Welcome to If You Wanna Go, Just Go: The travel blog about working your way around the world!
The aim of this site is twofold:
1) Storytelling! To provide an entertaining narrative detailing my adventures, lessons and mishaps around the globe.
2) Inspiration! To provide a catalogue of information that can encourage YOU to get out there and see the world- through both working and travelling- whatever your budget.
What is this blog about?
It is about wanderlust. About living to chase the unknown, giving in to the temptation of unexplored horizons, and submitting to the joyful lure of nomadic living. It details my never ending quest to satisfy itchy feet, gratify a curious heart, and somehow quench an eternal thirst for excitement.
Pulling pints in the outback, Western Australia
It is about my on-going commitment to work my way around the world. About my desire to spend my twenties REALLY living; by exploring, travelling and working in a variety of countries, with an array of different people.
Because you don’t need heaps of money to see the world; but you do need to be driven and work hard, and I will share with you all the different jobs you can do around the world, as I go and do them myself.
It is about self-discovery. About getting lost to find yourself. About having preconceptions blown apart, prejudices smashed to smithereens, and having your ways of living, thinking, and interacting with the world consistently challenged.
So this is a tale of getting out the comfort zone, and how life really starts to happen when you do.
Conquering the famous Angel’s Landing Hike in Zion National Park, USA.
It is about travel. Night buses, passport control, broken flip-flops, mosquito bites, language barriers, and peculiar customs. About new places, exotic foods, sights and smells light years removed from English suburbia, and how it feels when each of these encounters start to change me.
I typically spend a few months in each place, so I will show you how to travel the smart way, and how to manage your money to get the most out of each and every trip.
I will share with you what it is really like to live and travel as an ex-pat; both the hedonistic euphoria of discovery, and the disturbing sense of homelessness.
Running a chalet, with a perpetual hangover, in the French Alps.
Most importantly, it is about fun.
At its very core, this blog is a collection of stories about all the incredible friends and memories I am privileged enough to make all over the world, and all the questionable things I end up doing around the globe!
So please laugh at me, because I’m definitely laughing at myself…
This is not a blog about fashion. Clearly.
What is this blog NOT about?
This is not a race to cross countries off a list
Often people will talk of visiting a country and use that hated expression- they have ‘done’ it. This could mean any number of things- perhaps they drank out of a bucket and think they have ‘done’ Thailand. Perhaps they visited London and think they have ‘done’ England (don’t get me started on this one). Even, incredibly, there are some people out there who count changing planes in the Middle East as ‘doing’ Dubai… And maybe, for them, they have.
And that’s fine. It takes all sorts to make up this travel community, and we are free to experience and process each place in a way that is right for us. Take ten days or take ten months- you are still seeing the world, so good on you!
However, the type of travel I will champion on this site (for the most part, and as far as I can), is travel that focuses more on the long term. Travel that aims to get under the skin of a country by living and working there, and taking a little longer to experience the people, the food, the customs, and those fascinating little quirks which only emerge after prolonged time in the bosom of a community.
Yes, there are times when I squeeze in a quick visit here or there, but on the whole this blog is abut living and working abroad.
So whilst I may not have been to a great quantity of places, I do know the places I have experienced very well.
Currently my areas of expertise are Western Australia, Europe and North America.
I have lived and worked in six countries, and I know about finding employment abroad on ski seasons, super-yachts, summer camps, volunteer work and all kinds of backpacking jobs in Australia, including cattle station work, outback bar work and even tropical island work.
I do not want to be a tourist. I am not even content with being a backpacker.
I want to live, work and travel like a local.
Please take a look at my story and my travels for more information, or please contact me if you have any questions or comments.
What do you think? Leave a comment below!
