How To Bring Your Travel Inspiration To Life

You spent five hours pinning different photos of Rio de Janeiro, Paris, Johannesburg and Mongolia on Pinterest. You actually made over 200 boards, by continent and places you’ve been dreaming about every night. These boards feel good to look at! You’re officially inspired.

Good. I started with that too.

You then came across a travel blog, explored it for hours and read each article you were interested in. Bookmarked. You are now following every post of that blog. You even subscribed to the newsletter and liked all the social media accounts. As the days pass, the Facebook posts become more and more exciting. You like every bit of it. You become an automatic liker because the photos are so beautiful to look at. You don’t even believe such place in the world exist. Pinterest is becoming more real on your perspective as you see this person who is actually in that place you like to pin a lot.

You developed a routine of doing this every day. As soon as you arrive your work desk, you automatically go to that blogger’s page. You also added some other pages that inspire you to the bookmarks bar. OMG, I love her! I want to be like her! I want to travel the world!

Double inspired.

A heavy breath. Heart beating fast. These travel bloggers are already haunting you. The more you discover that more people are doing it, the more your urge to see the world increases. You even tried to unfollow them for a time on Facebook but you just can’t help it. You go directly to their page every freaking minute.

The next step? Analyse your inspiration.

You cannot do the same thing for a year — pinning and stalking what other travellers do on Facebook. The habit of updating yourself with other people’s lives will inspire you, of course. However, the more you do it, the more you become contented of just looking at their photos and not making a move. It’s comfortable. Photos are good to look at and somehow, you feel like living vicariously through these people.

But still, at the back of your head, you want to do it really really bad. What’s the next step? Turn that fire into fuel and move forward. Inhale, exhale. You’re alright. Relax. Think. Ask yourself the following questions:

— What inspired me to travel the world? (Obviously, seeing others do it. However, you might have another thing in mind.)

— What did I see that made my heart skip a beat?

— How did I feel about it?

— What can I do to live like them?

— Can I do it without holding back?

— What’s my first step?

Get a travel inspiration notebook. Write it all down. Analyse, analyse, analyse. Have a game plan. Put random thoughts. Talk to your notebook. Make it as an outlet. Treat it as a person. During the first stage of wanting to travel the world, your friends and family will not understand how you feel about this endeavor but believe me, the notebook will. Well, it doesn’t really respond back (that would be really creepy if a notebook can talk) but you will feel good about letting it all out. Your emotions will be helpful in making the first move. Once everything is combined, read back. You will see it will slowly make sense even if they are just random words.

Make a move. Do not live watching other people do it.

You know what the problem is? We are so used to following other people’s lives that we forget about ours. No matter how much you say hateful things about the Kardashians, I know you still follow them. I mean who cares if Jennifer Lawrence has her nude photos scattered all over the internet? Would you really waste time digging deeper into that? This is the nature of society that I fully accept but don’t want to apply to my life.

I beg you, to please stop creating an image-based lifestyle. Okay, fine, I really appreciate that you like my stuff and what I do. I also want to thank you for following my journey on Facebook but what I do not like is that you’ve been doing it for months and I don’t even hear you reach out or seek help in making your travel dreams come true.

Will you spend all your life pinning travel photos, reading other people’s blogs and endlessly following their life updates on social media?

Do it now and my best advice is to start small — travel to your country. Once you pull this off, YOU WILL BE UNSTOPPABLE. When you go out there, believe me you will have a different story to tell. You will have experiences that other travellers didn’t get to experience. Your story will be worth reading because that’s what travel does to people — they convert us to story-tellers. The places don’t matter. It does not mean that I have a greater experience because I am in South America. Wherever you are, there you are. Amazing things will happen once you start moving and doing things to change your life.

I am not giving up on you and you shouldn’t give up on yourself too.