How travelling changed my life (and how I changed my life to travel)

It’s never easy for me to deal with something very personal.
Well, yes, I have a blog where I mainly tell personal stories. I could say that I tell ONLY personal experiences. But there are things that are a bit more personal and intimate than how I travel low cost, how I plan trips, what to do in NYC and how I deal with frizzy very long hairs when it’s cold and wet outside.

I’m going to tell you now how I took a breath and left behind the cities where I lived, the jobs I had, families, boyfriends, friends just to do something that could allow me to travel and to… have it all.

I did it more than once and, after I changed my life to travel, travels changed me again and changed my priorities and wishes leading me to change jobs, places, homes again and again.

It all begun with my first London trip, to make researches for my final dissertation. (well, I gratuated in the Middle Age: 10 years ago we weren’t used to buy books on amazon and searching news on google: if you wanted to make a research and dissertation about an unknown female writer such as Aphra Behn, you had to go to London and browse all the books in all the ancient libraries. And I did it).

My parents were worried. There was no internet in mobile phones. No macbook to take away. It was just me and my first solo travel.

London was the perfect companion for my solitude! (You all must go to London as solo travellers!)

But let’s go back to how I changed my life: I dediced that working for the university after my degree was not a priority. I was a good student and I had some card to play to take a phd, but I was supposed to work for very little money (or for free) and be bound to my small local university.

I left. I went to Tuscany and worked for a ONG (AFS), where I found a new family in my collaegues. They are people that I still think about as very important for my personal growth. There in Tuscany i became a veg (after I’d been thinking about it for a decade) and many other things.
But… after I gathered some money I decided to leave again to go abroad. Malta was my new destination.
I worked there as a translator (starting to make practice in what would become my first own business).

Then I moved to Milan where I found more than one office jobs, all quite well payed.

Where am I going next? #wanderlust.

Una foto pubblicata da sabrina (@in_my_suitcase) in data: 18 Gen 2016 alle ore 12:37 PST

The first 4 years were good because I could make week ends abroad and on a budget very often (I visited more 10 countries during my 5 years in Milan). I thought it was enought.

My breakdown arrived as I wanted to go to Autralia: in order to have 20 days off to go there, I had to renounce to vacations for almost one year… A part of me realized in Summer 2012 that I’m not good at renouncing or giving in somthing I do care for, for something else I also care for. I give up a smart dress for a travel, I can’t give up my life for a travel, a home, love, family.
The idea that you can’t have it all is something I’ve never truly accepted and I didn’t want to spend my life sipping the days to spend with my family and in my city (oh, I have very deep roots and staying for too long away from my land is too difficult to me) and bagging days to travel the world.

So I left. Again. And… came back in my homeland.

When I travel my homeland, magic arises.#salento, #ugento, #puglia, #italy

Una foto pubblicata da sabrina (@in_my_suitcase) in data: 24 Gen 2016 alle ore 11:37 PST

It’s a strange story, this curse of having deep roots and wings eager to leave. Is it possible, in your opinion?

Here I started  my own activity as a transaltor with my saving, and got a home for rent.
From translating I sarted blogging and ghost blogging for private companies and joining local projects.

Life here is very cheap and over than beers I don’t have so many vices, so I was able to travel Italy and US (twice) and even… to buy a home (how I was able to buy a home as a freelancer… in Italy??? I still wonder it every day and read-back this post in which I explain it. Just as a reminder).

Keep on TRAVELLING and don’t be afraid.

Un video pubblicato da sabrina (@in_my_suitcase) in data: 16 Nov 2015 alle ore 14:50 PST

Well, it’s not all roses. It’s 9 pm and I’ll probably be working until 10.30 and dine in front of my computer… and I’ll do it tomorrow as well. But that’s ok, it was my choice and I’d never go back!

From here, from the South, I was able to travel East Europe, those countries who seem to be so far from our history but are not, they are, on the contraty, very bound to my 34 years old imaginary. From here I was able to appreciate what can’t be found in North of Italy and in the North of Europe.

I’m not sure I’ll stay here forever (expecially after what I’ve just written about my movements). But up to now I can tell that leaving my land and going North and abroad taught me that I can have a lot.
Coming back, I learnt I can have it all.