Traveling is such an amazing privilege to have. Having the ability to explore different areas and countries is something people would love to have, especially those who aren’t as privileged to have the ability to travel.
I admire and aspire to be one of those travelers who travel beyond the tourist places. The travelers who look for those local, sometimes secluded places with hidden gems that are untouched by tourists and the outside world.
Here, you’ll find the reality of how locals live. Both the glamours and harsh reality of life in these places. For better or worse, I’d love to explore these places and get to know the locals and their ways of life.
That is my goal, to be able to travel and explore like that. However, getting to these places takes a lot of resources and time. Time, which if you’re like me with a 9-5 job, you don’t necessarily have.
I am a full-time social worker. Meaning, most of the time I work. I only take vacations for about 3 to 7 days a month or every few months. That’s also dependent on my supervisor’s approval when I request PTO (personal time off).
So, unlike some travelers who are able to travel full-time, I can’t do that. I can’t travel to such remote places in foreign places and truly get the authentic experience.
Travelers, like Christianne from Backing Bananas or Eva Zu Beck on YouTube inspire me to really explore and broaden my horizon in lands that aren’t my own. That raw, untamed experience is something I crave.
However, traveling to those places, like I mentioned, can take quite some time to get to. When I only have but so many PTO days to use, and such little time off when I use my PTO, I’m not able to fulfill that raw, authentic type of travel I long to do.
That’s not to say I won’t ever get the chance to do so. I would love the opportunity to travel like that. Yet, in my current 9-5 job, it makes it very difficult to travel to such exotic and off the beaten path places.
I must say that I am very grateful to have a job and am able to travel at all. I am truly in a fortunate situation to be able to do that in the first place.
But, having a typical job that locks you in a specific place most of the year, and makes it real difficult to take off for more than a week, creates challenges to the style of travel that I want to do.
Alas, for now, I must continue to do what I can do to make money so I can travel but also pay my bills. But on the side, I’ll continue to create content for my blog and YouTube channel, and engage with my lovely followers on Twitter and Instagram.
- JoJo Hall ❤️✈️