Why I'm travelling around the world
I’ll go straight to the point and lay out my best answer to this question: why wouldn’t I travel around the world? This idea has been floating my mind for two or three years now, enough time to check out how daily life in our current society is designed to jam your plans. As a journalist in Spain I’ve had my issues to get a stable job, so when I quit my post at VICE two months ago my parents and some of my friends were, to say the least, a bit skeptical with my decision.
It’s a decision mulled over the last two years. I knew I wanted this bad, but the time was never right. If I hadn’t been bold this summer –it’s never easy to refuse a job, because we grow up at school and home and then get spitted out of universities to precisely focus on getting THE job– it still wouldn’t be the right time. But it is now. The only thing I had to do is buy my one-way ticket to Singapore. And here I am now, chasing dreams and starting yet another personal project. But I’ll talk about this in the end.
After getting past this red line, which has allowed me to think freely “why wouldn’t I travel the world?” I do have to say that this barriers I’m talking about apply to all of us in different ways. For some friends, travelling is not their thing, but yet they’re stuck at a shitty job or a tiny flat without finding the room to escape. So why I’m travelling around the world does have other reasons, actual reasons.
I think my passion for travelling arised in Australia. It’s the first thing that comes into mind when I recollect my younger years, not only for travelling but in a broader sense. I was nine and I remember just having the time of my life already in the plane. The joy I felt during that trip with my parents, although at 26 seems like ancient history, is still vivid. Of course, Australia is just the dreamplace for thousands and thousands of people today, so I understand why it stuck with me so strongly.
So I gotta thank my family and then my friends. My first big trips were language exchanges in UK and USA. Then came my first huge adventure, an Interrail with two school mates. Awesome times. Then I started wandering around Europe, I lived abroad and experience Erasmus and finally reached a turning point. After finalizing my studies I observed the world atlas and realized I had only been travelling to “safe places”, spots were societies essentially looked the same as mine in Spain.
I really started opening my eyes thanks to surfing, a sport —and a lifestyle too, sure— that will connect you with nature and give you another flow no matter what you do. Because of my search for good waves, and after two summers without holidays because of the continuous exchanges of jobs I had to do to survive in my early professional career, one January I decided to point my finger at Bali, Indonesia. This was the true seed to my future travelling around the world without timetables.
Oh, Bali, so different and so amazing. The waves were bigger and the trees were taller, but most importantly the blues were bluer and the greens were greener. Everything seemed more authentic, more raw. Where was I living? That was 2016 last year after I left my job in a small newspaper in Barcelona that didn’t pay me and my colleagues for more than four months. After discovering the fascinating Bali I was about to leave home.
But another opportunity came and I stuck with my prefabricated existence. Luckily I still found a great amount of time during my summer holidays to first visit the awesome Morocco and then travel alone for the first time of my life to Thailand. I discovered I could do it. My mind was ready for the big one except the last step: abandoning the comfort zone, the cocoon of securities we call home –or at least us the lucky ones that have one: family, friends, country…–
So if you’re reading this –firstly, thanks for doing so– it means that I’m finally doing it. Yay! Now, let me talk a bit about the project.
Why Two Decades in the Sun
The name is very personal. My inspiration came from a Stereophonics album. I was 20 by then and was starting to focus my career towards journalism and writing. So 20 equals Two Decades, and bla bla bla. Initially, 2DS was a personal blog where I wrote about things that interested or worried me. At that time it was Politics –I was studying my degree in Political Science– and Basketball –I’ve always wanted to follow the steps of my father, a great sports journalist–.
After several years working in general and sports media I’ve fulfilled many dreams. I published in major local publications, covered the NBA Finals for the leading newspaper in Barcelona and wrote about lots interesting stuff in a global media company such as VICE. Now that I’ve realized that travelling and discovering the world is my true drive in life, and I believe this won’t change much in the future, I thought that quitting my day job was an excellent opportunity to launch a new project that jibes with my interests.
This is a personal project in its birth, but my goal is to include here, in this magazine, the perspectives of great writers and photographers which I’m lucky to call friends. And yes, I will try to persuade interesting backpackers I get to know and other people I already admire to share their awesome works and experiences with us. I might not have many resources but I do have a lot of excitement, and this is why I’m sharing this with you today. It is a start.
Hopefully, Two Decades in the Sun will become an interesting meeting point for travellers, writers and photographers all over the world. We’re all in the end, under the same sun. And I stuck with the name, by the way, because the 20’s is when most of us discover the world, learn about new places and become conscious that knowing more about other culture is a path to richness. I’ll do my best to carry my thrill for what’s to come in my life into this project. And now, let’s start the adventure. In two weeks, off I go.
P.S. I may be determined, but I’m also sure I’ll miss my family, my friends and my home a lot. I want to thank them for their support.
