I’ve been calling Jenni my partner now for a year and a half. Somewhere around the time I decided to quit my job and leave it all behind to travel with her, I shifted the label from “girlfriend” to “partner.” After all once we stepped foot out of San Francisco, we would truly become each other’s only sense of ‘home.’

Now that we’re engaged, living together for the first time and spending our weekends at IKEA, we feel married. I figure that if we can survive 365 days of traveling together, it’s a good test of our long-term commitment. We’ve merged our financial accounts and our social schedules. And most importantly, we’ve booked a wedding date for next June.

Read more at OutandAround.com

Lisa Dazols is a licensed clinical social worker who is in her tenth year in HIV services. She and her partner Jenni traveled all over the world meeting the LGBT community for their OutandAround blog project, which is now being made into a documentary.

The post Why my domestic partnership just isn’t enough first appeared on Lesbian.com.

We’ve been home now for nearly two months now. It’s been enough time to get back into the swing of things here, but we are still recognizing how different our lives are now that we’re back in San Francisco with a home to take care of, a job to commute to, social obligations to attend to, and a to-do list that never seems to get done. Frankly, it’s been a rough adjustment. Here are the top ten differences that we noticed between life on the road and life at home:

10. Speed it up! The pace of life seems like it’s on double-time compared to how we lived traveling through the developing world. We used to plan just one activity a day. Life in the States is structured by hourly activities, meetings, and events. We’re constantly feeling behind and exhausted. What happened to the four hours a day that we used to spend exercising, meditating, and doing yoga?

9. “I’ll take it to go.” To keep up with this fast-paced life, I’ve noticed how much people have to eat on the run. In the developing world, people sit down for meals at home. There is no such thing as coffee cups to go. I’ve found myself already eating meals in the car, on Muni, and while I’m walking. Jenni and I already dropped the 8 pounds we each gained by no longer having three two-hour meals a day.

Read more at OutandAround.com

Lisa Dazols is a licensed clinical social worker who is in her tenth year in HIV services. She and her partner Jenni traveled all over the world meeting the LGBT community for their OutandAround blog project, which is now being made into a documentary.

The post Top 10 sources of culture shock when coming back to the states first appeared on Lesbian.com.

Knowing how much I loved travel, I considered staying a third year in graduate school to get a specialty in International Social Work. But in the end, I couldn’t validate spending $35,000 on tuition, room, and board for something that I could put together myself for far cheaper. Are you one of those people who have considered getting a degree in international relations, international business, international development, or international policy? Let me tell you how to get a real international education.

Out & Around is not only about global LGBT rights. It’s about becoming better global citizens. Traveling through the developing world, Jenni and I can’t help but feel our privilege status in the world due to our educational opportunities and personal freedoms. We were also constantly reminded of our wealth. If you earn over $25,000 USD a year, you are among the top 10% of richest people in the world. Jenni and I need to use our Supergay powers for good.

Read more at OutandAround.com

Lisa Dazols is a licensed clinical social worker who is in her tenth year in HIV services. She and her partner Jenni traveled all over the world meeting the LGBT community for their OutandAround blog project, which is now being made into a documentary.

The post How to get an international degree on a shoestring first appeared on Lesbian.com.

We’re home! As we’ve caught up with family and friends this week, we’ve found the number number one asked question about our ’round-the-world journey is, “What was your favorite place?” Jenni and I try to answer this question by listing our favorite (and not-so-favorite) experiences around the world this year. For more travel recommendations, check out the Places We Love section in each of the fifteen countries we’ve traveled to this year.

Best Beach
Lisa: Boracay, Philippines. Incredibly long stretch of white sand beach with the bluest waters I’ve ever seen. With so much beach, it’s easy to feel like you’re on your own secret island. We got engaged here. It can get a bit over-touristed, so I recommend staying further down the island in Station 3 where it’s significantly more quiet.

Jenni: Zanzibar, Tanzania is up there too. Another white sand paradise. We stayed at a fantastic beach resort that was quite affordable, as Zanzibar can get quite expensive. I set my watch for 5pm happy hour every day.

Read more at OutandAround.com

Lisa Dazols is a licensed clinical social worker who is in her tenth year in HIV services. She and her partner Jenni traveled all over the world meeting the LGBT community for their OutandAround blog project, which is now being made into a documentary.

The post The best and worst of around the world first appeared on Lesbian.com.

We knew that traveling together for a year would be the ultimate test of our relationship. We joked about this make-it-or-break-it situation. Now engaged, we know that this journey has only made us stronger. But, the truth is that we fought a ton right before leaving and during our first month traveling.

It was a big change to shift from our independent daily routines at home to spending nearly 24/7 with one another (not to mention dealing with the stress of travel). But since then, we’ve made some changes in our relationship. Here are some ways we’ve managed not to kill one another:

10) Define Roles: Our biggest conflicts came from us two control freaks trying to do too much with all hands in everything. I hated every moment learning HTML to update the website. Jenni grew frustrated writing press releases. We learned to leverage our strengths. As a social worker, I’m a natural networker. I become in charge of finding the Supergays, spreading the word about our website, and handling public relations. Coming from the tech world, Jenni had the best skills to create the videos, manage photography and video data, and create our website. We now have a better appreciation for each other’s unique skills, and we stick to the things that we’re best at.

Read more on OutAndAround.com.

Lisa Dazols is a licensed clinical social worker who is in her tenth year in HIV services. She and her partner Jenni traveled all over the world meeting the LGBT community for their OutandAround blog project, which is now being made into a documentary.

The post Top 10 ways not to kill your partner while traveling first appeared on Lesbian.com.