If you take a moment to search my travel essay collection you’ll notice that my travel diary consists of around 170 stories devoted to travel. If you love travel, then you may enjoy some of these stories.
Even I was surprised at the number of stories, but more so in the number of trips and locations that I’ve had the opportunity to explore over these last eight years. Now if I also factor the additional trips since my writing journey first began back in 2011 on Google (original home of my essay) you’d be likely looking at in excess of 350 stories. That equates to almost half of my essays dedicated to my travel diary.
The remainder of my stories are, as you know dedicated to life and importance of self, mindset, stories from my childhood and life with Zach and Sam
I realize that my writing is eclectic to say the least but isn’t that the spice of life – variety in life experiences.
The intent of me beginning writing back in 2011 was to create a lasting list of stories for Zach and Sam because at that time I was constantly travelling for work and if something ever happened to me, they would be able to read the stories of my childhood, my travel and views on life in general to understand who I really was. It was my gift to them.
I believe I’ve stayed true to that founding ideal but fast forward some 14 years and I’m still writing, perhaps less so for the legacy for Zach and Sam, but more because I’ve fallen in love with the art of writing. Just as my travel diary has become an important aspect of my life, so is my weekly writing routine.
From an early age I was always fascinated by faraway places and the thrill of seeking out new cities, countries and the like. What I found via my travel diary was much more than these things, I found myself.
To become a traveller, you need to be okay with ambiguity and change, next you have to be good exploring without a map and confident enough to know that you can look after yourself. Each of these traits builds resilience and resourcefulness which strangely isn’t that common in the truest sense of the terms.
Sure, in the corporate world everyone speaks of resilience and resourcefulness, but until you find yourself in a country where you don’t speak the language, or fully understand the customs and have to navigate to find the basics – food, water and shelter and possibly get yourself through militia held checkpoints then you really don’t know what resilience and resourcefulness is.
I’m sure some of you are thinking “why would you put yourself through those types of experiences?” Weighing up your risks is only one part of the travel experiences, sometimes situations around you can change at the drop of a hat and need to quickly assess the situation, your personal safety being of paramount important, before you act. However, sometimes you must act and quickly.
These types of experiences have helped me enormously in life outside of travel. More often than it’s about intuitively keeping attuned to what’s going on around you, evaluating quickly and keeping a clear head while acting to resolve a situation.
In essence it comes down to an adaptive and positive mindset…
The travel diary that I’ve been fortunate to accumulate and document over the years has been full of incredible experiences, welcoming people and most of all an opportunity for me to live life on my terms. Too often I see those around me playing it safe and rarely getting outside their comfort zone or experiencing new things or taking a risk albeit small.
I realize not everyone is built like me and thrives on adventure and travel, and that’s okay but I know I couldn’t survive mentally or emotionally if I played it safe and chose not to pursue these aspects of my life.
A part of me documenting my travel diary via a weekly essay is to help share my personal experiences with those of you less inclined to travel, but perhaps life vicariously through my eyes. Maybe it’s the marrying of my love of writing and love of travel that enables you and those around me to enjoy my travel adventure essays so much.
In addition, to writing about my adventures as a travel journalist I’ve also been able to capture images via my camera during many of these experiences. Currently, I have approximately 7.7 terabytes of cloud storage which translates into almost 600,000 photos that I’ve captured since 2011 when I got my first DSLR camera.
To see a small handful of these you can check out my Instagram or Facebook pages, or see the links via my website.
I’m proud of the life I’ve been able to create for myself and the travel journalist, writer and the author I’ve become. My hope is that not only do Zach and Sam benefit from me documenting my journey, but you as well. If you know someone who loves travel and adventure please feel free to share this post and first link in this essay with them for hours of reading pleasure.
Until next week
Ciao!
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