This September marks ten years since I donned my backpack and first jumped on a plane heading out of Europe, beginning with five months of exploring Southeast Asia.
The first five years were spent as a backpacker, stopping now and then for a few months to work and save some money, before spending the next few months on the move.
The previous five years have been a change of pace, as I set out to discover how I could continue with my now slow-travel lifestyle. This led me to the path of an accountancy qualification, which is now reaching its finale, and resulted in a very work and study-centric period of my life.
It left little brain power for much else and, though we (my partner Miki and I) haven’t been fully stationary during this period, having spent time in Albania, Corfu and Italy, as well as a few different locations around the UK, I was unable to muster much energy for writing. This has resulted in a bank of many half-written blog posts – some of which will hopefully eventually be finished and will see the light of day (/my blog site).
Now, ten years from when I first left for Southeast Asia, I’m back again. Having just celebrated my 36th birthday I enjoyed a flashback of the previous ten birthdays. From my 26th birthday, spent on Cat Ba Island in the north of Vietnam just a few days into my trip, to my 36th spent with Miki in a rainforest resort a little south of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I’ve spent my birthday on three continents and eight countries over this past decade and was lucky to have spent every year with a cracking (though not often the same) bunch of folk.
Somewhere along the way, I realised that my nomadic lifestyle really began many years before I left the UK, having spent no more than two consecutive years in the same house since the age of about 11. So in that sense, this is perhaps my ten year international nomad-versary. Though I imagine they did it without intention, I have to thank my parents for initially helping me build the skills I now possess, to adapt to so many different situations and circumstances, and for truly loving a life filled with change – an idea which I know fills so many with discomfort or fear.
I find it difficult to put into words the gratitude I feel for having been able to experience this way of living. A way that has made me appreciate all that I have and experience in my home country, as well as all those moments while out ‘on the road’.
