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There’s something about travel that changes the way you see almost everything.
Not just where you want to go next, or what kind of places you enjoy most, but how you want to spend your time, what feels important, and what kind of life you actually want to build.
For us, travel hasn’t just been a break from work. It has shaped the way we think about work itself.
The more places we’ve gone, the more clearly we’ve seen that work is not supposed to take over your entire life. It’s supposed to support it. ✈️
A Personal Story 🌏
Travel has influenced the way we work for a long time, even before we fully realized it.
When we started our online business C Larboard in 2016 and launched Defiance Tools 2021, a big part of that journey was shaped by travel. We were taking trips to Asia, searching for products, learning what was out there, meeting with suppliers, and seeing firsthand how things were made.
Those trips were exciting, eye-opening, and incredibly important to the business we were building.
At the time, travel and work were deeply connected. We were not just traveling for fun. We were traveling with purpose. Every trip gave us new ideas, new perspective, and a better understanding of what we wanted to create.
It also showed us that business could be built differently.
Instead of following a traditional path, we were creating something through experience. We were learning by going, by asking questions, by exploring new places, and by being willing to step outside of what felt familiar.
Travel wasn’t separate from work. It was helping shape the business from the ground up.
Later, places like Yellowstone deepened that perspective even more.
Being in a place like that has a way of clearing the noise. The days felt simpler and more grounded. Even when work still needed to get done, it didn’t feel like the center of everything.
Instead of measuring our days only by productivity, sales, or whether we checked every box on a to-do list, we started noticing different things:
Did we have time to enjoy where we were?
Did we create something meaningful?
Did the work we were doing actually support the life we wanted?
When you are surrounded by wide open spaces, wildlife, changing weather, and the reminder that life is bigger than your inbox, it becomes a lot harder to convince yourself that being busy is the same thing as building something worthwhile.
That season reminded us that freedom matters. Flexibility matters. And work feels a lot more valuable when it fits into your life instead of competing with it.
What Travel Taught Us About Work 🧰
Travel has taught us that work doesn’t need to be complicated to be meaningful.
In fact, some of our best ideas have come when we stepped away from the constant pressure to do more.
From sourcing products in Asia to building businesses on the road, travel has consistently pushed us to think bigger and simpler at the same time. Bigger in the sense of possibility. Simpler in the sense of what really matters.
When you travel, especially for longer stretches, you start to ask better questions:
What do we actually need?
What parts of our work are worth the energy?
What are we doing just because we think we’re supposed to?
What would make our business feel more sustainable and enjoyable?
Travel has a way of exposing excess.
Too much stuff.
Too many obligations.
Too many systems that look productive but don’t actually move life forward.
When you’re living out of fewer things, working with less, and adapting as you go, you realize how much of “normal” work culture is built on unnecessary pressure.
That has changed the way we approach business.
We think more about simplicity now.
We think more about freedom.
We think more about building work around real life instead of the other way around.
One Practical Takeaway 🧭
If travel has taught us one practical lesson about work, it’s this:
Build your work around your values, not just your goals.
Goals matter. Income matters. Progress matters.
But if the way you’re working constantly leaves you exhausted, distracted, or disconnected from the life you say you want, then the structure needs attention.
A simple way to start is by asking yourself:
What do I want my work to make possible?
Not just financially, but personally.
For us, that question has come up again and again through travel. Starting Defiance Tools, traveling to Asia, exploring new opportunities, and then continuing to shape our life around movement and experience all reinforced the same idea: work should create more freedom, not less.
Maybe for you that means more time outside.
Maybe it means more flexibility.
Maybe it means space to think.
Maybe it means traveling more, stressing less, or creating something that feels genuinely aligned with who you are.
Once you know that answer, you can start making better decisions about what kind of work is worth saying yes to.
Sometimes the right move is not adding more.
Sometimes it’s removing what no longer fits.
Hong Kong Harbor
A Reflection ✨
The more we travel, the more we believe that work should be a tool, not a trap.
It should help you experience life more fully, not keep you too busy to enjoy it.
Travel has reminded us that there are many ways to live well. Many ways to define success. Many ways to build something meaningful.
Looking back, it’s clear that travel didn’t just influence our lifestyle. It influenced the way we built our business from the very beginning.
Our first online store, then Defiance Tools and now Zoe and Rich Out There were all shaped by what we saw, what we learned, and what we experienced while moving through the world. And over time, those experiences also shaped the bigger picture of how we wanted to live.
You do not have to follow someone else’s formula.
You can choose work that gives you room to breathe.
You can choose a slower path.
You can choose a business and a lifestyle that reflect what matters most to you.
For us, that mindset didn’t come from sitting still.
It came from traveling to Asia in search of products.
It came from building Defiance Tools in 2021.
It came from seasons in places like Yellowstone.
And it came from paying attention to what felt true along the way.
Travel didn’t teach us to care less about work.
It taught us to care more about doing the right kind of work, for the right reasons, in a way that supports the life we actually want to live.
That shift has changed everything.
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