Six months ago, I started planning a trip. At first it was just a few plane trips to visit a couple of international friends, but when it came to the question of when I would be able to make these journeys, I came to the startling realisation that I had absolutely no concrete or definite plans for my future. I was about the conclude my sixteenth year of education, on the cusp of finishing my three year undergraduate degree at university, and somewhere in the back of my mind, it became very clear to me that I was ready to shelve the textbooks for a while and get out there and join the real world.

Yet the idea of getting a full time job was particularly daunting, considering I lacked even the slightest sliver of a career path. And that’s when it hit me: I shouldn’t try to fit these travels around my year – I should make them my year. I’ve had far too many of my older friends lament to me about how they wished they traveled more when they were younger and had the time, how their biggest regret was not doing an exchange semester while in university. I did not want to be another brick in that wall. With my studying behind me and an open-ended future, it didn’t take long to come to the conclusion that I did – I was going to see the world.

Now, on the morning of my departure from Sydney, it all seems a little surreal. After reiterating my travel itinerary about a hundred times as I’ve said goodbye to all my friends and family, my future plans have rushed up to meet me as the present. This 9 month journey will take me further from home than I’ve ever been, completely removed from anything familiar, and this morning I’m filled with equal parts of excitement and nervousness. But heading off into the unknown is all part of the adventure – to see what I’ve not seen before, to go where I have never been, and to create my own story from the various journeys along the way.

Which brings me to this – my travel blog. I’ve been a writer for a long time now, in both a personal and semi-professional capacity. If there was a specific point to this whole trip, I suppose it would be to learn a little more about myself, and discover enough to maybe one day open up a clearer path to my future. Writing is one of the few things I do know, and so I hope to combine my known with the unknown in order to make sense of the vast and ever changing world around me.

And hopefully, I will be able to include my readers in my discovery of the world around me. So I look forward to my next experience on this journey, so that I may live it, write it, and share it back into the world.

Bon voyage!