A Year on from my adventures in Ireland

  It was a year ago this month that I quit my comfortable day job, packed way too many bags and set off on a very shaky plan. I had purposefully chosen Ireland as I figured the chances of me becoming stranded, unable to communicate with anyone or work out how to get back was far slimmer than if I had dove headfirst into the far East. Even so, the idea of going with no real clear plan or itinerary, (I simply had a wish list in my notebook,) and staying with complete strangers who were apparently not going to smother me in my sleep, well, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t absolutely terrified. 

Me in the middle of my travels at Didi's farm in County Clare. 

  But this trip was born out of necessity; a lot of people say you ‘find yourself’ when you travel, whatever the hell that means, since I spent most of my time lost in a field. The previous couple of years my life had gone spectacularly tits up and it didn’t look like I was going to be able to get up again any time soon. But then I came across a Youtuber called Louis Cole and his incredible adventures travelling the world and documenting it in his channel vlogs, Fun For Louis. I became utterly obsessed. He never seemed to have a plan, but he just went for it, any opportunity to do something new, or crazy or amazing, he just did it and seemed to be having the most fun in the world, all over the world. And I wanted it! It was like someone switched on a light above my head, like when a cartoon character has a great idea.  This is what I had to do, travel and tell people about it, anyone who would listen. Now, Louis Cole has over a million subscribers and so actually gets paid very well for what he does. Me on the other hand? I had saved up about £2000 and had no unrealistic ideas about my subscriber goals.

Fun For Louis, British Travel Vlogger & my hero! 

  I watched as many travel vloggers as I could; Hey Nadine, the Vaga Brothers, Ben Brown, How2Travellers and as much as I enjoyed their videos and blogs, I realised that hardly anyone was doing recurring vlogs on how to travel when you really have no money. Gap in the market? Time to get filling! That was my thinking anyway. My best friend, Sarah was currently on a yearlong trip in Canada and on one of our Skype chats, she off handily mentioned WWOOFing. At first I thought it was something to do with dogs, (stupid abbreviations,) but when she explained it was a way of travelling and learning for next to no money I was completely amazed. How had I never heard of this genius system before? I did some research and discovered more and more programs like WWOOFing that allow people to travel all over the world without remortgaging their homes. But, like myself, it seemed hardly anyone knew about them. This really ticked me off; ‘you mean I could have been travelling and enjoying myself this entire time instead of working in a shop for minimum wage?’ 

Hey Nadine, Canadian Travel Vlogger & another hero of mine.

  I had found my niche, I’d drawn out a loose plan now all I needed was a decent backpack and the courage to go through with it. The backpack I borrowed from my brother, the courage I borrowed from Jack Daniels and Morgan Spice.

   The videos and blog I have created serve in three parts, number 1 is for me; I have a short term memory loss, (not to the extent of Dory, from finding Nemo, but there’s a good portion of my life that I simply don’t remember,) this means that I forget truly amazing parts of my life. The videos just give me so much more than the still photos that I also take a lot.

WWOOFing at Didi's place in Clare.

  Number 2, to inform people how they can see the world too. I know so many people who are desperate to travel, but like me, for the longest time, we all thought it would be super expensive and that we would never see further than Brighton without first winning the lottery. I had discovered all of these systems that help people travel for cheap but because they don’t have fancy TV ads or celebrity endorsements, very few people know about them or trust that they are safe and successful. I committed myself to try as many as I could in Ireland and anywhere else I may find myself with my buzzword being ‘shoe-string-budget,’ (wait, that’s three words Helen, *face palms.*)

High fives all round! 

  Number 3 was to hopefully entertain whoever stumbles across my channel and blog. I was never looking to make a ton of money from sharing my adventures, (although that would be great one day- someone call me about that!) But I really hope that they make people laugh or inspire a great idea like the videos I watch and love. Youtube is this incredible platform for anyone to share content and I realised very quickly that I wanted to be part of this community who entertain and educate for free.

  In the year since I stated the videos and blog I have been really surprised and humbled by the response I have had. I kind of figured it would be my mum who was my sole audience, (turns out she stopped watching about nine episodes back,) but people who I haven’t spoken to in years and people I haven’t met before have watched/read and enjoyed my content which is pretty thrilling. Even if it had been just my mum watching, (again, she quit!) I would still be planning the next trip and how to improve my vlogs and posts for years to come.

Vlogging everything including the cake.

  So, I would just like to say, THANK YOU, thank you for reading this blog, thank you for watching my shaky camera work and Sarah and I getting lost and stuck in mud and doing yoga and eating freaky things. Thank you for allowing me to share some of my favourite memories with you all through the magic of the interwebs!       

  Bear with me, there’s more to come…