And that, my friends, is called clickbait.

Ok, but really. The moving topic. Well, it’s complicated. Family, friends, random strangers we’ve met along the way all seem to ask “so where are you guys going to end up once you’re done traveling?” Ah, the million dollar question. The last few months we’ve spent quite a bit of time discussing our post-travel options. Do we go here? Or do we go there? Well that place has x. But that place has y.

Our top two options  were none other than Minneapolis, Minnesota and Auckland, New Zealand. Both have pros and cons. But like I said at the beginning, it’s complicated. I know you’re all on the edge of your seat as you wonder where on earth we will move to, fidgeting with your phone as you keep scrolling through this post trying to find the spoiler alert.

But first, let’s talk about Malaysia.

We arrived at the very airport where, judt three days earlier, Kim Jong-un’s half brother was murdered with VX nerve agent. Which is classified as a weapon of mass destruction. Awesome. But don’t worry, they have totally checked the airport for any lingering traces and it’s all good. So when we fly out in two days we don’t have to worry…right? Now there’s just a game of finger-pointing over who ordered the killing. North Korea, I’m looking at you. And by North Korea, I totally mean you, Kim Jong-un.

Dicktators aside, we’ve been loving Malaysia. We’ve been in Kuala Lumpur for almost two weeks, living the normal (Airbnb) apartment life of normal 30-somethings. It’s been fucking fantastic. We had been going, going, going for 9 months, staying in a lot of budget hotels for a max of 2 nights, so it’s nice to finally feel we have a space to call our own. For a few weeks, that is.

I love that we can finally wash our clothes, properly. I love that we have a fridge filled with food from an actual supermarket that’s within walking distance. I love that we only have to take an elevator ride from our 36th floor apartment to the 51st floor to see this…

And this…

Not to mention, it’s only $50-ish a night and is super nice. I love you, Asia.

We’ve spent a lot of our time in Kuala Lumpur just doing routine things. I found a pilates studio that has become my new BFF (Urban Spring, if you’re ever in KL). Craig has been getting up every morning at 5:30am to work on a personal project. I wish I could tell you more, but it involves coding stuff that just flies right over my head. Maybe you can ask him about it sometime over drinks?

We’ve done a few touristy things in KL, but it’s also rainy season, which dampened our plans a bit. When it rains, it pours (alcohol). Seriously, why is it that every time we go out for just a drink, it downpours and we end up “trapped” at the bar? But we do get to discover places that serve beer out of bowls.

When the sun is shining (and the temps are scorching hot) we try to explore. We visited the Islamic Art Museum, which was probably one of my favorite museums we’ve visited so far.

It’s gorgeous and has tons of interesting stuff, and the number one perk is that it wasn’t rammed with people.

After getting our art on, we walked to the KL Bird Park next-door. I was pheasantly surprised. So many birds, in a beautiful outdoor space. And we got to see the entire park right before it started to, you guessed it, rain.

What else? Well, within walking distance of our apartment is twinning at its finest…Petronas Towers, formerly the tallest buildings in the world.

During our time in KL, we celebrated Craig’s beard being 3 months away from a yeard. And you know what that means? We’ve been traveling for 9 months. It’s like we practically had a travel baby. And no, I’m not pregnant.

On our second-to-last full day in KL (which happens to be today), we visited the Batu Caves. This massive limestone cave is complete with an almost 300-stair climb and the world’s tallest statue of the Hindu god of war. Meet Murugan. Don’t fuck with him.

As we climbed the stairs into the cave, we were greeted by lots of monkeys that I’m pretty sure were just secretly hoping we dropped food.

But they seemed to find other things to eat on their own.

After climbing nature’s stairmaster, we reached the cave. Which rocked. Get it?

If you were scrolling to just find out the move spoiler, STOP HERE! Back to the actual reason for this post. The big move. Is it the land of hobbits or the land of lakes that we’ll call home? Well, one choice definitely trumped the other. We’ve decided to move to….

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Auckland, New Zealand!!!

New Zealand, fun fact, was just named the least corrupt country in the world. NBD.

So how did we make this decision? Are we just leaving the states because Trump is now ruining, I mean running, our country? It was a combination of things. I don’t like to give little insecure men like Trump that much power over my life choices, but in the end, we want to start/raise a family in a country that just gets us. A country that treats people as equals, that has universal healthcare, and hardly any gun violence. And that country is definitely not the States. We also always knew we wanted to move to New Zealand eventually, so we just sped up the process (much to the sadness of my family). We’re not getting any younger and I’m sure when I go to the doctor to discuss a future, hypothetical pregnancy, they will give me a pamphlet about “mature pregnancies” because that’s what they do when you hit the old age of 35.

But first things first. I still have to apply for my permanent residency visa. Which I will do when we are done traveling. And that brings us to another question we get asked a lot, “how long are you guys planning on traveling for?” Well, it looks like mid May, making it one whole year of travels. Then we will fly to Minnesota to hang with my family for a few weeks/maybe a month so I can annoy them as much as possible before I’m living 8,025 miles away.

After some 0h-yeah-ya-betcha time, we plan to head back to the Bay Area to pick up some contract work until we make the big move around the end of this year. So, Bay Area peeps, if you know of some contract work for a brilliant software engineer or a rad writer, then by all means…text us. If you find us contract work, we’ll buy you a drink. Deal?

So there you have it. Probably not as shocking of an ending as The Sixth Sense was, but still. It took a while to come to our decision, but I know we’re making the right one. I’ve loved New Zealand from the moment I first saw it back in 2013…

Now, who wants to be our first visitor in Auckland?

Ok, back to Roam Mode. In two days, we leave KL and fly to Perth to visit some good friends and meet their new baby. So excited. I’m also super excited to drink water from the tap for the first time in 5 months. Hello, first-world country!