In exactly fifteen days, I fly from Seattle to Bangkok, Thailand to begin a trip that I have been dreaming about for around a decade. Many of the decisions I have made in that time have been to make this trip possible, and now I'm actually leaving. I'm getting my vaccinations and starting to pack. This is actually happening people!!
I have been working towards taking a significant chunk of time of to travel for quite a while. It seems like it's possible to have either the time or the money, but it's a lot more difficult to have both. Now that I have managed to scrounge up a little bit of each, I'm off to explore. I don't plan to return to the States until next June. The first leg of my trip is a loop around Southeast Asia. Not only is it an area of the world that is much cheaper for travel than the United States or Europe, but it is significantly different from anywhere else I have ever been. I am traveling for an 'amount of money' not an 'amount of time,' so the wiser I am with my money, the longer I get to explore.
One of the main goals for my travels is to experience lifestyles and cultures that are unlike what I am accustomed to. It's pretty incredible to think that all the things that I take for granted as 'normal' things would seem incredibly strange to someone else and vice versa. I also plan to take on a variety of volunteer projects and stay in a few places for a longer time instead of a only a few days in more places. (If you or anyone you know has done any volunteer work in Asia, I would love to hear about their experience.) I look forward to gathering some new skills, as well as getting to know the areas that I will be living in from a perspective other than that of a tourist.
A majority of my trip is still up in the air (this is intentional to stay flexible), but I will tell you what I do know. The first thirty days will be spend in Thailand, some of them with one of my roommates from college, taking a couple of small trips out to beaches and such from Bangkok. I will then make my way east to the Siem Reap area in Cambodia. I will spend a decent time in this area, and find some volunteering to do around here. I'll then head over to the capitol Phnom Penh for some touristy things. Then the goal is to head north through Vietnam to meet my lovely friend Alski for Christmas and New Years.
I'll try to be good at updating this blog with at least a few pictures quasi-regularly.
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