My name is Mathieu Labrèche, an Ottawa-born, Toronto-based Canadian who, in the spring and summer of 2017, took a planned pause in his career to undertake a six-month solo travel in Central and South Asia. I authored this blog from the road as a way to keep a record of what I experienced during this transition point in my life.

At the time, a confluence of events led me to make a pivotal decision:

• Play it safe or push myself beyond the limits of what I was living
• Remain in place or move farther afield to broaden my worldview and challenge my comfort zone

No matter the type of transition, everyone feels this at some point in their lives. For me, it was a seminal juncture that would be fully understood in hindsight, but had to be lived in real-time. This journey not only helped me increase my cultural fluency to better understand the diverse global marketplace of people, ideas and traditions, but I also ended up meeting my wife, Megan. Life is an unexpected twist of fate, isn’t it?

This blog is living proof that great things happen when you take risks. It’s a look back at a moment in time when I dropped the bowlines and sailed my ship from safe harbour in search of adventure, and as I celebrated the differences that make the world so beautiful and vibrant.

Click on “Dispatches from the Road” to stay connected through short blog entries and photos.

The header image featured above is Buckminster Fuller’s Dymaxion Map, which portrays Earth’s landmass as one island in one ocean. In my view, it celebrates togetherness.