A legend in my mind is the best way to describe it. I just think differently than most people!
I was born in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and raised in the early eighties when life was simple. We rode our bikes and played outside, and we did not have the internet like kids today.
Canada was the only thing I knew until my first vacation to Southern California and Mexico in my early teens. My first memory of travel was falling asleep under the Christmas tree with the paper airline ticket after reading it 100s of times. Yes, they used to have paper carbon copies of your actual legs of an airplane return trip, wild! Just like now, I would tell anyone who cared about my travels (most didn’t and still don’t) that I was going to California and Acapulco, Mexico (some things never change, LOL)!
We drove all around Southern California into Las Vegas and then flew to Acapulco with those initial memories engrained in my mind forever. I fell in love with traveling to America and Mexico!
Unimaginable at the time, I would later in life live in Southern California, Las Vegas, and now Mexico.
Looking back, I had a plan, and no matter what happened along the way, I would selfishly follow that plan, whether I knew it at the time of my decisions. The makings of a solo traveler!
After graduating from high school in Edmonton and trying a few things, my first break happened. I wanted to work with satellites for some unknown reason, so I enrolled in Telecommunications at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT) in Edmonton. It would take me three years to complete my two-year Telecommunications associate’s diploma. I was not the most dedicated student, to say the least, plus my favorite bar was just across the field, Ezzies.
The week before graduating from NAIT in December 1995, I would interview with Canada’s largest Company, Northern Telecom. Looking back, it was a miracle as I was in the bottom half of my class. I aced the interview, and it was the biggest break in my life! I was going to make $13.80 an hour from the part-time $5.50 I was making in 1995, life was good!!
I needed to relocate to Calgary, AB and started on January 4th, 1996. Within a couple of years, I was traveling back and forth to our Richardson, TX head office which is a suburb in Northern Dallas. It seemed that I was going there every month making contacts while falling in love with the American dream. I would board a plane in freezing Calgary and three hours later, I was wearing shorts! How awesome was that!!
After traveling back and forth, I met someone, she was a flight attendant which again was another sign of things to come. Eventually, I was offered a job in Richardson, TX, given a work visa and traveling full time.
Work would have me crisscrossing the United States and eventually internationally. My girlfriend would follow me and also fly me anywhere I wanted, whenever I wanted. Holy shit, my dreams were happening! I still thank her to this day when I ask for free flights, LOL. Thankfully, she has a great life raising twin boys along the way!
Little did I know, but these events would severely warp my crazy traveling mind into what it is today. A travel junky that cannot stay put, and always looking for a deal. I was turning into North American Darrell!
My next break was getting a job was PayPal after 18 years at my first job out of college. The job fell in line with my strong beliefs in managing money, so I could eventually travel. It was a great company but a shitty call center job, but it showed some additional money management skills.
I would get yelled at via email, chat, or on the phone by people being broke-ass douchebags not being able to manage their money. I could have also easily moved up and might still be employed, but I just didn’t have the piss and vinegar needed. I had health insurance and investments in place and was burning time for the #Freedom50ish traveling dream.
Fast forward, and I was laid off for the second time by a greedy corporation. Northern Telecom after 18 years in 2014, and now PayPal, 7 years in 2024, 25+ years of service gone after both started cleaning house.
Here I was in 2024, unemployed, 52, single AF. I was somewhat financially stable and able to travel whenever and wherever I wanted, again. I started looking back on previous decisions in life.
Almost everyone had kids, and grandkids, worked 9-5, took their one-week all-inclusive vacation, and spent the summers at the lake. They were living the life we were taught to live by generations. You’re supposed to get married, have 2.5 kids, live in a house with a white picket fence, pay a mortgage, be in debt, retire, and then die.
Statistically, if you’re a man, you die when you’re 73, if I am lucky to make it that far. That gives some people 5-10 years of retirement, depending on their health, after working their whole life. I watched it happen over and over in my Telecom career while losing so many family members at a young age as well.
Should I have kept my houses in Edmonton, Atlanta, and Charlotte where I had some stability? Instead, I settled into my, small, turnkey, mortgage fee condo that I Airbnb in AZ.
My first 2400-square-foot Edmonton house that I designed and built did not have a mortgage. I was able to pay cash from my work travels. I would have been set with no mortgage, surrounded by my friends and family, living like a normal person. I didn’t even use one of the three bathrooms, FFS!
Who in their right mind to move on from that situation? I could have also settled in other amazing cities that I worked in long term (Calgary, Dallas, Southern California). What about all the other shorter stops along the way (Las Vegas, Austin, San Antonio, Mexico City, Acapulco, Brazil)? I had corporate condos for months at a time, met some women and friends, and had a good job opportunity to possibly settle down.
There were also so many amazing situations in their way and still think about all of them from time to time. I am slowly convincing myself, that as we get older life is a mirage, and see it the way we want.
I have always wanted to blog about my travel years of work and personal travel. This is the second attempt so here we go, again!
Welcome to NorthAmericanDarrell.com LFG!
