There comes a time in every bloggers life where you stop doing all the blogsite tweaks and sharing configurations and widget adding and you just have to start writing a blog. Breaking the blogging seal, you could say. I had one other blog site in the past, but it got hacked/stolen and all my data was wiped out without a backup. So word to the wise, backup your blogsite!
Who am I and what am I doing blogging and how did I get here?
My name is Matt Ray and I’ve been on this planet for 53 years. I’ve had a very full life with so much variety it astounds me. Sometimes I feel like I’ve lived several lives and other times I wish for several more, as there are so many things I want to do, learn, and be. With that said, I come to this blog in hopes of sharing what information I’ve gleaned about living large through living little. And I hope it can be an interactive experience where I can help you and you can help me. I love learning from many of you. For me, living little allows you to let go of many of the entrapments of life and more simply enjoy the world around you.
About 3 years ago, in January of 2015, I moved from my 4 bedroom house in Ventura, into a tent trailer. Yep, I said tent trailer. Pop-up trailer is another name for it. As far as tent trailers go, it was quite spacious with 3 pop-outs, once you got the roof cranked up. It had 2 queen-sized mattresses and a dinette pop-out as well, which really opened up the floor space. Here’s a few pictures of it:
I traveled all over the US and even up into Vancouver and Vancouver Island from May that year until October, when I returned to Ventura County. 6 weeks later, a friend and I took off again and headed to South Florida where I ended up staying until March of 2016. Then I traveled around the East a bit, up to Ohio, and back.
Around this time I lost my computer consulting contract and I came to a crossroads. First, I had a vacation planned to Honduras to go scuba diving for a week (the maximum I could take off from work). Secondly, since 2011, I had been wanting to get my YachtMaster Certificate, a certificate in sailboats, but it would require 3 months off from work. So I decided to still go to Honduras and extended my trip by a week to enjoy it more. Then when I got back, after returning home to California and a visit to my kids, I decided to go for the YachtMaster course, rather than finding another project to work on.
I left for Spain and Gibraltar for 3 months in June of 2016. I’ll touch on more details of this trip and all of my adventures above in upcoming blogs. But when I got back from my YM course, I decided I needed some more experience with sailing and started crewing on boats. I’ve crewed my way across the Pacific and Indian Oceans on 5 different boats and am currently sitting in a marina on a boat in Reunion, the island just east of Madagascar, writing this blog. Here are a few of my favorite pics from my voyages thus far.
My blog is about sharing many of these adventures and discuss ways of living differently than most people live. I plan to share books and articles that have inspired me, pictures I have taken along the way, and stories of the many amazing people I have met. And I hope in some way it will inspire you to consider a more minimalistic life and traveling in ways you never considered before. Don’t miss out on the posts! Join the adventure by following me on email, above or below!
P.S. You can also follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, Google+, and Path!
Living Large by Living Little! 
Would love to read more about your adventures and journeys through life.
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