Living Life Away My Planner (and Surviving!)

As an artist, I have always found myself longing to travel to surround myself with beautiful things and experience more, but as someone who plans out their meals, workouts, and even showers, the idea of traveling sometimes made me nervous.  This past June, I took a break from my normal life, put my planner aside for a while and backpacked through the beautiful country of Thailand for a little under a month with my best friend.  As I expected, the backpacking life was definitely a different type of lifestyle for me, but I instantly fell in love with traveling.  It was freeing to make decisions on the fly, and not have a strict itinerary.  When we found a certain city or island that we fell in love with, or friends from a hostel that we wanted to spend more time with,  it was amazing to just be able to stay for as long as we wanted, and leave when we felt the time was ready. 

Traveling without a strict plan may seem like a nightmare for any “planner person”, but luckily everything went smoothly because of the preparation, planning, and research that was done prior.  For example, I traveled with only what could fit in one 45 liter hiking backpack, but thanks to my bloom packing pad, I managed to always have an appropriate outfit for whatever we spontaneously decided to do and never felt underdressed. The packing pad helped me organize and prioritize what to bring so that no space in my backpack was wasted which was so important!

During the trip, my bloom notebook was essential for writing down what we did each day and journaling about my experiences.  We did so many things in a single day - stayed in amazing places, ate at great restaurants, and met incredible people. It would have been impossible to remember everything if I wasn’t writing it all down.  Since I’ve been home, I hear of a bunch of people wanting to travel through Thailand just as I did and I’m able to give them tips on what’s worth seeing and doing!

Coming home, it was refreshing to get back to my scheduled life but I’m glad I learned that it’s okay to take a break sometimes and live life by a compass rather than a calendar :)

xoxo,

Dena