conclusion
While we love adventure and travel, we hold real full-time jobs. Is it a drag? I mean, we would definitely love to just travel without a care in the world. But do we love what we do in our careers? Yes.
We are lucky to say that we both found jobs where we actually feel challenged and like we are making a difference. And it was no easy feat to get here.
But this also makes it easy for us to fall into the trap of losing ourselves to our careers. We have felt the burnout of the 9-to-5, the deadlines, the horrible work cultures. We’ve been there and done that.
Each of us probably spends most of our time and days at work than we do anywhere else (not counting sleep). So we have to make sure that the place where we spend most of our time makes us happy! I mean, happiness at work can be a stretch.. But we can at least hope it fuels us and doesn’t bring us down!
We need to make sure that we stand up for ourselves in the workplace and respect our boundaries and our time. We wouldn’t be able to travel the world as much as we do if we didn’t go through years of building up to where we are in our careers to create the environments that allow us this lifestyle.
We hope that our experiences, career advice, and moments of inspiration could help you to achieve freedom of time, happiness, and life-balance.
James is especially in love with the topic of career-life optimization, so you will definitely hear a lot of it here in the blog.
Until Our Next Adventure!
Whatever it was that brought you here and however long you’ll be here, thanks for joining us for the ride.
-Mark and James | Marking Our Map