Seeking Some Wanderlust

Top 8 Things I Did Before Departing on my Travels

maceyryan — Thu, 10 Mar 2016 03:34:00 GMT

In the past few weeks I have been doing lots of research into where I am thinking of traveling to, what I should pack, how I should get around. There are a lot of lists made that start with Top 10 - Top 10 things to pack, Top 10 places to visit, things to do, things to wear, thing to avoid.... Basically, its like a Top 100 things that you are not currently doing that you should be doing.

And these lists freak me out. My clothes are not the right clothes, my backpack doesn't make the list, I traveled to this country and didn't do this or that. So after much thought and a nice bottle of wine shared between some friends and myself, I decided to make a Top 10 list of all the things I have done in preparation for my trip, none of which I planned or anticipated to do

1. Freak out
An incredibly large amount of freaking out. I will be at work, chatting with colleagues or with a patient and the moment I stopped and start to think about where I am and how amazing my workplace is, this nice big anxiety elephant comes roaring its head up to say hi and remind me that I have decided to give it all up. I mention that I am leaving a lot, out loud and most of the time publicly, sometimes because I am incredibly excited, other times because I am terrified of what I am about to do..... My one word of advice for anyone on the same path as me, don't go into a Google tornado and start reading all of the horror stories of traveling, just don't

2. Throw Out all of your Clothes
This was not planned. It happened after the backpack incident ( in my previous story) where after looking at this new backpack of mine, I realized that most of the clothes in my wardrobe were not going to be able to come with me on my travels. Im not entirely sure how long I will be away for, maybe a few months, maybe a year or two, but my brain instantly decided that since most of my clothes weren't going to come with me on my travels, there was no sense in keeping them. Gone are all of my shirts that I haven't worn in the past 6 months, same applying to all of my pants, dresses and shoes. And whilst most people would pat on the back for the wonderful spring cleaning I have done and how bare my wardrobes look, I am kicking myself a little for the fact that I now only have one pair of shorts and its the middle of the Australian Summer

3. Go Skydiving
I have been on the fence about this for some time and to be honest, I don't actually go skydiving for another two days, but the chance of me not going with through with it is about as high as the chance of me canceling this trip of mine. I think the reason I'm doing it is to conquer my fear or something. Or it might have to do with my love of adrenaline rushes. Or the limited amount of brain cells I currently hold due to last weekends drinking sessions. Probably a combination of all three. I did, however, freak out yesterday over the fact that I am about to jump out of a plane. I psyched myself out of doing it, telling myself that its not such a bad thing if I don't go ahead with it. I grew a pair later in the night and decided that maybe I should do something just as terrifying but not as scary as skydiving this week in preparation for the big day. Which became number four on my list

4. Get a Tattoo
If you were from the not so distant future and told me that in 2016 I was going to get a tattoo, I would not of believed you. It wasn't on my radar of things I wanted to do. I had never contemplated getting a tattoo. Sure I had thought of interesting things to get or seen some ink and thought how creative it was, but I had never sat down and thought about it myself. So when I woke up Sunday morning, with two hours to get ready before going to work, I decided that today was the day I was getting a tattoo. I got changed, walked down the street to the nearest tattoo parlor that had good reviews, sat down on the table, picked out the first thing I like and picked a spot. It was all over and done within half an hour and I ended up at work on time, completely shocked at what I had just done. It took me quite a few days to realise that this little drawing was going to remain with me for the rest of my life, and I am actually not that unhappy about this, which is a surprise to everybody in my life considering how much of a commitaphobe I am!

5. Go Skydiving, again
I cant help it, I loved it!!!! And I also learnt that to learn how to skydive solo, its alot cheaper to do it in the good old states of america rather than Australia.

6. Buy Travel Insurance
This is an absolute must! (duh!)

7. Read every single blog imaginable
In the last month I have read blogs of traveling alone, as a women, what to wear, what to do, what to bring, where to stay, what to eat, how to survive certain airports, best modes of transport, best way to meet new travellers........ basically I read everything that everyone else has been doing, and have realised that the only way that I am going to know the answers to all of my questions is to go out there and experience everything.

8. Have a going away party!
Because the last 4 going away parties I have had since I started travelling in the last 7 years just werent good enough

When Realisation Hits that your About to do Something Stupid

maceyryan — Sat, 5 Mar 2016 22:54:00 GMT

I bought my first travel backpack 6 years ago. I took it on my first ever trip overseas - a 30 day tour of Europe with Contiki. A very cliche experience for most Australian teenagers, however, being 19, young and stupid, I honestly think it was the best idea I ever had. Looking back, I don't think 19 year old me would have survived Europe without that tour bus, the large amount of people always by your side and the ability to be given a glimpse into almost another world, Europe is a good 24 hour flight away from Australia, with a deep rich history which was missing from my youth growing up in country Australia.

Two years later, I took that same backpack and made my own way around Europe for 6 months, staying in hostels, with friends and on strangers couches, that backpack held so many memories. Not only did it come with me to every country I travelled to, but it also served as a couch, pillow and seat when required Back flashforward to the present day and not only is it tattered and missing parts, it's also 90 litres worth of space. Considering that I had no idea where I would be travelling to or how I accepted that the only way that my luggage was going to get from A to B was going to be on my back.

So here I am, standing in the store staring at all the backpacks when I start to freak myself out over two things. 1 - they look a hell of a lot tinier than I was expecting. And 2 - how in the world am I expected to put my entire life into one of them. I understand the need for a range of different backpacks to be available, everyone has different needs. But when you are already freaking out about what your undertaking and how in the world are your going to break it to your parents, variety isn't something you need. I spent two hours in that shop, going through each backpack separating, weighing up which one offered better pockets, which was the lightest, the most durable, which one felt more comfortable on. After going through all of the different types and decided that I liked and hated them all, I brought out the Google. Know I love Google, Google saves me daily and I fully accept my dependence towards him, but he is also able to send you into a web page vortex, where you search for hours on end, looking at things that you didn't even need to know about. I started out Googling about the reviews of different backpack brands and ended up reading a blog article on the benefits of travelling with waterproof underwear.

After Google left me questioning my huge life decision to pack up and leave, even more, I quickly reached out and grabbed the smallest backpack they had on stock that was also in the darkest colour. A 50L black backpack. I immediately went up to the counter and paid for it, no longer thinking, just acting.

Once I got home I congratulated myself on making a vicarious decision.... until I looked down at the backpack and realised that I was going to be living in the same pair of pants for entirety on my trip because the pack was so small. Google 1 Macey 0

Day Minus 30

maceyryan — Tue, 1 Mar 2016 22:37:00 GMT

I sat out the front of my bosses office absolutely terrified.

Not that she was a terrifying person, but for the first time in my life I was about to put everything on the line. Sure I had been talking about this for months now, the ideas and scenarios going back and forth in my mind, but I had never gone through with it. I always had an excuse.

I took a deep breath before I spoke. "I'm resigning. I'm not happy here anymore and I plan of travelling the world to work out who the hell I am."

She was surprisingly okay with my decision. Working in children's cancer, I expect that this isn't the first time this conversation had happened to her, we get burnt out easily, we watch families go through the worst things that could possibly happen to them. She asked me "Does this have anything to do with the ward?"

"No, not at all" I reassured her that the need to leave came from within me. It was a need to get out of this place though, A few weeks before this conversation, I had been diagnosed with PTSD, something that I had brought back to Australia with me when I returned from working in the Middle East. Every night the nightmares of things that I had experienced over there crippled me and I didn't think that my usual method of working through it and soldering on were going to save me this time. This time, I needed to leave all of the comforts that I had been craving 6 months ago living in the desert. I needed to start accepting everything that I had seen and experienced and I need to loose myself in an effort to find myself.

Of course once I had officially resigned, I was on a high. I went straight online and opened up a search engine for flights. I had absolutely no idea where to go, do I go overseas with the intent of travelling or working, perhaps volunteering. Do I stick to the beaten path, nice resorts with all inclusive breakfasts or do I loose myself in jungles and treehouses. As i stared at the website I realised that already I had started to make plans, trying to control what little I had. This wasn't the way I wanted to find myself. My plan was to lose myself physically and mentally. So I went and bought myself a one way ticket to Colombo Sri Lanka, and paid for the first two nights at a hostel. The rest is up to chance and a good deal of liquor and creativity.

This is my story