I’m Phoebe, a 20- Something travel blogger from England who’s dedicated to seeing as much of this world as I can.
After studying my NCTJ diploma in Journalism, I just wasn’t ready to start the whole full-time job thing. I wanted to live my life on my own terms and for the last few years, I’ve been doing just that.
I figured that there wasn’t a better way to spend my twenties than to do so travelling. Travel is a never-ending education, offering constant adventures, life-changing experiences and new friends. I wanted to write this 20 Something Travel blog to show there is more to life than the 9-5.
You can browse this blog by topic or by destination.
20 Something Travel: Where did it all start?
My love of travel started at a young age. As a kid, I was fortunate enough to go on lots of family holidays with my parents. The fact that you could get on a plane and in a few hours be transported somewhere so different from home was mesmerizing to me.
I fell in love with that feeling of stepping out someplace new. I loved that experience of hearing languages that I didn’t understand being spoken around me and diving into plates of exotic food. I vowed that when I was older, I wouldn’t just have one holiday a year to look forward to.No, I wanted to travel long-term and I was impatient to do it.
Taking a gap year
In my opinion, taking a gap year is one of the most valuable things that any 18 years old could do following high school or secondary school. If you’re not familiar with the term, a gap year simply means taking a year out in between studying in order to work, volunteer and travel. It’s something which is growing in popularity in the UK.
Personally, taking a year out was a no brainer.
I’d been desperate to travel for so long and the stress of studying my A-Levels had really worn me down.
I had absolutely no clue what I wanted to do with my life. I just knew that I wanted to get out into the world and work it out.
I spent a few months working at my part-time job and saving up money. Then I and my friend were off on our very first backpacking adventure to Thailand: a trip that was to become the first of very many big adventures.
Thailand
I’m not claiming that Thailand is a very original destination to backpack in during your gap year. It is, however, a very good country to get you warmed up to backpacking. Travelling is a never-ending learning process however that first trip away taught me some basic travel fundamentals.
This included things like backpacks that only open from the top are an absolute nightmare, 20-bed dorms just aren’t worth the cheap price, tuk-tuks and alcohol don’t mix and turning up on a small island without your accommodation booked REALLY isn’t a good idea.
A change of direction
My gap year came and went and unsure what to do, I enrolled at university in London to study Journalism. My time in London was a big fail; a mixture of disappointment at my course, at living in London in general and a huge feeling of entrapment and frustration that I couldn’t do the thing I so desperately wanted to: Travel.
I didn’t need a shrink to tell me that I was unhappy and I wanted to be proactive and change that.
So, I dropped out of uni, moved back home to Brighton and enrolled in a short intensive NCTJ diploma in journalism instead with Brighton Journalist Works. In just four months, I graduated with a portfolio of published work. I’d also learnt as much, if not more, than I would have in those three years at university. I had got the skills that I wanted and now I was ready to start travelling and writing as I went.
South-East Asia: My first solo backpacking trip
That summer, I trialled a short trip alone to Barcelona for a couple of days, however, nothing could prepare me for the reality that was solo backpacking in Asia for six weeks. Heading off to the airport with nothing and no one other than my backpack was terrifying but so exhilarating.
It was an experience that I had been waiting for for years.
Over six weeks, I solo travelled across Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia, meeting countless people and embracing a whole load of new experiences. Anyone that’s done it will know that nothing will ever come close to the feeling of your very first solo backpacking trip and that one around South East Asia is an experience that I hold very close to my heart.
Central America
After Asia, I came back to England and did some content marketing and social media for a while in order to get some money. It wasn’t long until I was planning my next trip and soon I was off on an epic three-month trip encompassing Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Costa Rica and the USA.
That trip was one of the most fascinating and the one in which I made the most friends, many of whom I am still very close with to this day. I arrived back in the UK for summer and bar a few small trips- I mainly worked while I tried to figure out what was next.
Australia working holiday
Midway through summer, a friend that I had made while travelling in Vietnam, messaged me to say that she was thinking of doing an Australian working holiday. Did I want to come? While I’m generally drawn towards more culturally different countries, the notion that I’d actually get to live and work in a whole new country was intriguing.
I thought, why not?
I had my worries about moving to Australia and I genuinely thought that I wouldn’t last more than a couple of months into my visa. Then I got to Melbourne and totally fell in love with the city and the lifestyle there. Now almost three years on, I’m still living here and have now made the transition into being an international student here.
Travelling slowly and really getting to know a city has been a life-changing experience for me and the last year in Melbourne has been the best of my life.
Living in Australia, has led me to realise that I want to work in coffee full-time with hopes to combine my love of coffee and travel by getting into coffee sourcing in the near future.
These days, I share stories from my life in Melbourne in this blog. I write about my experiences of living and working in a foreign country and profile some of the cafes and adventures that I have had along the way.
I aim to post weekly but sometimes life gets in the way. Bear with me, I promise more content is coming soon.
Passport Please 