One thing that we’ve learned in our short time traveling the world is that Karma is responsible for more good or bad events during a trip than weather, reservations and organized itineraries combined. Seriously, don’t underestimate the value of Karma while you’re traveling. While bouncing around the UK and Ireland we tried to be adamant about being friendly, courteous people that went out of our way to help someone if we could… and banking good Karma. This good Karma resulted in a free ride to the train station despite being covered in mud after the Spartan Race and ridiculously lucky train connections. Most importantly though I firmly believe it was the direct cause of two Scotchmen getting us absolutely hammered on free whiskey (Scotch) and beer before we ate dinner in a small pub in Inverness, Scotland.

Bad Karma is a MOFO. To this day I swear that the only reason we went on an ALL night adventure from London to Heathrow Airport, back to London, literally running (on foot) halfway across the eastern part of the city, chasing umpteen buses and then going to some stupid airport on the opposite side of the city that our plane actually flew out of (which wasn’t Heathrow) resulting in us making a flight with 10 minutes to spare was because of bad Karma. Oh yeah, and let’s not forget that it rained on us all night and I left a $300 Gore-Tex rain jacket on the last bus we rode on and that I never could get it  back. I wish even 10% of the last two sentences could be called an exaggeration, but alas, it is all true. I don’t know why we had to get our butts kicked with an exorbitant amount of bus fees and a lost jacket that wonderful night but I know the culprit; bad karma. We were jerks to someone that day and the man in the sky had to teach us a lesson… Lesson learned.

So with this trip and over the next 16 months we are going to try to bank as much good Karma as we possibly can by doing one random act of kindness per day. This is a popular thread on some websites where people take pictures of their random act of kindness and send it into a website… well that kind of defeats the purpose don’t you think? It’s not a RANDOM act of kindness if you’re publicizing it to show everyone how generous you are.

Well with that said we aren’t recording what we do, but if we can find a time to be good people and brighten someone’s day then we will. These acts likely won’t be monetary simply because we are on a shoestring budget for the foreseeable future but will consist of taking a picture for a group, picking up trash from a park or carrying someone’s groceries to their car. We aren’t trying to be holier than thou and appear lofty or pompous but rather we’re just trying to share a little part of our journey.

If nothing else, learn from my misfortune and look at the tickets for the correct airport or pick up your jacket off a bus seat at 4am…