Realising my dream to travel!

Back in April 2015, I was 20 years old and due to graduate university in the July. The reality that I was leaving full-time education suddenly dawned on me… What was I going to do with my life?! I suddenly realised that I didn’t want to just settle into a full time job and that would be it for the next 50 years. I wanted to go on an adventure, be spontaneous. I wanted to travel! It was always something that had been in the back of my mind, but due to other commitments I had never thought about really doing it or gotten further than looking at pictures. I felt like this was the perfect time to jump out of my comfort zone…

I turned to the internet,searching where I could go and what I could do, within my budget, (Which was non-existent at this time, with being a student and only just having decided I wanted to go!). I had already decided that I didn’t want to just visit a country, I wanted to help others and really experience the culture. As I had never travelled before, I had no idea what I was searching for. I didn’t feel confident or educated enough to just hop on a plane and work it out myself. Travelling alone also made me very anxious, none of my friends wanted to go. I didn’t want this to stop myself from going so I decided as a first time traveller, that I would book onto a group tour ( this also made my parents slightly less nervous!)

Asia has always been intriguing to me, I love the food and I enjoy working with kids and animals.  I came across Camp Thailand while searching, it seemed perfect! I would complete a TEFL certificate online at home so that I was able to teach English to children for 4 weeks. On the weekends there was lots of planned activities including visiting Elephant sanctuaries and local communities. The opportunity to travel to Cambodia and to travel around Thailand after camp made this even better, 6 weeks away in total. Camp Thailand was new and had only just been launched, therefore the price was appealing. Within a week of finding out about Camp Thailand I had paid my deposit and booked my flights to fly out August 2015! Time to start saving….as as student I didn’t have much saved. I was working as a relief support worker at the time, so I started accepting crazy 15 hour shifts in order to save up enough money. I had no idea how much I needed, but I figured it was best to have as much as possible as I didn’t want to miss out on anything when I got there! End of unvieristy exams arrived, graduation passed , TEFL certficate complete and August arrived…I was off to Camp Thailand!

Follow me to find out about my very first travel adventure at Camp Thailand in my next blog post!

 

With love,

Fiona in Wanderland X