Friday 14 August 2015

Plans

My friend bought me this journal quite a few years ago and I haven't used it... until now! 

Welcome to the first post of my travel blog! Although I won't be travelling for a while yet, I wanted to post this to give you a little bit of background on my travel plans.

I've had a lot of things going on over the last few months but I'm in a good place now. With all these things happening, it has made me think a lot about all the plans I had. The main one being to travel but that has been on hold since 2008... a long time on hold! The reasons it has been on hold for so long is because I lost my job back in 2008 and had a tough time getting back into work, then I went to college and haven't had much work since. The other reason is because of being a carer for my nan, I didn't really feel that I could leave her as the rest of the family work or have families of their own.

When I was at college, I met someone that I lost contact with when I left but we've recently met up a couple of times. He's made me realise that life is too short not to do the things you've dreamed of and that I need to be happy and get on with my life without always putting other people first. He is travelling for the summer so it's made me think about travelling even more!

My travel plans included visiting my Great Uncle in South Africa and doing the working holiday visa in Australia. I can't do the working holiday visa now... too old! I'm not 100% sure where I want to travel to yet but these two places are still very much on my list. 
* September 2015 - Update on possible countries to visit: South Africa, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and Australia.

I would really like to travel for a year but it all depends on how much I can save and if I can't save enough for a year, I will just do a shorter trip! I think it will probably be about 18 months before I'm ready to go.

I have wanted to do this for so long, so now is the time to get a job (it is hard though!), read the travel guides, start making proper travel plans, maybe find a travel buddy although most people I know have families of their own (I feel a bit scared about doing it on my own!) and generally getting it sorted!


The travel guides I've collected over the years, mostly from charity shops.

New travel books