I never went away for college like lots of other kids do, I went to university in my hometown in Hawaii. After being exposed to new people, places and cultures through my studies, I felt like I had missed out on the chance to experience something and somewhere new for myself.
So the summer before I graduated, I decided to get outside of my comfort zone and study abroad in Paris. It was fulfilling for both my studies in art and design, and in my personal interest to explore. It was such an amazing experience that when I returned, my wanderlust was kicked into overdrive!
Up until Paris, I hadn’t travelled much at all and after spending my summer there, I decided that I didn’t want to just visit a place, I wanted to immerse myself in it. So I devised a plan that would allow me to achieve everything I wanted:
(1) See the world
(2) Truly get to know the destinations I spent time in
(3) In as many places as possible!
The plan was to live in a different city for six months at a time. This would mean that in just a few years, I would’ve immersed myself in more than a handful of cities.
This was, of course, the epic dream of a bright-eyed, fresh college graduate and unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), I was offered a job opportunity that I couldn’t pass up and decided to drop the dream to chase (a respectable) reality.
But I wasn’t going to totally give up on the dream! Instead of focusing on worldwide wandering, I poured myself into work but quickly realised I still needed to fuel the travel dream in order to balance out my day-to-day. And so, from this, came the birth of my annual birthday trip.
I’m not one to throw parties so this is a way for me to celebrate my birthday in my own way, doing what I love to do – explore! When I return, I always feel refreshed and ready to take on the year ahead of me.
So far I’ve spent March 22 in Maui, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Seattle, New York City, Jakarta, Singapore, Melbourne and Hong Kong.
The most memorable birthday trip so far was 2016. I had been living in Sydney for nearly two years but still hadn’t seen much of Australia so I decided to do a road trip from Melbourne to Adelaide. This one stuck out for me because it was so picturesque – the 12 Apostles and Great Ocean Road cliff sides were like nothing I’d ever seen and the ocean views were breathtaking. In this short amount of time and relatively short distance, I had seen and experienced so many different sides to Australia – from city to small towns and beaches to vineyards – and there was not one thing I didn’t love. It was just amazing.
Life naturally becomes richer with each passing year, but weaving travel into that takes it to a whole other level. It ages you, but in all the best ways. You grow in ways that you don’t expect and discover things about yourself (and others) that you never knew. And if you let it, it will change your perspective on life and bring deeper meaning to the world around you. To me, that’s the best present money can buy!
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