My New Year’s resolution in 2018 was to make an active attempt to travel more and to simply live my life with more conviction (make decisions, commit to them and see it through). Traveling has always been a goal of mine, but throughout the years I’ve always found a way to divert my finances and time into other things apart from traveling.
But this year HAD to be different.
I’m from Brooklyn NY, a Technical Project Manager at a Law Firm by profession, and a spontaneous adventure and adrenaline junkie at heart, which naturally makes me down for anything.
My initial plan was to target the Seven Wonders of the World. And after my first trip of the year in May to the most random place in Iceland, the Seven Wonders endeavor soon changed to simply wanting to go any and everywhere.
I then visited Chichen Itza in Mexico the first week in June, then followed up with Antelope Canyon in Phoenix the second week. Then was Grenada the last week of June into July. Soon came a trip to Cape Cod in Massachusetts the second weekend in July, followed up by Cuba the 3rd week in July.
Now, at this point, I was riding that traveling wave and didn’t want to stop. I was officially bitten by the travel bug. After Cuba, I visited the White Sands National Monument in New Mexico the first week in August. I then went on to LA for a few days while on the west coast. I flew back home then left for Honduras the last week of August. In September I visited the land of a thousand waterfalls (Literally) in Norway and ended that trip with London.
I still wasn’t satisfied. I wanted more and wanted to see more. That sparked my idea to create a Euro-Tour, well my version of it at least. In early November I embarked on a 12-day journey across Europe. I started off in Paris, France then flew to Rome, Italy then on to Pisa, Italy, Athens, Greece after finally ending the tour in Barcelona, Spain.
I traveled to four countries, saw tons of significant historical sites, made a lot of friends, and consumed a variety of different cuisines. My last trip of the year was to Prague, the Czech Republic the last week of 2018.
I have been blessed with the opportunity to not only travel but to travel often. I am by no means a wealthy person. I’m a planner by trade, so that carried over into me pre-planning and budgeting for all my trips. Planning and budgeting have been my saving grace for these trips. Instead of buying expensive items and going out every weekend, I spent money on trips.
The experiences I’ve gained from traveling is unmatched. I love experiencing new things, so traveling for me has been very insightful and refreshing. Learning to embrace new cultures and interact with people from all different walks of life has been very instrumental in my growth as a man. It’s something I try to encourage other people to do; live your best life, TRAVEL and get rich with culture gained from traveling. The world is so much bigger than “your neighborhood” or “your city”. So I’ve been using social media to show the world just that. I am not an Instagram celebrity. I would like to believe my page is pretty relatable. I’m a young black man that loves travel and adventure…so it’s something that anyone can do as well.
Fast forward to today, 17 trips later, my next goal is to try to introduce my 7-year-old son to the traveling world and simply the exposure of diversity and learning outside of the classroom. My first trip of 2019 is a trip to the Bahamas with just me and son. Really looking forward to that!
Quite a few people have reached out to me and have said, one day they hope to travel like I do but I try to encourage them that one could be any day, why not tomorrow. Start your first travel plan/budget tomorrow and MAKE it happen. Live with conviction!!
This post was written by Jasen George
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