If not now, then when?

If not now, then when?

Do you ever sit and truly think about the world? How you are just one of the billions of humans that inhabit the earth? How each and every person you walk by has their own dreams, fears, insecurities and passions? How in one split second everything in your life can change?

Before this past year, I’d never really thought this deeply about life and how lucky we all are to experience it. There are billions of lives on this planet and each one of us hold our very own story. Our stories might be similar to another’s but no two stories are exactly the same.

Over the past year, these thoughts and questions began to flood my brain. I became intrigued with the world and with each and every individual who makes up the universe. The earth we live on and the humans who inhabit it are unique beyond words.

Over the past year, I have been lucky enough to graduate from college, move across the world, travel to four countries, watch my sister get married, and spend time with the people I love.

The past year has also brought a significant amount of loss, resulting in the hardest part of my life thus far. As the winter grew colder I found my life continuously getting harder. The days dragged on and as soon as I felt motivated to start something new, life would come around to knock me back down again. I was quick to learn that everything in life can change in just an instant.

After a month long trip across the US, I finally started to feel like myself again. I began to realize that travel is what was making me genuinely happy while simultaneously healing me. Do you know that feeling when you can not wipe the smile from your face? I had been missing that for so long and slowly was beginning to find it again.

I began to question where these sudden bursts of happiness were coming from. How could I be happy when life was so wrong? I slowly realized that this happiness was stemming from the cultures, individuals, and landscapes of the places I was visiting. There was something about lying under the hot sun in the desert of Southern Utah, being smothered in hugs and love from my baby cousins in Boise, and even just sitting and talking to strangers in airports that brought a smile to my face and rush of emotions.

I have found that travel connects me to strangers who quickly turn into friends. It connects me more to the earth as each new environment has something different to offer and teach me. But most importantly, travel connects me back to myself. It teaches me, inspires me, heals me, and molds me more into the individual that I am becoming.

The past six months have inspired me to chase after what is truly making me happy and for me right now that is each new adventure I embark on. I do not want to live in a city working a corporate job as my degree would steer me towards. Rather I want to live at home ready to say yes to each new travel opportunity that comes my way. I hope to inspire others and to help everyone find the inner happiness that travel so easily brings to me. Through travel, I have learned more about my life and the world than any class has ever taught me.

I want to share the knowledge that I gain throughout the world with all of you. Through pictures, videos, and writing I hope to teach others about environments, people, places, and cultures. I want to shed light on everything that we are sheltered from, that is really going on around us in other communities and in the environment. Here I will share with you travel itineraries, my insights, photo journals, places to stay, eco-friendly travel tips, and everything in between. I want to emphasize that this blog is just as much for me as it is for all of you. I hope to learn from each one of you and to create a space where we can let our passions outweigh our fears. Here‘s  to our journey through the world because if not now, then when?

Xx Chasing Sunshine