Wannabe World Traveller

I am planning on taking a year or two off between high school and college to see the world. The real world, outside of the education system that thinks it is normal to lock thousands of teenagers in a building with no windows for 8 hours a day and attempt to control them and “prepare them for the real world” by forcing upon them all sorts of arbitrary rules and regulations that in no way support independence or even thinking. Mass production is the doctrine of the American educational system.

Anyway, unless I’m really lucky, I’m probably going to have to start out at home, where I have a place to live (although perhaps I’ll stay with my grandparents instead, just for a change of pace), working a job in retail or as a waitress, to save some cash to start my travels (hopefully I’ll also be able to find some work on the way). Once I’ve done that for a few months, I set off to see the world (not for the last time in my life, with any luck).

For part of my trip, I want to stay in Spain, teaching English to a family for room and board (and improving my Spanish) through this program: http://www.geovisions.org/pages/320_hableme_teach_language_to_a_spanish_family.cfm. Not only will I get to work on my Spanish, I’ll also get to really experience Spain. I had a taste of it this summer (I travelled a bit in the Costa del Sol, and also visited Madrid), and I can’t wait to go back for more. With any luck, I’ll be able to find a bit of paying work there, too–just yard work or babysitting or tutoring English or something, as I won’t have a real work permit, I don’t think.

I’ll also spend some time backpacking around, probably starting in Europe (seeing as, if I start out with the Hableme program, I’ll already be there). I think my best friend is planning on joining me for at least part of this, which will be great. This will be really, really budget travelling–WWOOFing, camping, Couchsurfing, hitchhiking, and hopefully also finding work as we go.

I’m pretty flexible and adaptable; the one thing about me that will hold me back while travelling is that I’m quite shy. I’ll have to work on that, and will probably be forced to be more outgoing while on the road! Another issue might be that I am a vegetarian and sort of a picky eater, though I guess I’d have to learn to get over being picky, and I guess it’s probably not too difficult in most places to manage as a vegetarian; easier, probably, because meat is expensive!

The backpacking will be largely staying in one place for a good chunk of time, I imagine, although travel will probably be easier (cheaper) in cheaper parts of the world. Outside of Europe, I know I want to spend some time in the Middle East and South/Central America (got to put my knowledge of Spanish to some good use! This will probably be the last part of my trip, as it’s closest to the US), and India, and I hope I’ll get to visit Asia (I hear SE Asia is relatively cheap, so I’ll probably go there if I’m running low on cash) and Australia/New Zealand as well (though they’re not as high on my list). I don’t know about Sub-Saharan Africa; everyone I’ve ever known to go there has been for safaris, which, I’m sure are awesome, but maybe too expensive for someone like me.

This is by no means anything like an itinerary; this is just a vague plan based on a little bit of reading and research, but I plan to do far more of that as I get closer to this trip. Although I doubt I’ll have anything like an itinerary for the entire trip. I don’t even know how long it’s going to last; as long as financially possible, I guess. After that’s up, I’ll go to college. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to do the career thing, though. I don’t know if I could settle down for more than a year or two without being miserable. That’s why TEFL is a good option for me! I can just go for a year or two in each place. However, I don’t think that’s really a long-term career for most people. So I don’t know yet. But I do have awhile to figure it out!

Hi, everyone! I am a sixteen-year-old who has always wanted to travel, but that desire became way more intense this summer, when I spent a few weeks travelling, mostly in England and Spain (but also visiting Gibraltar, an English protectorate, and Morocco). I don’t think I’ll be doing any international travelling in the next couple of years, but I’ll be blogging about the travelling I do here in the US (I live in Asheville, NC–if anyone’s thinking about coming here and wants tips, feel free to ask!), about my previous experiences travelling, and about what I plan to do in the future (as well as whatever else catches my attention and is in some way travel-related).

Especially for someone living in the Southern US (where I’ve lived for the past thirteen years or so–I lived in Ohio when I was very small), I guess I’m pretty “international” (I don’t know what a good word for it is, really). For instance, most of my news comes not from my local newspaper that doesn’t cover much outside of Western North Carolina, but from the BBC or the New York Times.

I have a working knowledge of Spanish (hoping to spend some substantial time in a Spanish-speaking country in the future and become fluent), am also currently studying French, have previously had some experience with Russian and Japanese, and hope to learn particularly Arabic in the future. I listen to Spanish music and watch Spanish television to improve my Spanish.

I am obviously still in high school, where my favorite classes are Spanish and World History. Between college and high school, I want to do a gap year (or two), working and travelling (hopefully able to combine the two for some of that time). For college, I am probably going to major in International Relations and/or Political Science, minoring in Spanish and/or Arabic. I don’t really know where I want to go to college, but hopefully somewhere in Europe (England is my top choice, but also one of the more expensive ones). After that, I’m not sure what I want in the way of a career, but I want to get my TEFL certificate and spend at least a few years teaching English around the world.

I don’t know what happens after this life; this life may be all I’ve got, and, in it, I want to see as much of the world as possible. I also, at some point in my life, want to make a difference in the world, but I figure that to make the best difference in the world, I should know the world. So that’s my most immediate goal.