How did it happen? I'm not really sure. One minute we were swimming in stock options, slurping up Starbucks, and hauling our increasingly yuppified butts into work each day—the next we were reeling from the market collapse, shaking our heads, and feeling strangely relieved. As phone calls from newly laid-off friends flooded through the wires and co-workers started dropping like flies around our ears, we made one of the most deliciously irresponsible decisions of our adult lives: we decided to travel the world.

The hardest thing about leaving for the unknown was deciding to leave. That, and figuring out what we needed to do, check, bring. We started thinking about creating a place where would-be bohemians could go for "The Big I’s"-- information and inspiration. And that’s how emergencyexit.net was born.