Fueled by the Kindness of Others (June 11, 2026)

Written By Bill Carmody

In just two weeks time, on Thursday, June 25th, I will return from my 52 weeks of travel around the world. Today I am contemplating the immense generosity and immeasurable kindness I’ve received this year throughout my travels. Strangers become friends and friends become extended family members. It’s awe-inspiring.

Met Jill Medina Elizalde from Massachusetts. I’m in awe of her support.

I have yet to meet Jill Medina Elizalde in real life — something I plan on rectifying upon my return home to the United States. She lives in South Deerfield, Massachusetts, and we mostly know each other from LinkedIn and WhatsApp communication. When I told her that I would be in Buenos Aires, she asked me if I planned on visiting Uruguay while I was so close. Yes, I told her, I’ve never been and I love that I can take a ferry from Argentina into this country. And that after that I’d head to my final destination in Santiago, Chile before returning home.

With that, Jill and her husband took it upon themselves to make all kinds of arrangements to ensure I have the best possible first experience while visiting Montevideo and their favorite place, La Paloma. They are planning to retire there eventually and have made a ton of friends while regularly visiting this part of the world.

Within days, I now have a highly recommended place to stay in Montevideo, an invitation to stay with some of their close friends while in La Paloma, practice Yoga, and a horseback ride on the beach. And that’s not all. Jill reached out to her dear friend in Chile and I’ve been invited to give a talk and share some of my experiences with this powerful community — they are even providing a translator! Wow.

Meeting up with Anne-Marie Griffin nearly 12 months ago

If you look back at my blog (some 340 posts ago), you’ll see the kindness of others began on Day One of my trip, when Anne-Marie Griffin met me at the airport, took me to her office in LinkedIn so I could have breakfast with her, showed me around Dublin, and then drove me back to her place in Greystones where I would stay with her and her husband Sean for several days. At that time, Anne-Marie was pregnant with her son, Leo, but you’d never know it. She was taking me on long walks and exploring her beautiful country.

Properly Thanking Everyone

For much of my trip, I hand wrote thank you notes to each person where I stayed in their home. This is something my mom taught me to do early on and I appreciate her strong suggestion to never miss an opportunity to acknowledge someone’s kindness and generosity of spirit. This post is a bit more ambitious.

You know how at the end of the movie you see a solid 7 to 10 minutes of credits rolling on the screen of all the amazing humans it took to put together the movie you just saw? The rest of this post is like that. I’m going to do my best to illustrate all the incredible support I received from this trip and the many, many people who helped me turn this dream into a reality.

Each link takes you to a blog post where more information can be found about what happened on that particular day. As you can see it’s a very, very long list of links. That’s how much incredible kindness and support I received throughout my year abroad. I apologize in advance if I missed anyone who’s name should be on this list. Please consider this a “living draft” and feel free to reach out to me if I’ve inadvertently left your name off the list. I promise you, it was an oversight, and not intentional.

Pre-Trip Planning

To begin, I am deeply grateful for the people who helped me with the full year’s planning effort, especially:

Europe

This is where it all started and where I had, by far, the most support from coaches and friends living in this part of the world. This includes:

30: And the above were just the FIRST 30 DAYS of my trip!!! Wow. Next:

60: And, two months in, my daughter Violet joins the party

90: And this is only the FIRST 90 DAYS, when Elena joins the party

Asia

With the first 3 months focused on Europe, it was time to head to Japan and being the next 90 days exploring the many parts of Asia.

And this is 180 Days in, or THE FIRST HALF of my Travels!?!

While not originally planning to come back to the US, once Violet joined Elena in returning to New York for Christmas, my plans changed and I regrouped with my family there. It was wonderful to see so many friends and family members after being away for the first 6 months. It was an unexpected recharge that helped fuel me for the next (and final) six months (see below).

Asia

My original plan was to spend the Christmas holidays in the Philippines. So once the holidays were over, that was the first place on my list in January so that I could meet up with Positive Intelligent’s many amazing support staff based here. And all of whom I’d previously only know via the virtual tools Slack and Zoo.

Oceania (Austrailia & NZ)

And that takes us to ¾ of the trip (i.e. 270 days in). To be clear, once Elena, Will & Violet were all with me (January through March 2026), we spent a lot more time together as a family and less meet-ups with coaches all over the world.

Asia (Back With Family)

Mexico & South America

And if you made it to this point, CONGRATULATIONS! You’re the kind of person who generates empathetic joy — a deep feeling of love and gratitude from celebrating the incredible gifts of others. Thank you for scrolling through the unabridged credits that supported my full year of traveling abroad.

As you can see, NONE of this would have been possible without the unwavering support of an entire global community of friends and family members. Coming back to the beginning of my post … it’s still not done! It was the immense generosity and immeasurable kindness of Jill Medina Elizalde that sparked this tidal wave of gratitude.

Here’s someone from Massachusetts arm chair quarterbacking the last two weeks of my travels in Uruguay and Chile. Why? Because she, like everyone included in the rolling credits above, is an awesome human! When we choose to lead with love, we send ripples out into the universe. The kindness of others strengthens the interconnected oneness of which we are all a part.

Lastly, I want to acknowledge the many, many supporters who, like Jill, have cheered us on from their computers. From LinkedIn comments on posts to the many, many comments received on individual posts right here on the individual BillCarmody.com/blog posts. I see you. I hear you. And your comments, suggestions and encouragement continued to fuel my journey for the past 50 weeks. Thank you for your tireless efforts and continued support. I love you!

Bill Carmody
Next

Pablo Panigatti in Buenos Aires, AR (June 10, 2026)