My 2014 New Year’s resolution is to travel a ton and live (temporarily) overseas as much as possible. I kicked off 2014 with another solo cross-country road trip and I’m spending almost 2 months in Europe after the road trip is over, followed by a week in NYC! Here’s the schedule so far:
January: Orlando & St. Petersburg, FL > Atlanta, GA > Nashville, TN > Park City, UT (Sundance Film Festival) > Los Angeles, CA > NYC > Norway
Feb-March Europe & NYC Trip:
Oslo, Norway – 1/24-27
Tromsø, Norway (Aurora Borealis Excursion) – 1/27-31
London & UK – 2/1-2/10
Central Europe (France, Switzerland, Belgium, Germany, Poland, Latvia, Estonia) – 2/10 – 2/20
Russia *maybe Sochi for the Olympics, if not then St. Petersburg – 2/20 – 2/23
Scandinavia (Finland, Sweden, Norway) – 2/24 – 3/10
New York City – 3/11-18
My resolution last year was to travel as little as possible and try to put down “roots” in Los Angeles. In years prior I have spent as much as 5 months out of the year traveling – which I thought was hindering my ability to establish roots – especially since a common response from friends or potential clients when messaging me was “are you in town?” The conclusion I came to with this resolution is that not traveling did not help me in any way. It hasn’t helped me get more work, it hasn’t helped strengthen my relationships, it’s made me feel more distant from my family and made me more stressed, not to mention I’ve felt less fulfilled. Overall it’s been a major fail, apart from what I learned from it. Don’t get my wrong. I love Los Angeles. I really do. I just can’t handle 365 days of sunshine, traffic jams and people who are only interested in money, fame and popularity amongst their peers.
Since I deprived myself of travel in 2013, I’m going to make up for it in 2014! My goal is to visit at least 10 new countries, at least 1 new continent and visit the remaining 2 states on my list (Alaska & Oregon) and keep my Travel Blog 100% up-to-date, and try to score some awesome photography gigs and do a ton of philanthropy projects along the way.
It was a tough decision for where to start off my travels in 2014. Until I found an amazing flight deal to Norway. I found airfare from Norwegian Air for $450RT! That’s the same price I usually pay to fly from L.A. to Orlando. Crazy.
Since my first stop in Europe will be Oslo, I figured why not head up to Trosmø for some Northern Light action and cross that off the bucket list? After that it’s back to my beloved London, then all over central Europe to visit friends and explore.
Want to follow my travels? Keep up with me on twitter and on my travel blog (I’ll be posting major stuff here but a lot more over there!) and of course facebook where I’ll post everything.
PS. Just for the record, for those that might wonder “how I’m able to do this” and think I am not working – I never vacation. I just have a global mobile office. My friends that I’ve travelled with can attest to this – I spend a good 50% or more of my time working on my laptop in hostels, coffee shops and wherever I can find wifi; I once was sitting in my hostel lobby all day in Costa Rica and the owner storms up to me and said “why do you come all the way to Costa Rica to sit on your laptop all day” and closes my laptop and says “get out of here! You are making me sad!” I retaliated by saying “no, you don’t understand – if I wasn’t working here, I would be working in a windowless cubicle in Los Angeles. At least once I’m done with work today I’ll be able to eat dinner beside a volcano instead of being stuck in traffic for an hour only to get home and eat leftovers” he left me alone after that. And later that day I watched a volcano erupt while eating dinner and soaked in some volcanic hot springs before going to sleep in my cabin in the jungle that night.