About abaldabroad

If you’re new here, I’m Gunnar 👋🏼👨🏼‍🦲

After 22 years of school, studying, getting a degree, staying out of trouble, and doing everything else you're supposed to with your life, I landed a dream job-- a software engineer role at one of the largest, most successful tech companies in the world.

I did it.

I made it.

A dream come true... Right?

Well, it was. But that dream quickly turned into a never-ending loop of waking up, cramming onto public transit, plopping myself in front of a computer until my eyes bled, and then squeezing back on the bus to go home.

I began spending the extra free time I had on finance and retirements blogs, forums, and videos. I constantly calculated how fast I could possibly retire.

Years of this went on, and I found myself wondering...

"This is just my life now?"

In this time, after a breakup with my long-time girlfriend, I built up the courage to go on my first solo trip -- Thailand for 10 days.

After that trip, I became possessed with daydreams of going back out to explore and travel the world. But I couldn't.

Cursed with limited time-off and a global pandemic to top it all off,

I felt stuck.

But I'd had enough.

I got rid of everything I had in 2022 (home, car, job) and backpacked around the world for 13 months. I visited 20 countries in that time before deciding to return home to Seattle and find a new job (just in time for the worst tech job market since the dot com crisis, mind you).

After a brutal 7-month search (and a couple complete mental breakdowns), I finally landed my dream job as a fully-remote software engineer and now live part of the year as a digital nomad.

I’ve learned a ton through this journey, and now I want to share what I’ve learned. I hope to help someone out there dream more, explore more, and experience more.

Mission

My mission is to break through the borders preventing you from traveling as much as you dream, whether those barriers are financial, emotional, or simply your own beliefs.

If any of this resonates with you, consider following along.

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