Gretchen Gary is a creative marketing specialist who decided to take a year off and travel around the world. In January 2006, she realized that dream. Yet contrary to her plan to return after just one year, the universe had other plans and she was offered a job in Costa Rica.

When the financial crisis hit Costa Rica in 2008, she lost her contract as a marketing consultant with a large condo developer on the Central Pacific coast. Not sure what to do next and wary of returning to United States amid widespread hiring freezes and unemployment, she traveled in Central and South America for most of 2009. Her Spanish improved, but the allure of adventure in foreign lands had faded. After almost 4 years, she was finally ready to come home.

Now, after being gone so long, a different kind of journey begins.