I matured exceptionally close with my household. My mum was always my friend and my bro, regardless of there being eleven years between us, was my closest confidant. While my friends were out partying at bars on Friday nights, I was enjoying action movies on the couch with my dad. And Sundays? You d better think there was a roast on the table at 6:00 pm sharp, weekly.
Travel blogs have actually been around for an extremely long time. I was certainly in the very first handful of travel influencers (as they are now known) who have actually formed much of what travel is as we know it today.
Saying farewell is never easy, however the time has actually come.
It was the most amazing year of my life.
My concept was that, for a girl in her early twenties, this would be a corner of the web that offered escapism for everybody else who had uneasy feet like mine.
When I disappeared from their lives for an entire twelve months, suffice it to say that we all understood, rather rapidly, that I was creating my own path in the world.
A fond goodbye to World of Wanderlust.
All I wanted was to run away, check out the world, see it, taste it, experience it. Therefore, I made a profession where it was possible to do simply that– to earn money to take a trip the world. Not in a business task where I solutioned to somebody– anyone– but rather a job where I would take a trip like any regular gap year trainee and share my experiences with my readers on the blog site and fans on Instagram.
In December 2012 I began a blog site and called it World of Wanderlust.
Throwback: My first instagram post( s).
For better or for even worse, travel has actually ended up being an important part of our lives and leaving to foreign cities, countryside landscapes and villages is how numerous of us make it through the dullness of work, to savour those moments we are truly living.I was about to enter my final year of university at the time and had no concept what I wanted to finish with my life. The next year when I finished, I booked a one-way ticket to London and set off on a year of adventures where I traveled, non-stop, for a year. I invested that whole year taking a trip throughout Europe, South America, North America, Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Oceania.
For much better or for even worse, travel has actually become an important part of our every day lives and escaping to foreign cities, countryside landscapes and villages is the number of us survive the dullness of work, to savour those minutes we are really living.
This post has actually been a long time coming and before saying anything, Ill say that I am most importantly humbled and grateful to every one of you who have actually tuned in to see my adventures over the last 9 years.
I cant be the only one who feels like this, I would state to myself.
However when I consider it in retrospection, Im sure they knew it was coming. I had actually always been eager for experiences and escapism, preparing my next trip practically as quickly as I had actually returned from the last.
2013 in a New York City snow storm.
I do not think Ill ever forget how that journey felt for me. Thirteen is a very impressionable age and as a kid who matured in a little town, suddenly my horizons were opening up. I started to question everything I understood or believed I knew. And the feeling of anything being possible started to shape my outlook on life.
When I was 13 years old, my fixation with travel began. I left my home nation, Australia, for the very first time on a 10-day journey to Hong Kong with a bunch of other kids. We would be singing at a movie best (Les Choristes, the French film about a boarding house choir, for those wondering!) This trip was the moment I fell for discovering various cultures, languages, food, and so much more. Every inch of discovery within my teenage self was awakened.
2014 with my mommy in Prague.
I would take a trip back to Hong Kong aged 15 and 17, having saved sufficient cash working at my local grocery store. Even if Ive copped a couple of too numerous “trust fund infant” insults over the years (no, my parents have actually never paid for any of my life of travel). It does not, however, alter the truth that I worked for every dollar I earned to take a trip.
2015, Living in Berlin.
Internally I wanted both.
My year of adventures.
With my trainee debt covertly accumulating and nothing however my one backpack weighing me down, I triggered on my own for a while. It was time to understand the last 18 years of institutionalised knowing and more precisely, start making sense of me.
It was a surprise to my household who were anticipating me at some point after Christmas. I didnt know it then, however that trip home would mark the start of a continuous fight within myself. I was torn between an adventurous way of life and a peaceful life in the house in Tasmania.
I took a trip primarily by train and always by land where possible. I digress– this is a magnificent part of the world and calming in its own method.
On the day I graduated university I booked a one-way flight to London.
That year was a whirlwind. I spent a few days in each city I went to and when I was particularly fond of a location, I stayed longer.
Who was I? Who would I end up being? These were burning concerns niggling away at my sense of self. I had spent the last eighteen years of deep social conditioning learning what was best or wrong, great or bad. It was time to choose for myself.
Then, after 12 months traveling non-stop, I scheduled a flight house to attend my siss wedding.
On the outdoors I developed a personality around travel, restlessness and a pressing case of wanderlust. A personality that took me worldwide a couple of times over, to 80-something countries across 6 continents.
In the High Atlas Mountains, Morocco.
2016 landing in National Geographic.
There are too many highlights to count of my last nine years taking a trip solo around the globe.
Like the memory I have of the time I sold all my things and relocated to South Africa. Or when, just a year later on, I loaded my bags and returned– in the opposite instructions.
” Brooke, youve taken a trip everywhere, tell us, where is your preferred place?”.
It is a concern I have actually heard too lots of times to count.
Later we would flee to Los Angeles to avoid all their adult years duty in a desperate effort to take advantage of our golden years. Our twenties. Thinking we had actually exhausted the dating pool of our tiny towns, we triggered on a self-imposed social experiment of cross-culture dating that would yield some … intriguing outcomes.
” We need to cut up our charge card and get our expenses in check. Go discover a cabin in the woods and live off the land for a while” was a discussion I can perfectly keep in mind, word for word, after paying nearly $400 for excess baggage at the tail end of a boozy journey to Upstate New York. Seriously, how I keep in mind that trip is a wonder in itself. When it comes to the discussion word for word? It was a sobering reality to state the least.
It is a concern I am typically posed at dinner parties.
And if Im honest, I never answer the very same way two times. Since there is no particular answer– simply years of experiences, memories, new faces, old faces and minutes. Pleased moments, unfortunate minutes, life-altering minutes and humorous moments.
There was the time I fled to New Zealand and lived in a van for nearly a month. My finest pal Sophie came with me and we debated, over numerous bottles of red white wine, the attraction of celibacy and finding relationship satisfaction in your pals. It was (to nobodys surprise) after a separation that would leave me sad for years.
2018 on my veranda in Paris.
I spent my 22nd birthday alone in an apartment or condo I leased on Zehdenicker Straße in the heart of Berlin. I celebrated my 24th birthday in London. My 26th birthday was invested in the dance flooring of a dive bar in East Los Angeles. And on my 29th birthday, I was travelling through South Africas Winelands in a drunken haze.
And how could I forget the vegan yoga retreat in the South of New Zealand? My insides were churning with detox tea, which I d like to think would be better geared up with a rebranding– poop tea. Are any of us amazed I shed a few kilos in a couple of days? A fact of which, I d like to mention, was secondary to the bucketloads of emotional luggage I left behind in the foothills of those mountains.
This is the closing of the World of Wanderlust chapter– as my identity and sense of self. The site will reside on and continue to release travel short articles to inspire and assist solo female travelers. I personally will be hanging up my hat and carrying on to a new chapter.
The minutes that made me (me).
Starting the next chapter.
I when discovered myself on a personal island off the coast of Zanzibar at a honeymooners paradise. I was, of course, alone.
Ive always been a supporter of having several passions and pastimes. I do not think it is too presumptuous to say that we human beings are naturally multi-faceted.
You can still discover me on instagram @worldwanderlust and my individual account @brookesaward.
There was a time I traveled to the South of France and incorrectly found myself traveling along the A8 motorway, journeying from Cannes to Monaco … on a Vespa.
This year I am turning 30.
I do not wish to pretend that doesnt carry some sort of weight for me, since I d be lying if I said I wasnt feeling some sort of method about this milestone.
Im also on Youtube and my new blog site can be discovered at www.brookesaward.com.
There were moments I can pinpoint that were unique in other methods. Not for the relationships thrown under a microscopic lense through the lens of travel or the young boys that broke my heart, but for the precise opposite: solitude.
Coming to the end of one chapter.
Through all of these adventures and misadventures, I have become a more rounded, entire and happy version of myself. But I dont get the very same sense of accomplishment or satisfaction I when did from solo travel.
If nothing else, the turn of a decade has forced me to examine my life so far.
Ive loved every minute of it. Every plane ticket booked on an impulse, every bad choice. Everyone who started as a stranger and soon ended up being a pal. Every drunken night out. Every cosy night in.
Then I decided to visit a location I had been conserving for a later date. “Im waiting for my honeymoon,” I d inform my sweethearts. “It simply appears too romantic to waste on myself,” I d continue. I was naturally discussing Greece, one of the most popular locations for honeymoon and couples trips. I went there alone in 2017. I was starting to understand simply how much I enjoyed my own business. And unexpectedly a life of being single and solo flashed before my eyes. I understood I was entirely delighted when I believed that doesnt look so bad.
Seeing where I began and how far Ive come considering that then. And an invite to myself to begin over anew.
We are all much better at some things than others. Im rather proficient at hanging around alone (after having actually done it a lot), however that wasnt always the case.
My twenties remained in numerous ways about finding myself. And you best think I looked everywhere!
The act of taking a trip in itself has become something of a normality to me. That does not imply I dont still enjoy it with every inch of my being. However too much of anything is … excessive.
Bon trip to the blog site, my faithful readers and buddies!
For much better or for worse, travel has ended up being an integral part of our day-to-day lives and getting away to foreign cities, countryside landscapes and little towns is how many of us get through the dullness of work, to savour those minutes we are really living.I was about to enter my last year of university at the time and had no concept what I desired to do with my life. The next year when I graduated, I booked a one-way ticket to London and set off on a year of adventures where I traveled, non-stop, for a year. I invested that whole year taking a trip throughout Europe, South America, North America, Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Oceania.
Brooke x.
I was certainly in the very first handful of travel influencers (as they are now known) who have shaped much of what travel is as we understand it today.
Even if Ive copped a few too lots of “trust fund baby” insults over the years (no, my moms and dads have actually never paid for any of my life of travel).
