A Decade of Travel and “Failure”
10 years ago, I wrote my first blog entry about travel. Five days later, I wrote and published a second blog post. Then, I stopped.
I didn’t stop writing completely, but I did stop sharing. I returned to keeping my words tucked safely away on an emotionless white screen or furiously scribbled on the pages of my journal – sometimes almost illegible depending on the feelings that poured out. I didn’t share what I wrote, though. And I definitely did not publish it on the blog I had been so excited about launching when I set out on my trip to Thailand, because twenty days after I posted that second entry, I was on a flight back across the world, with only feelings of failure to accompany me home.
Six months prior, Thailand wasn’t even on my radar. While I had considered teaching English as a Second Language as a means to travel, I had never actually wanted to travel to Thailand. Then, I found a unique opportunity where my teaching license would allow me to complete a 1-week TESOL “certification” so I could spend the majority of the summer living and working there.
In my mind, it wasn’t just a great opportunity to experience another country during my summer break – it seemed like a potential door to a whole new life (and career). I never planned to retire as a teacher because I’ve always known my passion lived somewhere between travel and writing. I just didn’t know how to move from teacher to traveler and writer, and I thought maybe this was it – the moment I shifted from teaching English literature to teaching English as a second language, writing about my travels in the process.
As the end of the school year in Utah approached and my summer in Thailand grew closer, I began to wonder more and more if this was the trip – the one that would change my life. Maybe it wouldn’t just be a summer gig but a catapult into a new life, where my travel plans changed because I stayed longer, not because I came home early.
That was the mindset I had when I headed out on #mythaisummer. I wrote my first travel blog while sitting on the airplane, listening to a young girl tell her friend how she “...would love to be a high school English teacher!” and reflecting on how I had never wanted to be an English teacher. A week later, I wrote my next blog post sitting on a train, wondering about what it means to be a traveler.
Leading up to that moment on the train, I had collected a bucket list’s worth of travel memories in one week. From visiting an elephant sanctuary to a Muay Thai kickboxing class, and even being blessed by a monk, I hit several of the quintessential (stereotypical?) tourist moments. However, these weren’t the moments I wrote about while sitting on the train.
Sitting on the edge of my bed (aka berth), I wrote about the uncertainty – the unfamiliar surroundings, the language barrier, the loneliness. I thought about how I’d felt all of those same things over a decade earlier, flying alone across the Pacific to an island I’d never been to, and how that mix of fear and excitement had become one of my greatest life stories and catalysts for living. What’s funny is that I had long trusted those uncertain moments as part of being a traveler, yet when I was forced into uncertainty – “forced” to leave Thailand early – I forgot that truth entirely. In the moment, I didn’t see myself as a wanderer, only as a failure.
The first time I began to feel like a failure was in my hotel room in Bangkok. Within hours, I had gone from an apartment where I showered standing between the toilet and a green bucket I used to flush it, to a luxury bathroom with a fully enclosed shower, bathtub, and flushable toilet. It wasn’t just the upgrade in plumbing that stood out, but how much I liked it. Add in how happy I was to order a burger, fries – and yes, ranch – while lounging at the rooftop pool, and suddenly my entire identity as a wanderer felt like it was up for debate.
When I finally arrived back in Salt Lake City, that internal debate had settled into one uncomfortable question: Am I really a wanderer?
It’s the first time I’ve ever shared that question out loud, but it was an integral part of how I moved through the rest of the summer.
I didn’t publish anything else on my little blog that summer; in fact, I never published anything on that site after I left Thailand. That didn’t mean I stopped writing, though. Writing was how I worked through that little identity crisis - how I explored the uncertainty and unknowns of my mind.
Despite the initial feelings of failure, it didn’t take me long to find my way back to the map. By the end of the summer, I was craving the call of new and familiar places again. More importantly, I was starting to look more closely at what that calling meant.
Thailand changed me. I no longer found myself looking at travel as an escape, but as an invitation - an invitation to reconnect with myself through the lens (and lessons) of the map.
Over the next decade, that invitation became the quiet guide behind all my wanderings. Instead of chasing destinations, I found myself drawn to the journey – to embracing the unknown, the uncertainty, and even the uncomfortable moments in between. I let go of other travelers’ expectations and leaned into my own experiences, learning to trust myself with each step along the path.
As I step into this next decade of wandering, I find myself unexpectedly grateful for that summer in Thailand. #mythaisummer wasn’t the dreamy travel adventure I had planned, but it was exactly what I needed. Those moments I labeled as “failure,” those quiet wonderings about what it means to be a wanderer – they opened the door to exploring the connection between travel and living, and how we discover ourselves on the map. They were the first steps toward Wander to Breathe.