This week marks the end of my nomadic transitional phase of summer. They say that grass is always greener on the other side, but in order to understand that, we have to make mistakes and eventually hop onto the other side of the fence in order to appreciate what we have right in our own back yard.

This summer I decided to go an alternative route when it comes to my living situation and move out of Boston in exchange for more familiar ground, yet a completely unfamiliar city. Although I grew up in New York state, the city has, and always will be foreign to me. In no other city in the world have I felt as lost or confused or frustrated by the day to day hustle and bustle that is what makes New York special. Countless hours wasted on shoddy public transportation systems, the MTA gobbling up every last hard earned dollar. In other words, there was no use fighting it, New York is not my city. Not now anyway. I needed this experience to learn how to breathe, and to understand that constant change can be overwhelming at times. I learned that working with the public can bring out more ugly in me than I thought existed.

So I decided to make the transition back to Boston.This time, with the complete intention of living in my apartment for the duration of the lease. Actively committing to one place after almost three years of nomadic living is terrifying, but necessary and welcomed.

Lately I have been stressed mostly by what can be best described as the “Physiological Need” in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Not having a kitchen, or my own space has been more taxing than I could have imagined. Living out of a suitcase is great, and I won’t be giving it up any time soon, however not being able to rest any more than a day in any one given location is less than ideal. Nonetheless, I do realize that this is a choice I made. Not something that was forced upon me by any outside force besides minor character flaws when it comes to making decisions. After living a beautifully messy and sporadic few months, I am back in Boston, ready to face the next chapter. Travels will still ensue, however this time it is about focusing on me and what types of things I want to accomplish this year in both my professional and academic life. I know that sounds strange to hear a flight attendant want to develop her professional skills. But every day is a new day, each year can bring something completely different.

I think the important thing to remember at this point in my life is that nothing is permanent. Even a one year lease isn’t that long in the grand scheme of things.

Here is to another year in Boston, with hope on the horizon for many more adventures and personal growth!

This weekend started the first of the few nomadic months I plan on spending working as little as possible, and traveling as much as possible. Not having an apartment is definitely a huge money saver, especially since lately I can’t seem to stay in the same place for too long. Although the challenges of not having anywhere to call home are making themselves ever more present, I am curious to see where the next few months take me

After some uncertain travel plans, I decided to make my way to the balmy yet beautiful Colombian town of Cartagena. Because (as per usual) my plans were VERY spontaneous, I found myself sitting on yet another airplane wondering exactly what might be in store for me during the next four days.

Usually the first things I do when booking a spontaneous trip are find a flight that works with my schedule (even before deciding on a location) and then booking a hostel.  Since jetBlue is fab and has direct flights from JFK to CTG almost every day, I was sold. The next challenge? Booking the hostel!

Ever since my first solo backpacking adventure 2.5 years ago, I have begun to question more and more the idea of fate versus free will. Now this might seem dramatic, philosophical and extremely off topic, but I have made some incredible friends in some amazing hostels simply by arbitrarily clicking through hostelworld.com. It’s terrifyingly insane to think that some of my lifelong soulmate friendships were formed over a very short amount of time in an entirely different country or foreign continent. For that reason I am always selective of the environment in which I will be making my next group of friends. On this journey I couldn’t have been more pleased with my selection, El Viajero Hostel Cartagena. As if the featured photos and phenomenal ratings weren’t enough, the hostel also offers free breakfast and most importantly DANCE CLASSES. Ever since I learned Salsa and Bachata while living in Spain, I have been enamored by talented dancers on YouTube and have enjoyed the spontaneous kitchen salsa dance party that often breaks out among my closest of lady friends.

The day I arrived was a whirlwind of exhaustion between the travel I do for work and the travel I do for fun. I spent most of my day relaxing and chatting up other travelers in order to plan my next moves. By the time it was time for Salsa lessons, I had already befriended an American couple; a well spoken German; a velvety voiced Dutch guy; and an Austrian with the biggest, most genuine smile I have ever seen. We ended our night in a small, cramped Colombian club where we truly stuck out as foreigners. But that only means that (besides for us) the discoteca was authentically Colombian.

The following day I traveled with the American couple to a beach called Punta Arena on an island called Tierra Bomba. After reading countless reviews that the famous Playa Blanca was overhyped, my new friends and I opted for something a bit more off the beaten track. For ~$6 round trip by boat my friends and I had our own private cabana mere feet from the sea.

Travel isn’t just about the sights you see, but about the people you meet and change your perspective, one small piece at a time. On that small island off the Cartagena coastline I got to see a glimpse at one of the most authentically happy and beautiful couples I’ve ever met. I never thought a young marriage could be so healthy and inspiring until I met my friends. These two will (and have) follow each other to the ends of the earth and back. They are so confident and comfortable in their love that it didn’t matter if a solo flight attendant backpacker from New York joined their beach day. My encounter with the blissful couple has proven to me that love can be given unguarded and fully if given to the right person. Being in their presence has shown me that this type of magic does exist somewhere out there.

Much of the rest of my time in Cartagena was spent wandering the streets of the old city, watching fútbol games, drinking the local beer, and staying up dancing. Sometimes travel can be exhilarating and busy and hectic. Sometimes it is relaxed with no real purpose to the day besides happiness and copious amounts of tropical fruit. Onward with the next journey!

We were happy to get Sukothai to ourselves early in the morning before making our way to Chiang Mai. This time the bus was a quick 5 hours! Complete with friendly smiling Thai babies to play with.

Day 1:

Upon our arrival we were greeted by a fleet of red truck/taxis called “Songtaew’s”and bartered our way to a good price to the hostel. We ended up staying at the lovely Hostel Rada Arak. We stayed on the top floor in a bunk with 8 beds, which was perfect for myself and the three other travelers I met. Upon our arrival we also befriended a friendly English lad who, after spending the night on the bus, was just as eager as we were to go on our first adventure: Cliff Jumping.

I know I’ve said it a million times, but I am NOT an adrenaline junkie. I loved playing sports and being active growing up, however I would rather chill on the beach or go swimming before getting on the back of a jet ski. I think the older I get, the more fearful I am when it comes to doing things that could potentially hurt me. And jumping off of a cliff at a manmade quarry in the north of Thailand definitely got my heart pumping. I know in my head that the jump will give me mild discomfort for approximately .02 seconds, and will make me laugh and giggle all day. However, staring down at the water, and not being able to gauge how far is really is makes the task especially challenging.

We all lined up one by one, each of us taking our sweet time to take the plunge. When it came to my turn, I walked over and told myself to not think about it, or let too much time pass or it will make the jump even more terrifying. I threw my body over the edge and distinctly remember the time pass in slow motion as I made two distinct, involuntary sounds: a squeal of delight and a grunt of discontent as the water was even further away than I thought.

 

We spent the next few hours swimming and jumping into the warm yet refreshing water before returning back to the city center.

After enjoying ourselves at the Grand Canyon, we decided to get yet another massage. This time we went to Lila Thai Massage. The gents got back and shoulder massages and the ladies got facials. Something extremely special about this massage place is that all of the masseuses were once criminals. Instead of releasing these women after their sentence, they are trained to give high quality massages and then given the opportunity to work at Lila so that they can support themselves and don’t revert back to the life of crime.

We spent the rest of the day eating. There is always room in the budget for amazing food, and Chiang Mai did not disappoint. First we had some tasty homemade noodles before gearing up for the night of “street sweeping”. Street sweeping refers to going to the food carts and trying everything possible until you explode! We found 5 baht sushi (approximately .14 cents a piece!), mango nutella crepes and a million Thai delicacies that I can neither pronounce nor read. Food so good you could cry.

Day 2:

Another day waking up slowly, even though my body was 100% set on not letting me sleep past 7am. I spent the morning on the roof of the hostel enjoying the view and the cool morning air.

I decided to accompany two of my new friends to Bo Sang, an ancient handmade umbrella artisan market just outside of town. It was amazing to think that not only has the umbrella been around for over two thousand years, but that it can be made completely out of bamboo and other plant fibers and still be waterproof!

 

We then headed back into the city center to see the Silver Temple, Wat Sri Suphan. This particular temple was special not only because it is completely silver on the outside, but also because women are prohibited from entering it. Now, my feminist side was none too happy about that. Apparently the reason is due to some ancient artifacts buried beneath the temple some 500 years ago. These artifacts are so powerful (or weak) that they will either deteriorate the lady, or she will deteriorate them. Well, I must admit, I do feel like a strong lady myself. So I suppose the artifacts must be protected from the power that myself and other ladies exude.

My day was far from over by the time I got back from Bosang and Wat Sri Suphan. My new friends and I had scheduled ourselves a cooking class at the Siam Rice Cooking School. My friends and I arbitrarily chose this school from a stack of brochures outside our hostel and were NOT disappointed. We opted for the half day class because we wanted to spend the earlier part of the day exploring. Our friendly chef picked us up at our hostel and promptly took us to a local market where she explained to us all the different ingredients that make Thai cuisine so special and unique.

Being someone who is NOT by any means an even decent chef, I was amazed at the variety of colors and smells of all of these strange veggies and herbs I was introduced to. After our tour of the market we headed over to the school.

Something I loved about this cooking class is that each person has their own personal menu. We got to choose four different dishes: a soup, noodle, curry, and dessert. Each person could choose everything they ate including meat or vegetarian, there was no compromise or arguing in the group because we all had the option to choose our own! And with such a small group, sharing was encouraged.

My personalized menu choices consisted of spicy soup with sweet basil, a spicy basil infused soup; pad thai, my absolute favorite; jungle curry, the spiciest of all Thai curries; and mango sticky rice, the most perfect dessert I’ve ever experienced.

We had so much fun preparing our meals all together laughing and joking with our teacher. The food was actually amazing considering what a bad cook I am at home. The flavors were all so diverse and worked so well together. However I must admit, as much as I love my sriracha, the jungle curry was WAY too intense for me. Never in my life have I wanted to accomplish eating a meal so much before, however when my arms and legs started tingling and I felt like I was going to black out, it was time to switch to the sweet and flavorful mango sticky rice!

 

Day 3:

On our third day we woke up bright and early to visit the Elephant Jungle Sanctuary, an ethical non-riding excursion where tourists are able to feed, interact and bathe Indian elephants. Because we wanted to head to Pai in the evening, we opted for the half day session, even though it was a mere few hours shorter, it was totally worth it.

*Note: Although it may seem tempting to get a picture of you taken riding an elephant, it is an extremely cruel practice and many tourists only make this realization once they have already paid copious amounts of money to places that don’t care for their animals properly. The Elephant Jungle Sanctuary and the Elephant Nature Park are two (if not the only two) of the few elephant tours that rescue elephants from a life of cruelty. An elephant can cost around $50,000 for one of these sanctuaries to rescue an elephant not including any medicine or food costs. Since elephants eat around 20 hours a day, it’s important that they are well fed consistently

I’m just going to let the pictures do the talking on this one, because theres no way for me to express how amazing playing with these guys was!

 

Too many beautiful memories!

After our amazing time with the elephants we cleaned up and were on our way to Pai!

Hiding from customers in my natural habitat. Today is my last day being a Boston based flight attendant! After working 18 days with only two days off in between its a miracle I still have a smile on my face. Thank you to everyone who helped me make this chaotic move more easy. I truly have the most amazing friends out there! Let’s see what JFK has in store for me! NYC here I come!!! ✈️✈️✈️

As a flight attendant and a professional traveler I am personally offended by the closed minded remarks in this article (link below). I took my job after graduating a semester early in the top 3% of my college. I spent my junior year abroad on MY dime with no financial support from my parents or other family members. When I accepted my job offer many of my professors were shocked that I would pursue this career instead of going straight for my masters/doctorate. I told them that this job does not define my life and that it is a choice I am willingly making to improve myself and learn about the world and its’ inhabitants. Since I have started I have been to over 6 countries for vacation (non work) purposes. I am able to pay all of my bills, put money into my savings and 401k and still manage to have a healthy amount to spend on travel. Life is all about priorities. If you only view success as zeros in a bank account, then you have absolutely no foot to stand on when calling someone out for valueing real life experiences. As someone who speaks two languages fluently and is working on my third, while pursuing grad school options, working a full time job AND traveling, I am anything but lazy, and I am NOT trying to escape reality. We all do things differently but don’t dare think for a moment that these movers and shakers, these doers, these travelers are any less worthy than someone who was never daring enough to step outside their door.

You can find the article here:

Why Your Obsession with Travel Means You’re Living a Mediocre Life

I keep telling myself, if I can do this, I can do anything. I keep pushing myself harder and harder into the unknown, assuring myself I will be a better person in the long run. I will learn more, accomplish more, be worth more. However that doesn’t stop the incipient feeling of butterflies every time I start to think about how I spontaneously ‘planned’ a trip to Thailand and am about to leave my apartment to embark on my next journey.

I am not a planner, I am a doer. I’m the type of person who will follow through on my plans, regardless of what might get in my way. However, I am also the type of person to buy a ticket, book the first three nights at a hostel and then just wing it from there. Sounds like the life, eh? Doesn’t help the fact that I am barely packed a few hours before my flight… Here we go. Another adventure to be had out there.