Jet-setter Jones

This blog will be my home away from home for the next few years. Travelling has always been an aspiration of mine; buy a one way ticket, see the world, make no solid plans as to where, when and who. Leave on a jet plane, not knowing when I’ll be back again. All that jazz. I feel as though I have spent my twenties waiting around for opportunities that were never going to arise and people that were never going to join me on the road.

After the break-down of one-such relationship, I woke up to the fact that life is for living and I’m not getting any younger. I have made a pact with myself to seize the day, not let any more opportunities pass me by and to do things that scare me. Which is a lot. I have a diagnosed anxiety disorder that can send me into panic mode at the drop of a hat. Normal situations and conversations to you, are a melting pot of emotion to me.

My travel experience is set to be a journey and not just in the literal sense. I want to challenge the stereotype of mental illness for the general public, for other sufferers and, perhaps most of all, for myself. I want to prove to myself that I am just as capable as anyone else and I don’t want to be defined and imprisoned by it any longer.

It’s now or never. My job doesn’t pay very well so after scrimping for a couple of years, I will still have to work on the road. This means there is a time limit. For both New Zealand and Australia that means applying for a VISA before you are 30 and working before you turn 31. When I leave (planned departure date November 2015) I will be 2 months away from turning 29. Carpe Diem as they say!

As a solo female traveller equipped with an anxiety disorder and the pallor of a ghost, I am gritting my teeth, grabbing my back pack and heading for the East. Come what may.

Wish me luck, I am petrified and terrifically excited in equal measure.