Have you ever dreamed of quitting your job to travel the world. Last week, I did just that. I turned in the resignation letter ending my almost 7 year tenure with a highly respected company. Overwhelmed by what's ahead, let's take a look back at how I arrived at this monumental moment:
Flashback a few months, my Pinterest boards were flooded with "must see" destinations and inspiring quotes encouraging travel, listening to your gut, and not being afraid to take leaps. My Facebook feed was knee deep with friends' announcements of college graduations, marriage proposals & weddings, babies being born, and the other half saturated with photos of their various excursions to destinations that were on (or should have been on) my previously mentioned Pinterest boards. I had become self aware enough to realize that if I am literally jealous of every other post I scroll through on my Facebook feed, I need to make something happen in my own life that fulfilled some of these dreams instead of just pinning about them. If you had asked me 10 years ago where I'd be today, I probably would have guessed that I'd be a part of that first half of my Facebook friends with a college degree, career I love, and building a home my children could run around in. Clearrrrly God had different plans for my life and being that I don't doubt his will for my life being better planned than what I would have laid out for myself, I can look back and recognize that not having these ties holding my back from perusing my passion for exploring and traveling now is actually a blessing...and so the decision was unofficially made. I was going to make big moves and go somewhere (or a couple somewheres) to do the things I am able to do now that I might not get the chance to do later in life. But what? where? how?
Those bloggers on Pinterest make it sound so simple...Just save a few bucks, drop everything, and go. being the analytical planner that I am, I knew there would be more to it for me and so the googling began. Being a single, white, female, the safety odds in a foreign country are probably against me. "Volunteer opportunities abroad" "solo female traveler" "travel the world on a budget" "travel organizations""jobs while traveling" and about 500 other searches later, I decided I was going to leave everything behind and apply to be an Au Pair in Sydney, Australia through an agency called Geovisions for 6 months, then spend the remainder of the year traveling around the globe. I spent the next month compiling a packet consisting of my supplemental application, background check, photos of myself, copies of all my IDs, a "Dear family" letter, childcare experience form, medical clearances, TB testing, and collecting multiple childcare references and personal references. Now the exciting part has begun! The agencies began working on matching me with a family in Australia and sent me a few potential matches...
...Keep up-to-date with the rest of my journey here & Sip.Adventure.Repeat.
