Be an Adventurer

Etsy Poster

If I was asked three words to describe myself, adventurous would definitely be in that list.  I love to travel, see new sights, and experience crazy, fun things out of the ordinary (and live to tell about them, obvi).  I love the Mark Twain quote on the above poster! I don't want to look back and my life with regrets about things I didn't do, especially if I had the opportunity! That's why I travel so much and try to go to as many new places as possible (even if it's just for a day!).  I already look back 9 years when I did my around the world trip on Semester at Sea and feel so proud of the things I accomplished on that journey.  I really "found myself" and from then on I've lived to explore, dream and discover!!!

I'll be honest.  I've done some crazy things.  Usually I tell my mother after the fact, with the exception of calling her from the van in New Zealand on the way to jump out of a plane.  I said I was really scared and should I do it?! (Looking back on this... not sure WHY I thought that was a good idea!! Worried her sick!!)  Here are a few of the adventurous things I've done on my travels!

Jumping out of an airplane was seriously amazing.  I can't even describe the adrenaline rush. Yes, people are right when they say it's easier than bungy jumping (and I had already done that a few times first!).  Your stomach rolls for less than a second right after you jump, but after that you are on top of the world!!  My first time was supposed to be in Cape Town, but the weather prohibited it on that trip.  When I was living in Sydney, Australia, my friend and her mom took a trip to New Zealand and invited me to fly over and meet them to sky dive.  So yes, I flew from Sydney to Queenstown for 2 days, just so I could go skydiving (I'm an adventurer, remember!?).   We booked through N Zone Skydive in Queenstown and were extremely happy with our jump!  After that, we were so hyped up, that we went to The Ledge for some bungy jumping!  The views of Queenstown were amazing (not that I was looking at the views too much while swinging through the air attached to a bungy cord!).  I highly recommend Queenstown for all you adventure junkies!

While I was living in Sydney, my friend Candice and I went on spring break to Vanuatu and Fiji. She's a lot like me, so we travel SO well together (sorry, Tim!).  I've been to over 20 countries with her!!  We decided that Vanuatu would be a fun place to stop on the way to Fiji (mainly because it was close and we could add another place to our travel list!).  I hadn't even heard of the country before I was in Australia.  Candice and I flew to Port Vila, the capital of Vanuatu.  To me, it didn't feel any different than being in the Caribbean.  At our hotel, we saw a brochure for a plane flight to another island (still part of Vanuatu) where you hike up an active volcano and spend the night on the secluded island.  This sounded pretty fun to us! We almost didn't do it, because I think it was about $600 to do this for one night, so we weren't sure if it would be worth it.  In the end, Candice talked them down in price, because it was the low season, and off we went to the island of Tanna. 

We flew in a tiny prop plane (just Candice, the pilot, and me!) on Unity Airlines for about 1 hour to get to the island. Once we were there, we sat in the bed of an old pickup truck and drove on these bumpy dirt roads for about 2 hours.  We soon were able to spot Mount Yasur, which is regarded by many as the world's most accessible active volcano.  Once we climbed to the rim, you could look down and see tons of lava!  As the sky grew darker, the color of the lava got even brighter! It was SUCH a crazy experience to be able to stand there and look down at lava shooting up in the air!

We spent the night at White Grass Ocean Resort (*Note- this is not a resort! It's more like an upscale hostel).  There are (I think) 3 places to stay on the island, and this is the "nicest" (not saying much!).  I highly recommend this trip, and look back on it as one of the best things I've decided to do, because how many people can say they stood at the ledge of an active volcano? 

I wasn't sure what I wanted to do after college.  I had studied finance, yet had no desire to go into that field (sorry, mom!).  I had the travel bug, so I was looking for things I could do abroad, so I decided to study more.  I went to uni in Sydney, Australia to get my Masters in International Communications.  It was the best experience ever!! My mom and her fiance Larry came over to visit for my 23rd Birthday.  They took me, along with Candice, on a seaplane flight over Sydney Harbour.  We went through Sydney Seaplanes, and took a 30 minute flight over the northern beaches, and landed at the Cottage Point Inn on the Hawkesbury River for lunch.  The food was seriously amazing, and we all loved getting to fly over Sydney and see the Opera House from the air! Last year, my husband and I visited Sydney, and my good friends gave us a seaplane flight for an engagement present.  For this trip, we flew to Palm Beach, and met our friends there for lunch at the Boat House.  The weather that day was beautiful (pics below with the very blue water), so we definitely enjoyed the views! 

After studying in Sydney, I went on a tour of Southeast Asia with a friend.  Candice had already been to Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, so she told me everything to do! One of those things was visit the island of Koh Phangan in Thailand on the evening of the full moon.  You can only get to this island by boat, and since there is only one full moon a month, tons of people from all over the world flock to this small island and it's hard to find a place to stay (and most of them are seriously gross).  Luckily, we found a really awesome resort, the Santhiya.  The rooms and views were amazing.  From the hotel, we took a boat to Haad Rin beach for the all-night full moon party. There were over 20,000 people crowded on that small beach dancing with fire, partying, drinking liquor out of sand buckets, and even resting in designated "sleep areas" on the beach.  I'm not a huge partier, but I can say that this was a crazy experience and I highly recommend it once in your life (if you are under the age of 35). 

I think anyone that knows me would be shocked to know that I slept in a jungle.  I'm not the biggest fan of the outdoors, I really dislike bugs, and my idea of camping is the Westin.  Candice is usually the same way, so when she told me about the Gibbon Experience in Laos,  I felt like if she could do it, then I can do it! Basically, you pay to climb up a mountain, spend 2 nights in a treehouse in the jungle, and zipline all day long.  Unfortunately, I didn't get the memo that it was the rainy season and climbing up the mountain took 7 hours instead of 3.  I waded through rivers and had mud all over my body.  The temperature was hot, and did I mention that I hate hiking?  Once we got to the top, I felt so accomplished (stop laughing...I'm being serious!).  Local Laotian tourguides gave us zipline equipment, led us through the jungle by zip line to a tree house, gave us some rice, and said goodnight.  We spent the night with 6 other people in the tree house, and the next morning we ziplined through the jungle on our own in the rain (I know...real safe).  Three times a day a guide who spoke no English zip lined into the tree house and gave us rice and veggies.  At the end of the adventure, I was so shocked I did it, because the trip was way out of my comfort zone.  This is another one of those times that if I looked back, I would have been disappointed that I didn't do it.