Hello and welcome to my travel blog! I’m Joy, hence the blog name. 🙂
I’ve always loved traveling, even when I was a child. We didn’t get to travel a lot as a family, mainly because we didn’t have the finances for that. But I remember enjoying our summer beach trips and me drooling over photos of beautiful domestic and international destinations in magazines. When I started working, I made it a point to go somewhere at least twice a year. For the last 5 years, I traveled mainly to places in Luzon with my ex-boyfriend.
And then we broke up.
You probably know what happened next. It’s a story we’re all so familiar with. I cried, I drowned myself with work, I went out, reconnected with old friends, joined a book club, met new people. And I traveled.
This isn’t something new. This girl did it. And it’s a highly-recommended post-breakup activity.
Less than a month after the breakup, I booked a flight, and then 2 more flights a month later. That was already one trip more than my annual quota but hey, no one’s holding me back now. And after an emotionally taxing day in March, I joined a tour group with two of my friends. Both of them backed out on the day of the trip but I decided to push through with it even though I don’t know anyone in the group. I’ve never done this before. And it was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made in my life.
That trip changed me. We were all strangers to each other and we were all so different… but somehow we clicked. I’ve known, for a few months then, that there’s more to life than the past and the future I lost but it was that trip that reaffirmed the knowledge that I would be okay despite this major change in my life. I gained a new perspective in life, in love, in travel, and some new (and really awesome) friends.
Then I joined more group tours. While it’s true that traveling disrupted my work, my daily routine, my book blog, and my life in general, it was a much welcome disruption. I learned and am still learning a lot from it.
This blog, ultimately, will chronicle my adventures and the lessons I take away from my travels. 2015 is shaping up to be a great year for me. And I hope whoever and wherever you are, you’ll learn something from my stories. And if you have your own stories to share, I’d be glad to listen. 🙂
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