I woke up this morning and felt knots in my stomach – thank you (nerves), next excitement [yes, you bet I seriously just quoted Ariana Grande]. I said my goodbyes to my good friends Athina and Nicole as they dropped me off at the China Southern entrance. About 20 minutes of me waiting in the check-in line, I got a text from them that I forgot my Ipad *cue stressing* Shoutout to Nate for driving during rush hour to deliver my iPad – thank you!!! After security, I went to my gate and realized it was basically final boarding call, so I rushed in and found my middle seat in row 55.

I’m currently 6 hours into my 13-hour flight to Guangzhou and have already watched 4 episodes of Friends From College and The Notebook, so I decided to take a Netflix break and write my very first blog post. Now, I seriously don’t have the first clue about blogging so please bear with me as my vulnerable self shares my thoughts and memories with the internet. EEK!

I decided to go on this big adventure as I was starting to grow tired of my life in Edmonton. Don’t get me wrong – 2018 was great year overall. I got my first promotion as an Administrative Recruitment Consultant, moved downtown while making some amazing 207 memories with my roommate Emily, started seriously rock climbing as a hobby, attended my cousin Ryan’s wedding, and enjoyed my mid 20’s by probably making one too many appearances at Cactus Club and the Pint downtown. Despite the stability of a 9-5 job and having an amazing support network, I found myself dreaming about traveling again. I had originally wanted to go on trip last year, but I’m glad I postponed it because I wouldn’t change my 2018 memories for anything.

You may wonder.. Ashley, what prompted you to bite the bullet?

I would say the travel bug bit me back in 2013 – 6 years ago! Since then, I’ve traveled with a boyfriend, friends and family– but I had never crossed solo traveling off my bucket list. So I thought to myself – I’m single, don’t have kids or a mortgage… when is the opportunity ever going to present itself again? The first “milestone” so to say was applying for my 1 year Australian work-holiday visa in September ($430 and 5 minutes later… I was approved!!). A month later, I booked a one-way ticket to Hanoi because I wanted to journey across SE Asia first. As the dreaded YEG winters were fast approaching, I put in my notice at work. As some of you may know, for the first month of 2019 – I was fun-employed. During this time, I continued rock climbing, practiced yoga, went to the mountains, binge-watched YOU on Netflix, probably had like 3 going away parties for myself, sold as much furniture as I could and of course packed the rest of my life into boxes for storage.

There was a hiccup with me packing my bag – how does one pack for 1 + year away? I ambitiously purchased a 40L Osprey bag, but during my test pack, I realized I am not meant for minimalistic travel. So thank you to my friend Belqes for letting me borrow your 46L bag 😊

Although I had tons of friends and family members excited for me, there were many skeptics. The first one being my grandma. From the few Chinese words I could pick out, she essentially told me that if I was her own daughter, she wouldn’t let me travel across the world. In typical Ashley savageness, I told her that it was a good thing that I’m her granddaughter. Both of my parents were also worry-warts and had asked me if I ever thought about my future. Standard questions relating to why I left a good job, when am I going to purchase a house or get married if I continue to spend my money on traveling. Well you know what that sounds like to me? Settling- and that’s something I refuse to do at 25 years old.

Of course I know there are dangers of solo traveling, I’ve read countless articles of women getting raped, pick pocketed, murdered, etc. However, we live in a dangerous world and any those things can happen in your own city. If I chose to listen to concerned family, friends or the news and have them influence my life decisions – I wouldn’t be sitting here writing about this right now. I hope this post will inspire any wandering soul to find the courage to overcome all fears and dismiss any thoughts telling you that you can’t do it. It’s 2019 and its time to live your friggen BEST LIFE.

If you have made it this far – thank you! I will try to blog as much as I can, but please leave a comment below if you have any questions or suggestions on what type of blogs you would like me to write.

XOXO,

Ashley