The bite of the travel bug and how it still keeps itching

The tattoo I got in dedication of my love for travel. 

I'm not one of those people who can say "Oh yes, I've always wanted to travel since I was a little girl." Nope, just not how it went for me. I mean, I was still youngish when the 'bug' bit me, I was about 13. 

It's quite weird how I got the travel bug when I really think about it. It wasn't from a trip overseas or hearing a story of an exotic foreign land, it was through a movie and the person in the film. I watched Breakfast at Tiffany's and in watching that movie my admiration and slight obsession for Audrey Hepburn started. 

If anybody knows Audrey at all, you'll remember that she was born in Belgium and grew up in Holland during the war. She then went on to study Ballet in London andworked all throughout Europe and the United States. In her 40's she lived in Italy with her 2nd husband and then eventually spent the rest of her life in Switzerland. As you can see, our friend Audrey was a well-travelled and cultured lady, and from learning about her and the places where life took her, I began to dream of going to the same places. 

I began dreaming of walking down the Champs-Elysees at springtime in Paris or through a crowded spice market in Mumbai or seeing the human Castells in Catalonia. The dreaming was never-ending, and it was constant. I began to have this yearning to just leave everything behind in my life and become a gipsy. Travel from place to place with no real purpose except to live out my days as a citizen of the world. 

Now at 22, I still dream of doing that, but as I've come to realise as the oh so mature adult that I am, it's not as easy as I once naively believed. Nevertheless, I'll never stop dreaming and working hard to achieve this nomadic and gipsy lifestyle that I so truly and genuinely want to experience. 

In the meantime, I am taking any chance I get to travel in between university and work. It doesn't matter if it's a 10-hour drive to somewhere new in my home country of Australia or a quick 3-hour flight to New Zeland. I need to go somewhere new and as often as I can to fulfil that wanderlust craving I have within me. 

After I finish my Journalism degree next year, the dream is to find a job that can creatively fulfil me while also giving me that luxury of being able to travel. I know, pretty ambitious for someone who'll be a fresh graduate with no to little experience but I believe if you want something so badly in life and you're honest in your intentions and work hard to achieve your dream, you'll without a doubt manifest it into reality.

For me, a life without travel would be miserable and pointless. If it's true that we've only got one life, then I better go out there and bloody well experience every nook and cranny that this big exciting world of ours has to offer.

Watch this space to see this dream turn into a reality!

- JK