September 2012 I decided to leave the world I knew behind and realize my dream of traveling the world. I have made this blog to share my stories and experiences to help fellow travelers who hope to do the same.
My name is Grant and much like everyone else I was always an average guy and was living a normal life until I left to travel. But the one thing I felt was deep down in my blood was travel and adventure. Like some strong urge that always ate away at me telling me to live a life I thought was impossible. If I were born a few hundred years earlier I would have been a merchant or sailor exploring the unknown. But in modern times we live different lives and the idea of just setting off feels impossible.
Prior to traveling I was working for myself at home doing online and affiliate marketing. I had seen some success and some failures. For nearly 5 years I worked away at my computer on my couch watching the travel channel and cursing Anthony Bourdain and Samantha Brown for being so lucky and having such amazing lives. My life consisted of my living room and office. Some day ill go travel. Some day I will listen to that voice. Some day.
It wasn’t until April of 2012 that I got a serious wake up call. In nearly two months my girl friend of 5 years left me, my business was destroyed, and my lease was up. My life drastically changed and I had a choice to make. Do I start life over again? A new city, a new job? The next few months I visited family and started to move on a little. I tried to think about where I should move, what I should do. But when you can make a fresh start how do you decide the where and what without some guidance or reason to do so.
It wasn’t until August that I decide to leave it all. I was staying in my father’s guest room at the time and really doing nothing with my life. One night I was watching the Travel Channel and for some reason it was just too much this time. Look how amazing their lives are, and look at me doing nothing living at my dads waiting for life to happen. Suddenly the idea caught like a virus. I had the chance now to finally do the unthinkable. I could finally stop telling everyone how much I want to travel and finally do it.
I was up all night researching, planning, looking at videos and reading travel blogs. If other people could do it than so could I. Once you catch the bug there is no going back. I planned out a simple trip to the UK on paper. What days where, what hostels, what flights and busses. Once it was on paper and I wrote it down I had committed myself to follow though.
It was only 3 days later when I purchased my one-way ticket to London. My mind was made up and I wanted to act before I got scared and backed down. It was early September 2012 that I left the life I had known behind and set out on a trip I didn’t plan and had no idea what I was doing. This was my first time ever visiting another country and I was as green as they get when it came to traveling.
Its now a full year later and I am still on the road. I still don’t know where I am going but the past year has been the best year of my life. I hope reading my stories will encourage others travel and realize their dreams. Its not nearly as hard or scary as you think.
