"If you don't have peace of mind you have nothing, you know what I mean?" It's one of those chocolate box kind of truths borrowed from Alfie, when after two hours of full-on life always pursuing his selfish needs, he weighs things up and the revelation strikes him: no matter how much you got in life, without peace of mind you have nothing.

It was the beginning of '95, sitting on my suitcase filled with few clothes, lots of books and a some familiar items from home, I was reading Jonathan Livingstone Seagull. In Rome's International Airport people went by, all rushing, all looking like they knew where they were heading, all with a place to go. Every so often I raised my eyes from the book and fixed some of them, asking myself what their story was and why they were taking a plane that day. With a one-way ticket to Dublin as the only travel companion I had never felt more lonely. But in the end loneliness was good, it was what I wanted, what I had looked for and finally found the courage to grab: detach myself form everything and everyone to see if I could make it on my own. It was the challenge I had set myself to. The interesting part was how long I would last.

Twelve years, 8 addresses, 4 countries, 2 daughters and 1 husband later I am back at the starting point. This time the ticket is 'circular', it goes around the planet and gets back, in theory, to the starting point. The tickets are also 4, but the spirit is the same: eight months around China, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Chile, Bolivia, Peru and Argentina to stretch the limits, to challenge ourselves, to see if we can make it. No matter how we claim to be fond of security and stability in the end the human condition is one of perpetual restlessness and without a daily challenge we have no peace. Some less so than others.

Our lives need a shake, we have settled too much in the last few years and we need a wake up call to start living actively again instead of enduring what the routine brings us everyday. At the end of this trek around the world we hope to change perspective, change our look on life and its daily struggles and go back to being able to make decisions without fear of loosing some comfort.'Cause in the end without peace of mind you have nothing, you know what I mean now?

Listening to Mick Jagger, 'The blind leading the blind'