Do you want to come along on my South East Asia journey at home?
General consensus from everyone who matters to me is that they’d like regular updates and I’ve decided I’ll do something for the common good and share what I’ve been up to as a 30-something rather than a 20-something.
I’m definitely doing this backwards. Who spends their mid to late 20s travelling and living in other countries with suitcases but then hits 30 and thinks ‘you know what, I reckon I’ll take a 20L-35L restricted (also, efficient and versatile) backpack’. Of course, I’m not the first one to embark on this and I met plenty of friends along the way who were older than me and in my 20-something eyes, much more efficient at backpacking than I.
Ask anyone who had the pleasure of ‘looking after my stuff’ or sharing a hostel dorm room with me when I lived in Australia or when I moved to Italy – we’re not referring to one suitcase…
Flash-forward to 2024 and I’m sitting at a hostel in leafy green Northern Thailand, specifically Chiang Mai, and I love hostels, I’m loathe to let them go because I still have the beating wings of a social butterfly clinging to the coattails of a writer who needs space and a clear head.
What to expect:
- Look forward to highlights from different areas I am travelling throughout South East Asia, focusing on Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam.
- Architecture, culture notes, highlights of locals I meet
- Plenty of photos but mainly on my Instagram: CLCLTravel
- Hostel anecdotes
- Solo traveller tax
- My writing woes
- Mainly, what to see and do if you’re trying the balanced ‘not squishing it all into a day’ life
I don’t think travel blogging is dead. In fact, I think it is more critical now than ever to log activities and recommendations with genuine backing and not driven by affiliate links or the aim to get that ‘one shot’, you know, the one where you trek somewhere by bus to take a trending photo, pretending there aren’t crowds around, taking about 20 different angle shots, turning around and leaving.
30-something traveller tip number 1:
The best way to get travel advice? Listen to other travellers at hostels you stay at for some ‘on the ground’ knowledge. I can plan a week somewhere in Thailand from a 30-minute conversation at a hostel mixed with advice from friends who have previously trodden the path.
See other opinion pieces here: www.citylivingcoastalloving.com/category/thoughts-writing/
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