Hello. Welcome to ChasetheRisingSun.com. We're Michael and Lauren Crigler, the founders of this little project. We began Chase the Rising Sun in early 2007 with just a shared dream to travel. Now, here we are a year later with a website, a purpose, and a few tickets taking us around the world.

How did we do it, you ask? Good question!

One evening, while enjoying our favorite dinner of Indian food (Bhangan Bharta) and planning a trip we were about to take to visit Michael's dad in Switzerland, we realized that 2 vacation weeks a year was a joke. There was so much we wanted to see and not enough time in our lives to do it all. So, that night, at that table in Allston, MA, we made up our minds. We were going travel. We were going to sell everything we owned, save up as much money as possible and experience what we dreamed about when we were kids flipping through National Geographic.

So that's that. But here's the thing, we didn't just want to travel the world as tourists. We knew there was more to be experienced than what the modern-day western traveler normally sees: pretty neat stuff outside the tour bus window. We have a deep respect for the many diverse cultures on this planet, and we wanted to get involved with these people on a real level.

So, what the hell does that mean?

We wanted to get our hands dirty. No fancy hotels owned by big corporations. No five course meals or spa resorts. We traveling to experience real life (on a real tight budget).

So, thanks for stopping by! We hope you enjoy our website and feel a little inspired to travel or volunteer locally or just sell everything you own.