I have always liked to engage in something my mother often refers to as “thrill seeking behavior.”

In the fifth grade, I ran away for the first time. Equipped with a kitchen knife, lighter, frying pan, the melted down remains of my mother’s old wedding ring, and a pack of Oscar Meyer’s bacon I furiously pedaled my Huffy bike through the backside of our massive suburban neighborhood. My plan, only hours old, was one purely based on a single attribute: survival. My best friend Aaron, who had been riding with me, suddenly stopped his bike. ”This is as far as I can go, Pierre. I have to head back home.” We bid each other farewell at the new part of the subdivision where all the bad kids lived. I was rolling solo now, and started reviewing the plans in my head.

“Find a good spot to camp out in the field behind Winn-Dixie. I have enough food for a couple of days. If I can’t find a way to get enough money to buy food, I can steal it from the grocery store. Winn-Dixie is too close to home, but I can come up with a better plan once I get there. Find a pawn shop so you can get money for the gold.”

Crouched down in the high reeds, I cooked my bacon and kept a look out for the search party that would undoubtedly come looking for me. I spent one long cold night camped out behind our local neighborhood grocery store. Blankets! Why the hell didn’t I think it was going to be cold outside? Suburban kids are stupid y’all. Anyway, I realized that blankets were going to be an essential to my new lifestyle so I headed back to the place that I promised never to return to again, in search of proper supplies.

Between bushes, over fences, and through back yards I forged an off-the-grid path that only a neighborhood kid would be able to follow. Ultimately, I was captured only a short distance from my house, neglecting to take into account one of my pal’s stay-at-home mother. At elementary school graduation, while other kids received awards for their educational prowess and musical abilities, I had been given the “The Fugitive Award” much to my classmates amusement. True story.

But this was only the beginning. Who knew that this was a developing personality trait that would refine itself over the next 17 years. I ran away twice more before the end of high school, making it further and further away from home each time. By the age of 20 I had found like-minded individuals and was packing my bags to go live in Charleston, South Carolina, a place that I had only been to once before. Me and my pals didn’t have jobs, we didn’t really know what the job market was like, all we knew is that we were getting the fuck out of Atlanta and heading towards the beach. By 25, I was en route to New York. Again with no job in place, but extremely determined to make it work.

Going Hobo Chic

My most recent bout of “thrill seeking behavior” started earlier this year. My best friend from high school asked me what I thought about visiting Seoul, South Korea, where he’s been living for the past four years. “Honestly man, if I can make it all the way to South Korea I’ll probably try to stay,” I said at some point. And it was on.

New York had already hardened my survival skills and taught me to how to live broke. Now it was time to put all my skills to the test as I prepared for my trip to South Korea. My plan this time was not that far removed from my first foray in the hobo arts. For the next few months I developed a lifestyle that I referred to as “Hobo Chic.” It required meticulous budgeting and constant planning. Crash on a couch one week, house sit the next, rent a sublet when I couldn’t fill in the gaps. Every expense was retooled to for the purpose of saving money. I ditched the 5 dollar foot longs at lunch and started cooking everything I ate. Weekly grocery shopping trips started to become a game to see how cheaply I could eat. I volunteered at the gym, putting the $100 membership back in my pocket every month. I told the Metropolitan Transit Authority what they could do with their $2.25 subway fare when I bought a bike and started commuting to work again. By the time I was packing my bags for Seoul I had been sleeping in a tent in a Prospect Heights sublet for a month. I know all of this probably sounds ridiculous, but it was one of the best times of my life. I felt so free: corporate cog by day, hobo extraordinaire by night.

It’s almost essential that everyone who went to school at Portfolio Center make a reference to this at some point in time, so here’s mine. A wise woman named Sylvia told us all at least two things that we would think hard about for the duration of our time in school.

#1. The journey is the destination

#2. Enjoy the struggle

It took me a while, but I think I finally hear you now, Sylvia.

Hello! I’m the third cast member to be selected for season 8. Right now I “live” in Seoul, South Korea, but I’ve only really been here for a month. Before I came to Seoul I had been living and working in New York. I’ll get you guys all caught up on who I am and what the hell I’m doing here in Korea a little bit later. Right now things are really busy with Jet Set Zero and trying to make preparations for our journey. I’m just going to leave you this recent adventure of me trying to find a pre-paid cellphone card in South Korea. Later!

Hey JS0 fans, I’m the new intern!

I’ve had an insatiable desire to travel my whole life. I’m still young, so it’s not like I’ve had many opportunities to see the world outside of print (i.e. travelogues and travel websites), but I’ve done what I can. I’ve traveled a large part of the United States and backpacked through Europe for a month during high school. I am not ashamed to admit that I’m slightly OCD about everything from organizing my bookshelf to what I’m wearing that day, so living out of a messy backpack scared me witless at first. It turned out that sleeping on trains in the close company of people I’d never met before, eating delicious food made on the street, staying in a sketchy hostel situated next to what I’m pretty sure was a heroin lab, and lugging around everything I would need for a month in a dirty sack on my back was the most amazing experience I’ve ever had, and I can only hope that I’ll be able to do it again soon!

My personal travel dreams: learn a Slavic language and travel through Eastern Europe, walk the Camino de Santiago de Compostela, and sail my own boat on a tour of the Mediterranean Sea. But besides travel, I love spending hours upon hours in used book stores; learning about history (specifically the 1930s through 1950s); collecting maps, globes, and postcards; making and watching documentaries; hiking in the beautiful scenery of the Pacific Northwest; baking cookies, cakes, and other sweet treats; following fashion blogs; and appreciating – sometimes attempting – photography.

Right now, I’m a college student, studying Geography, International Studies, and French. I’m home for the summer, and having been full to the brim with feelings of wanderlust and underutilized productivity, I can’t wait to start interning for Jet Set Zero!

Meet the man whose going to Italy with us!  He grows a mean mustache and speaks Russian.

My name is Bogdan Tiflinsky . Im 26 and I am originally from Odessa, Ukraine but I left when I was 5.  My background is in photojournalism…I love to photograph people and places. I am heavily into music and innovation. I love to learn new things and share my knowledge with people. I build bicycles when time permits and also read a lot. Since I have made a transition into video I can now share the beautiful moments which I experience in real time.  Communication is important to me and so is mountain climbing.  I speak five words in Italian and a lot more in Russian.

Hey all,  My name is Lynne, and I’m your first-ever Scottish cast member on Jet Set Zero.  Get excited.  I like riding  trains with strangers, singing off-key and playing football.  That’s soccer to you, aye?

Hi!  I’m Sarah.  I’m described by my European friends as the most typical American they have ever met, a direct result of my overuse of the word “love “ and total abuse of superlatives (not every weekend can really be the BEST one I’ve ever had).

I never studied abroad in college so instead of eating Piatzas on European Rivieras I chowed down on hot dogs at Chicago’s Weiner Circle.  When I graduated from Northwestern I moved to India for four months to work for an AIDS organization.  After several near death-by-rickshaw scares I beelined to New York and fell into a life defined by cramped apartments, $10 beers and True Blood vampires in my marketing job at HBO.

Earlier this year I got into business school and the thought of attending finance classes and honing my resume for the next two years left me feeling antsy.   I also loved my job at HBO but felt compelled to see more of the world.  To the horror of my parents I decided an advanced education and a “steady, 401K, heavy-benefits” career were just not as appealing as being an English teacher in Italy.  At least not at this point in my life.

The way I see it, NOW is my opportunity to jet set.  I am 26-years old, single and mortgage-less.  If not now, when? Check out our continued adventures around the world at: www.sistersbailey.wordpress.com

Hello! I am Perrin Bailey. While I’m intensely organized (bonus traveler points) I’m also extremely clumsy (points voided!). Think Danny Tanner meets Pinky from Pinky and The Brain.

I grew up in Virginia with my older sister, fellow cast member Sarah. After a nerdy suburban youth I moved to Philly to be an English major then NYC to plan ad campaigns – at first for a no-name publishing company that went bankrupt (the slow, painful Chapter 11 to Chapter 7 way) and ultimately for Disney. Regardless of progress on the job front and 5-night-a-week event schedule, I began to feel stifled in the smoggy day-to-day of the City. When you wake up and realize that the friendliest face in your neighborhood is that of a mustached hag who hollers at you every morning, “Hey handsome, wanna buy me a hot dog?” you realize you’ve got to get out, if only for a sabbatical.

However, I know nothing about living anywhere but America’s eastern flank. I’ve been plotting to travel worldwide in search of an optimal Perrin niche. A Perrin niche would be a place that welcomes lazy sugar addicts but doesn’t venerate McDonalds; a place where I could boat daily, own 5 dogs, dance by night and dress only in cashmere and high thread-count cotton. I don’t know if such a place is out there. But I don’t much care. I have late-stage Ferris Bueller syndrome.

I’m probably a fairly typical young adult, some key symptoms being: chronic restlessness; dissatisfaction with a good job; preoccupation with doing something meaningful with my life. Certainly when my dad asks what I’m going to do when I “return to the workforce,” it seems a bugger of a question. It’s better not to know when the return will be, isn’t it?  Now that I’ve quit my job, the only time in my head is T minus 20 days until Italy.

In the words of the feisty entrepreneur Jack Donaghy of 30 Rock, “You’re a lion. Take what’s yours.” Though Jack is a fictional character who talks to himself, I can’t shake his wisdom, and I can’t WAIT to take on Italy with Jet Set Zero.

Hi reader/viewer/tweeter/traveler/fan/ray of light (you’re more than one thing, why should I box you in?).  I’m Courtney and I’m also more than one thing.

Once, confined to a New York City cubicle I daydreamed of a life less regular.  One without constraints, without punch cards, without pant suits, and without rules.  Then in 2007 I quit my job to find said life and moved to Italy solo.  It was magical.  I started a blog.

My initial findings were anything but predictable:  real chicks do eat pasta, not all toilets have seats, and somewhere inside me was a new me.  A me that doesn’t need a television or someone telling me what to do (“Excuse me, could you please file my Awesome notes on my Awesome Idea in my Awesome Idea folder, please?”).  I found a me that can consume an entire jar of Nutella in one sitting.  The me that likes bicycles with baskets and fumbling through foreign languages and seeing the look on people’s faces when you tell them that they control their own destiny.

Ok, I got carried away.

But this new life of new-age travel journalism DOES suit me. I have spent the last three years feeling gloriously free, professionally satisfied, and pitifully underpaid. And what more can you want out of your twenties?  Besides dancing in drum circles and seeing how long you can feed yourself on supermarket samples (because those are good things to want out of life, too).

I don’t feel bad for inspiring others to quit their jobs or for wearing spandex as pants.  I do feel bad for people who are in an perpetual state of waiting…for what?  Why let your preexisting expectations of “grown up” hold you back?  Dance more and extract yourself from the cube. I’ve tried it. You’ll love it. (Psst: It’s MY Awesome Idea. Suck on that, Corporate America.)

Get the skinny on my big fat adventure here or get the scoop directly from the source—me!—at Courtney@jetsetzero.tv.

Dear people of internet, Hello my name is Ryan Preciado and I was told to write an introduction about myself. I Like long walks on the beach, ice tea, smooth jazz and fireplaces. My spirit animal is a sabertooth tiger and I am a Sagatarius.

I think you should know up front I will most likely be the dumpster fire of the show, and here’s why. Although I have a deceiving appearance I in fact do not speak any Spanish. Also unlike Everyone else on this cast I’ve never been on an airplane much less out of the country. Another reason is everything that could go wrong has, as far as getting my passport expidited , losing my birth certifacate and driving to LA to get it, forgetting about two tickets I have to pay off, having problems with my car right before I am selling it, and currently my ankle resembles a really bruised mango. So things seem to be going awesome.

I leave to Quito in what should be a week. Lets see if I can make that happen.