not quitting my job to travel

I love reading travel bloggers and this is a calling to the rest of us travel lovers, who love to follow you, to come and apply it to our own lives in a practical way. In fact, I hope to make this an independent woman lifestyle blog for us “millennials”

As a travel lover, you can imagine I consume a not-so-healthy dose of Pinterest, blogs, Instagrams, etc of adventurers living the dream! After lusting through yet another blog filled with Insta-perfect dragonfruit bowls in an exotic Asian country and wishing I was a travel blogger, it finally clicked. I can have this dream but it doesn’t need to BE my life.

I don’t want to survive on a living. I want to live. I love that a vacation for me is a chance to get away and for a tiny bit live in a fantasy world, learn from those with lives different from our own. I realized I wouldn’t appreciate the travel as much if I were doing it continuously, while working. What we don’t see through our rose-tinted social media glasses is the laptop and cell phone in hand at all times.

I don’t want that and chances are, if you’re still reading, neither do you. I want to roll in the sand, snorkel, make friends with locals into the wee hours of the night, and not worry about uploading a travel guide in my free time or getting sand into the keyboard of my precious Macbook!! It’s not as peaceful and relaxing as a good photographer makes it look

I am a 20-something that is trying to figure out what to do with her life. I work a full-time job in biotechnology in San Diego and yet my friends, family and social media peers ask me tips on the travels I have been on. I always laughed it off as a (ridiculous) compliment because I have hardly covered all that I want to on my bucket list so I never saw myself as a traveler, let alone an expert to give someone else advice! But talking to other people I saw that I’ve done by best to squeeze in travel whenever I can and how that is SUCH a privilege. It doesn’t have to be out of reach for others!

As cheesy as this is, I realized I can share this life experience with others. I don’t know how to pack up my belongings in a few suitcases and leave to travel for a whole freaking year with no plan. But I do know how to manage my finances practically and save enough each month to comfortably take a few trips a year! I am not (yet) a master watercolorist that can make illustrating into a business but I know how important maintaining a good hobby is for a modern, independent woman (or man). I may not own my own business but I am constantly on the hunt for, and great at finding, inspiration from empowered people who can show me how to improve.

We are all going along in this life working on some aspect of ourselves, even those who seem like experts. SO I hope to meet some likeminded people through this blog!