On those trips, what impacted us the most were the people we met along the way; the author in Boulder, the trail guide in Wyoming, the guy who ran that little restaurant on a desolate beach in Mexico. These were people who lived their lives far away from the bubble of Southern California, and helped us widen our perspective on the world.

While pondering taking off on another one of these trips, Nathan's dad suggested we take a few local business people to lunch and ask them about their own paths from college. But sitting there that night in our apartment, we wondered why we should stay local and only interview business people.

That's when the idea hit us. Why not take a roadtrip across the country and talk to dozens of people who shed this noise and defined their own paths in life? People who were truly happy with the road they chose to live. Maybe they could help us do the same.

Where were they in their early 20s? How did they shed all that noise around them? Did they always know what they wanted to do, or did they have to discover their passion? And if so, how?

Around this time our long time college friend Brian McAllister was working for his family's business and feeling extremely stifled. Brian was the third generation to do his time at the company, and every day he drove two hours to the office (each way), which gave him plenty of time to reflect on how that path might not be the right one for him.

Another friend, Amanda Gall, had just graduated from UCLA. After five years of playing water polo and having a great time in college, the one thing she had failed to figure out was her next step.

Finding ourselves in very similar situations, the four of us began to build this roadtrip.

The first piece of the puzzle was an obvious one Ð what would we travel in? We estimated the trip would take more than three months, so a regular car just wouldn't do.

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