Travel and multiculturalism have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember.
My mother is Mexican and growing up I was fortunate enough to visit her homeland several times on family holidays. Our Mexico trips lit a fire for travel inside of me which has burnt brightly ever since.
The early days of travel
I started traveling solo long-term when I was 19. Initially I was supposed to take a gap year before university to get the travel bug out of my system. The plan was then to return home and pursue a career in oncology.
Well that career idea remained an idea and my ‘gap-year’ turned into almost 4 years of traveling and living in different countries around the world.
My favourite experience from this period was spending a lot of time in Guatemala. Here I learnt to speak Spanish and developed a particular love for Latin America.
My time here helped me tap into my Mexican heritage and since then I’ve felt a strong connection to that region of the world.
A couple of years later and I was in Canada working as a snowboard instructor. Not long before my 24th birthday, a broken ankle along with a growing desire to put long-term travel on temporary hold to study something at university, brought that period of travels to an end.
Time at home
The ankle was a slow and painful recovery which put me out of any sort of traveling for a couple of years.
Also it turned out that studying an undergraduate degree after years of living out of a backpack and seeking out new travel horizons wasn’t as exciting as I thought it was going to be.
Around this time the idea of starting a travel blog and pursuing a lifestyle based on my passions began to float around my mind. It didn’t take long for me to know this was the right path for me. I decided to drop out of my studies to find work as a content writer and begin saving money to travel again long-term.
For the past couple of years I did just that working as a digital content editor. I saved every penny I could from my job by cutting every single unnecessary expense. My work helped me to become a better writer and so, thankfully, the job was an earner and a learner.
I also used the time to explore my home country of Wales as much as possible. Wales is such an underrated adventure travel destination. For example, I loved hiking in Snowdonia National Park and checking out the stunning beaches on the Gower Peninsula.
Along with exploring Wales, I managed to fit in a few short trips to Mexico, Germany and Morocco.
The best of these was by far Morocco. I trekked in the High Atlas Mountains and headed into the Sahara Desert to explore sand dunes. Morocco was an amazing trip and I hope to return there one day.
Starting A World Over
I started working on A World Over in December 2022. I spent the first few months setting up the website through WordPress and sorting out the visuals. Since then I’ve been publishing new articles every week.
Although I’ve been to 20 countries so far, you won’t find guides to all of them on my blog.
I don’t write about the countries I visited years ago, way before I even knew travel blogging was a thing, simply because I can’t provide up-to-date advice or many pictures from my adventures back then.
For these countries I’ll wait until I visit them again so that I can document them in depth.
The here and now
As I write this in December 2023, I’m getting ready to head to South America in early 2024.
I start an 1-year online master’s degree in journalism and will spend the year traveling in South America while I study and continue to create adventure travel guides on A World Over.
Although in the long-run I’m hoping I can grow this blog and my travel photography from passion projects into my full-time career, I’m giving university one last chance.
I like to approach things with at least some kind of strategy and that includes having a fall back plan. In this case, the fall back is a journalism-related job.
The path towards a lofty goal is full of twists and turns and you never know what might happen. Having the journalism qualification might come in handy if ever I need to use it.
I can’t wait to get back to Latin America and continue exploring my favourite region on Earth and creating new adventure travel guides. Keep your eyes peeled for new content as I’ll be publishing lots.
If you made it this far, thanks for sticking around until the end. I hope my story has helped you connect with me a little more, understand where I’m trying to take A World Over adventure travel blog, and inspired your travels.
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