ne August morning in 1998 , AJ Schaffer & Andrew Watson got hitched, quit their jobs in New York City and bought a pair of plane tickets to half-way around the world. Prior to that August morning, we had both settled into the expectation that we would work in the theatre for the rest of our foreseeable lives - AJ as a theatre artisan and craftsperson on Broadway, and Andrew writing for a theatre magazine that daily threatened to consume him. After almost four years of working in this draining environment, the paths we'd chosen didn't seem so appealing to us anymore.

For a honeymoon, we traveled for the next 18 months through the South Pacific, New Zealand , Australia and South East Asia - not like tourists, but like travelers. With no specific itinerary we lived and worked on the Road, striving to become absorbed in the country we were in, trying on a new lifestyle and leaving ourselves completely open to whatever opportunities came up. It turned out to be a watershed experience for us.

Along the way, we wrote occasional emails home to our friends and family about our adventures and observations. Meant to be a way to share our lives with loved ones so far away (and to assuage some guilt for being so far away from them) we discovered that people were enjoying them, talking about us at work or any social gathering where someone was foolish enough to ask after their children/grandchildren/siblings/friends. Frequently this led to them passing on our emails to others, and our list of "desktop travelers" began to grow. Over time, our letters began to metamorphose into an ongoing travelogue with lots of interesting facts, bits of history and our own skewed view of being strangers in strange lands. We enjoyed sharing what we saw and learned with people at home who loved to travel vicariously through us - it gave us something of a purpose in our aimless wanderings.

But nothing lasts forever, least of all our travel funds, and we came home in the spring of 2000 to rest, regroup and see what happened next. We both started working for an adventure travel company, thinking that if we had to have a career, it should involve travel. What we discovered, however, is that sending people off to exotic destinations for the adventures of their lives while we sat in office cubicles in New Jersey did not, in fact, involve any travel whatsoever.

As luck would have it, the downturn in the travel industry after September 11 and our own nagging discontent left us without jobs and wondering what to do next. There really wasn't any decision to make - we were free to travel again. We decided to take another extended journey, this time across Europe and Northern Africa (on bicycle, no less). Writing about our continued wanderings to as many people as wanted to read about them, we've also begun to fund our continued travels by stopping in exotic ports of call to buy and sell our merchandise like the caravan traders of old - except with the more modern convenience of being able to do it all via the internet.

So, armed with a laptop, a digital camera and two somewhat trusty bicycles, we set off in September 2002 from Lisbon , Portugal , then on into Spain , continuing down into Morocco as the weather turned wintry. There, in a pair of rooms we took in an old riad in Marrakesh (one room to sleep in, the other our "warehouse") we scoured the famous souks of this ancient city for three months and put our finds up on eBay. The response we got was both surprising and encouraging, and the additional funds allowed us to continue on the Road for a little bit longer.

Wanting to bring more of the world back to our friends at home, our caravan has made its way back to the U.S. several times to offer a sumptuous selection of Moroccan lounge accessories to the Middle Eastern recreators of the Society for Creative Anachronism at the Pennsic War held outside of Pittsburgh. From the souks of Marrakesh to the souks of Pennsic, we brought oriental luxuries and the flavour of the East to Pennsylvania.

Inspired, we've decided to push our wanderings as far as our imaginations will take us. We welcome you to travel with us, and we hope we can satisfy your Inner Vagabond with our stories, photos, and discoveries.

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