You Only Live Once

Life's an adventure, right? I have heard that YOLO seems to have become an internet sensation, used repeatedly by teenage girls and slandered by the cynics for its faux-inspirational message. I'm not sure about this, as I don't keep up with trends. I seem to be remarkably in adept at communicating with the rest of the world, and seem to live under a proverbial rock. But the important part is that despite the internet's prodigious talent for turning something meaningful into over popularised trash, You Only Live Once is still a valid point. I think Mark Twain said it best (as he so often does) when he said:

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

My first travel adventures began almost 7 years ago, when I was offered the chance to go on a tour of New Zealand with a relative. I was very young, and I didn't take the decision lightly. I knew from experience that I would miss my parents, and I wasn't very close to the relative in question. But in the end I asked myself two very simple questions. Will I regret it if I don't go? and What do I want my life to be? The answer to the first question was obviously yes. The answer to the second question then became a bit clearer. 

In the end that trip turned out to be a disaster. For various reasons, few which are particularly clear, I was sent home, alone, half way through the trip. I was never given an explanation, and to this day I don't know why it happened. I do remember crying in a hotel room for several hours. It was pretty traumatic and was partly responsible for several long, dark years that had me contemplating the least painful way to die several times. Lets just say high school was tough. But I made it through in the end, and if I had to ask myself if I regret going on that first overseas trip, which ended so horribly and caused so much grief, the answer would have to be a very firm No. Because that trip started something. 

I think I was born to travel. I have never been comfortable with the idea of staying in the one place,  living and dying in the same place you were born without ever having seen the world. When I was seventeen I made a bucket list. This was partly inspired by the movie (which I would recommend to anyone), and partly inspired by the need to have a plan. I was at the age when you start to wonder about what you life is going to mean and what you are going to do with it. I was also at the age where the idea of having a 9-5 job, and a life that involved nothing by work, sleep and a drink with friends on the weekend was possibly the worst fate I could be condemned to. So I dreamed of escape. Which of course means travel. 

This list has changed a few times over the last few years. I still have the original. And I have the current one. It is my aim to spend my life seeing the world we are lucky enough to be born into. And along the way, I plan to make a difference. This is my record, a life-long travel blog. This is where I will write about my adventures both past and future. And they will be numerous.