I’m one of those people who drags a battered backpack all over the world.

I can’t explain why I have the travel bug but I know exactly when and where I caught it—in Beijing, China, in 1999.

Back then, I was a French high-school kid studying Mandarin in Nantes. The summer I turned 16, I somehow convinced my parents to let me attend summer school at the Capital Normal University (北京首都师范大学) in Beijing. China was opening up and there were study-abroad opportunities. It seemed like a fun way to finally use my Mandarin skills.

But this was not a backpacking trip. Sixteen-year-old me had no idea backpacking was a thing, anyway.

This summer in Beijing turned out to be a life-changing trip. I discovered a new culture and I met plenty of people from all over the world… including a Chinese-Canadian guy who is now my husband.

I left China in tears at the end of the summer of 1999 and I promised myself to travel again as soon as possible. Inconveniently, I had yet to graduate from high school and I had no money. My plans would have to wait for another two years.

In 2001, I graduated from high school with a French Baccalauréat degree and I enrolled in a Chinese language and culture program at Paris’ National Institute for Oriental Languages and Civilizations. I graduated in 2005, having mostly participated in an informal distance-study program since I couldn’t afford to live in Paris and I was already halfway across the world…

… in Hong Kong, for a start, where I found an internship a couple of weeks after my last week of high school.

Then 9/11 happened and since my Cantonese skills sucked, I changed my plans. I left Hong Kong and flew to Mexico to meet Feng, my Beijing summer soulmate. We embarked on an epic backpacking trip through Central and South America and eventually ended up in Canada together. Life works out in funny ways—I had always thought I would live in China but instead, I’m in Canada with a Chinese husband.

I officially moved to Canada and I became a Canadian citizen in 2009, but I’ve never stopped travelling. Over the years, Feng and I explored Latin America, Asia and the South Pacific. We are both self-employed. We’re flexible, and we’re still addicted to backpacking.

And now there are three of us. Mark was born in 2012, and we resumed travelling a few months later.

So maybe our lifestyle and the choices we’ve made are unusual, but we’re happy!