Born and raised in South Florida by very West Indian parents, culture was all I knew. From the activities my mom had me in to living in Trinidad as a child, I started to romanticize traveling and discovering new people and cultures. Through school, I studied world cultures and learned French, feeding my urge to explore anything different than what I knew.
I’ve never had just one travel destination, I wanted to visit every country and meet people from all over. This romantic fantasy wasn’t about falling in love with people, it was (like many fantasies) about feeding my desire to be submerged in a new culture and exploring it until I was satisfied. By the time I finished college, I was itching to be anywhere, but Florida. I moved out of the state for the first time, to Texas. In my first year of adulting, I started traveling abroad with friends and I just knew.
I knew I couldn’t stop.
I knew this was the life God meant for me.
So I set some travel goals:
I will see the 7 wonders of the world before 30.
I will visit 30 countries before 30.
I will touch all 7 continents before 30.
Why was 30 the magic number?
Your guess is as good as mine. Either way, this is where the seed for the blog was planted. I’ve always loved writing, so friends pushed me to marry the two interests. Can’t have a travel blog without traveling, soooo… I started traveling more and quickly realized that my current group of friends was not exactly the group of friends I’d be hitting these goals with. I explored a few countries testing out other people as “travel friends” and no one really stuck.
Fast forward to the panorama and the need for “travel friends” halted for a bit. The blog idea had been resurfacing each year around Jan 1 (yes, I’m basic, I know), but never took off. I made little steps here and there, but never fully took the leap. Life got back to semi-normal in early 2021 (still in the Panasonic), I had a light workload and lots of time. Now I’ve always been a(n) *over*thinker, but in my free time I found myself reimagining travel.
Here’s where I landed.
Traveling isn’t about the location stamp for your social media. It’s about the freedom that swoops in and replaces the stress in that deep sigh when you leave work. It’s about the weight of the breeze in a Belizean Rainforest. So I threw out my “before 30” travel goals and I dared to live instead. My perspective shifted and so did my environment. I started to really pay attention to where my feelings traveled in relationships and my day-to-day life, where my mind traveled in stress vs happiness, and where I traveled to explore and love. I listened and leaned into it. I looked around and noticed other people doing the same thing, not everyone, but I wasn’t the only one. It just didn’t seem like it was getting enough shine.
Travel Tip #1: Lean into it. Whatever it is.
I made this blog to share this moment and message:
We’re all on a journey, every day, every month, every year, every season of our lives.
Be present with yourself wherever you are on your journey.
You don’t have to be in a new place to be in a new place.
But also, book the damn flight. You feel me?
The plan from TSA to takeoff seems so linear in our minds, but as soon as you enter those sliding double doors, you realize it’s never that simple. I wanted this process to come with a step-by-step guide and make sense 100% of the time, but it gets messy in between… really messy. Sometimes the Uber driver is slow, the bag check line is out the door, TSA has a hold up, you packed too much, you forgot your ID, you didn't check in on time, the flight’s delayed, or worse, the flight is early, the list goes on. Whether literally or metaphorically, just when you think you’ve checked all the boxes, you realize there is no checklist. I’m here to own my mess and share how I found my sweet spot: enjoying where I am and where I want to be.
A visual representation of the process… just when you think you know what’s going on…
Stay light and lean in,
-Mai
(I feel like I need a disclaimer. So here it is: I am not responsible for the interpretation and/or application of any opinions/ideas/advice given in this blog. These are my own thoughts, based on my own experiences.)