Building Best of Both Worlds

You do not have to see the whole staircase; just take the first step.

— Martin Luther King Jr.

An old scrapbook photo. Me just before my first trip to Mexico. Richard Stieg (Dad), Erik Stieg (brother), and Jennifer L’Hommedieu Stankus (sister). Photo by Trudy Aldrich (Mom)

I Dreamed of Writing a Blog for a Long Time

I have been through a lot of things in my life. Over the years, I've had a crazy mix of jobs, some more successful than others, but only one that consistently brought me joy: teaching skiing. I thought I would find that same sense of purpose and excitement in public education. In many ways, I did. I loved working with students, encouraging curiosity, helping young people discover their strengths, and finding creative ways to engage them in learning. The problem was never the teaching itself. The problem was that the parts of education I loved were becoming a smaller and smaller percentage of the job. No matter how hard I worked, I often felt like I was falling behind. The creativity that had drawn me to education was slowly being replaced by exhaustion. Some people thrive in public education, and I have tremendous respect for those who do. For me, there came a point when I had to admit that despite my best efforts, it was no longer where I wanted to spend the rest of my career.

All along, I kept coming back to the same thing. I wanted to write. Not just occasionally. Not just when I had spare time. I wanted to build something around writing. The problem was that I had too many ideas and not enough direction. Travel, freedom, meaningful work, reinvention, creating a life on my own terms. They all seemed connected somehow, but I couldn't quite figure out exactly how. I had been writing for decades through journals, stories, poems, and endless pages of ideas. The desire to write was always there. The challenge was finding a way to bring all of those interests together into something that felt cohesive and meaningful.

Looking back, I can see that I was searching for more than a blog. I was searching for a way to express the things that mattered most to me. Travel had expanded my view of what was possible. My career had shown me what no longer fit. Writing became the place where all of those ideas could come together. I didn't know exactly what I was building, but I knew I wanted to build something. That was the beginning of Best of Both Worlds.

Looking back, I can see that the roots of both my love of travel and my desire for freedom started much earlier. You can read more about that journey in Where Does Wanderlust Even Come From?

Following Curiosity Instead of a Master Plan

I have been writing every day for decades. Short stories, poetry, journal entries, and endless pages of ideas. Writing has always been how I process the world around me. It is where I explore what I believe, what I value, where I want my life to go, and what I am learning along the way. It took me a long time to trust that my ideas were worth sharing, but once I did, I stopped worrying so much about what other people thought and focused on my own lived experience.

Travel has always been an important part of that experience. From an exchange program in Mexico City when I was 11 years old, to leaving Colorado for Hawaii at age 19, to traveling throughout the United States and Europe with Paul, travel has shaped how I see the world. It also made me think differently about what I wanted for my own life. By the time I realized that the career part of my life was no longer fulfilling, I knew I wanted something different. I didn't know exactly what that looked like, but I knew enough to take the first step. In many ways, that was when I decided to hire myself.

What I love about this chapter of my life is that I am finally calling the shots. I allow curiosity to lead while planning helps me stay on course. Truth be told, I don't love planning. I love where planning helps me go. In fact, I have learned that some of the most important things in my life happened because they didn't go according to plan.

Caught in the act: Writing while camping. Photo by Paul Lampe

Seeing the Pieces Come Together

The very initial concept of the blog had to do with retirement, reinvention, and travel. I distinctly remember Paul asking me, at the end of the last year I worked in education, "So what? Are we just going to keep spinning our wheels?" He was right. Every day felt like lather, rinse, repeat. Predictable, yet somehow we could never get off the hamster wheel. I knew I wanted to take stock of my skills and experience and leverage them differently. I also knew I wanted more ownership over my time, my work, and my future. I wanted to build something that reflected who I was and what I cared about. Looking back, I can see that Best of Both Worlds became the vehicle for doing exactly that. 

Some people mentioned, after reading my blog, “Oh! You write a travel blog!” That initially felt like home. But over time, it began to feel limiting. I decided to switch from GoDaddy to Squarespace, which was a turning point. As I rebuilt the site, I began to see patterns in my writing that I hadn't recognized before. I also took the time to keep and remove older articles that didn’t quite fit the travel blog perspective. As I continued writing, I started to recognize that specific themes were emerging. I could never have predicted this, but now I feel that the blog is really about Travel, Freedom, Occupation, and Fun. Travel was the doorway, but it wasn't the whole house. As the blog evolved, I realized these were not random categories. They were reflections of the things I value most and the life I am trying to build.

Entrance to the walled city of Carmona, Andalusia. Photo by Wendy Stieg

The idea was never to escape my life. It was to create one that felt more aligned with who I am. I explore that idea further in I Don't Want to Escape My Life. I Want to Build a Better One.

The Messy Middle

I expected to reach a point where I could look back and report on "how I did it." I always had a vision for this blog's success. In fact, I think that's how I start most things. I decide they will be successful long before I have any evidence that they will. Some people might call that optimism. Others might call it stubbornness.

The funny thing is that I am not writing this article from the finish line. I am writing it from the middle. The blog is growing. The vision is becoming clearer. The categories are taking shape. I am creating products and finding new ways to connect ideas that once felt unrelated. At the same time, I still need a job. I am still making course corrections. I am still figuring things out. The difference is that I no longer see that as a problem. I think most worthwhile things are built this way. We imagine there will be a moment when everything finally comes together, and we can declare ourselves finished. Instead, we keep learning, adjusting, growing, and moving forward.

Highway 550, heading north toward Montrose, CO. Photo by Wendy Stieg

Life is messy. Building something is messy. Whether it is a house, a business, a relationship, or even dinner, there is usually a period where things look worse before they look better. The mess is not evidence that something is wrong. Often, it is evidence that something is being created. I don't always feel happy about where I am, but I try to be grateful for what is working and for how far I have come. 

If there is one thing this journey has taught me, it is that unfinished does not mean broken. I wrote more about that idea in Michelangelo and the Moving Truck.

Closing Thought

When I started Best of Both Worlds, I thought I needed to know exactly where it was going. What would the website become? What would I write about? Would it evolve into a business, a creative outlet, a community, or something else entirely? Over time, I've learned that creating something doesn't work that way.

Some of my ideas panned out exactly as I imagined. Others evolved into something completely different. New opportunities appeared that I couldn't have anticipated. Themes emerged that weren't obvious in the beginning. The site slowly became more than I originally envisioned: not because I had a perfect plan, but because I was willing to keep building. I used to think I needed a complete plan before I could begin. Experience has taught me something different. I need just enough of a plan to take the next step. The rest reveals itself along the way.

Cactus Boss in his summer lodging, in the back yard of our 1948 bungalow in Montrose. Photo by Wendy Stieg