Pre-Travel Stress: What No One Told Me About Planning a Trip

Currently feeling: Vance Joy "Georgia"  "Best That I Can" ...His entire album.

I officially bought my plane tickets for the end of July and this is feeling very real. Knowing that my relationship has an expiration date now is the hardest part. I’m balancing so many things and trying to organize myself is becoming increasingly more difficult. Not only am I trying to keep my household normal (I live with my boyfriend and our dog), I’m doing work for my TEFL class, going through the hiring process to become a substitute teacher before I leave, feeling the sadness and bitterness from some close friends, dealing with the fact that my mom [very vocally] doesn’t support my decision to travel, and, on top of everything else, constantly having a growing list of things to do and to take care of before I go. Cancel the car insurance, switch the bills out of my name, pay off my credit card, get up to date with dentist and doctors appointments, set up my student loan payments, move all my stuff into storage, apply for visas, try to save as much money as possible while also trying to make time to see all my friends and family and have a good time with them before I go. The list goes on and on. Nobody blogs about how stressful this whole process is. Moving to a new country is proving not to be as romantic as I thought it would be and sometimes part of me begins to doubt if I realize what I’m actually doing. All the stress, all the worry, all the uncertainty. Is the juice really worth the squeeze? Am I doing the right thing? And then I remember, oh yeah, I’m following my fucking dream.

Aside from the planning, maintaining my relationship is the hardest part of all. We live together, so the emotional rollercoaster of knowing I’m leaving soon, wanting to pull away, actively trying not to pull away, realizing we only have 4 months and 13 days until we break up, then seeing it as having a whole 136 days to enjoy with each other, then repeating the whole cycle the next week, is exhausting. We both know this is necessary, though, not only for our relationship, but also for us as individuals. Me being gone will be a great time for Sam to focus and really buckle down to further his career. I hope everyday that something awesome happens for him before I go so he has something positive to focus on. As for me, well, I need to do this. As much as it sucks, I can’t stay. I love him, I love our dog, I love my family and my friends, and I love calling LA home, but something inside of me is telling me it’s time to go.

I am leaving everything comfortable and familiar behind in an attempt to fuel the wild fire of wanderlust in my soul.

Willingly and knowingly throwing myself into the unknown is the single scariest thing I’ve ever done. I’m not sure it’s the right thing, but it’s the only thing that feels right. I hope I’m heading in the right direction. The countdown begins. 

Moving To Europe and Teaching Abroad

MissDirection. What a perfect name for me/my blog. What am I doing? Where am I going? I can’t believe I’m actually taking the leap and moving abroad. I enrolled in a TEFL class, so in 11 weeks I will be a certified ESL Teacher deciding where to apply for jobs. I will be leaving in August to go to Florence for 6 weeks to be an au pair for the family I lived with a couple of summers ago. I’m so happy they’ve decided to have me because this will be a great transition into figuring out where to live and getting my shit together before I jump into the job market. I’ll be in a comfortable, familiar place like the calm before the storm.

Florence is my happy place. My soul feels whole and my heart becomes giddy. I can’t help but smile walking through the city. I must look like a lunatic, but that is the one place where I am just genuinely, truly happy. I can’t wait to be there and just enjoy being present.

Ponte Vecchio, Florence, Italy 

Loving San Gimignano, tucked away in the Tuscan Hills.

September/October is the hiring season for teachers, which is when I will have interviews. I am probably going to apply in Spain and some cities around Italy. Since most language schools in Europe don’t offer contracts to their teachers, I can stay for as long or as short as I want. I’m thinking I’ll stay at my first job for at least 6 months, enjoy Spain or Italy, then see how I feel. Who knows, I may want to stay! It’s hard to make plans this early, though. I can guess and “plan” all I want, but I don’t know what is going to happen. I prefer to have a loose idea of what I want, then to wing it after that. It always works out better that way for me…ok, well, not always. I guess I just enjoy the freedom of choice.

I am a college graduate with no savings (thanks to rent and my TEFL course), student loans due in a few months and I’m planning this move to Europe. It sounds crazy, right? Well, it is. If you're feeling generous or believe in my dream, you can donate to my GoFundMe campaign. I would be forever grateful! I honestly don’t know what I’m doing, but my heart is telling me I have to. Corny, I know, but despite my lack of funds, I do have a plan, which I will talk about in another post. 

Before I even thought of starting a blog of my own, I remember looking for a travel blog with advice and a real story of the struggle other people had to go through in order to get to where they were. I hated reading all the awesome stuff without mention of the hard work it took to make enough money for their trip or figuring out logistics or worrying about having enough savings before their departure. I wanted to hear about those things because that’s what makes it real. That’s what I want to give to those of you out there who want to know what it really takes, which is why I’ve decided to document my pre-departure. It’s not going to be easy, and that’s ok. Hard work is what makes the payoff even sweeter. I can’t wait to get started.