The time I decided to take the road less (more) traveled…

Life is full of lessons and new experiences, but only if you let it be.  After 8 years as an elementary school teacher, I decided to take a leave of absence from teaching to take time to explore some of my other passions- yoga and traveling.

When I first told some of my fellow wanderlust teacher travel friends my idea, their responses were what I’m sure many people are thinking.  One said “We’re not lawyers or doctors, we can’t just take a yearlong sabbatical Michelle! How could you afford it?”  I’m sure many of you are wondering the same thing along with many other questions.

Here are some of the answers to the questions I’ve most frequently been asked..

Why?

To start, I’ve always loved my job and working with children, and I am so very grateful for all the amazing people and students who have come my way throughout my teaching experience.  I also love learning new things for myself to grow and I felt as though it was time for me to put my energy into something new.  As a teacher, I’ve noticed so many opportunities for people to learn and grow not only as children, but as adults as well.  Sometimes things just start to line up and make sense, and that’s what happened for me…

I know that leaving behind a full time and secure position sounds a bit scary, but something inside me was craving a new challenge and I am always up for new adventures and travels.  I am very aware that the wanderlust type of life does not interest everyone, but it is definitely my personality.  Growing up I traveled often with my family, which you can read more about in my post about my travel history here.  I’ve also always loved to explore.  My favorite thing to do as a kid was pack a picnic and ride my bike to somewhere in the woods or go for a hike with my mom.

I personally feel as though people should follow their own inner compass and mine thinks that change can be very healthy and often leads me to more happiness and fulfillment. I’ve heard it be said that it is human nature to always crave more.  This is what drives us to set goals and continue to improve ourselves.  This also isn’t to say that I don’t love my certain routines and consistencies about life, however I also love exploring, learning and growing and the timing and opportunity was right.

I kept hearing from multiple people how life changing a yoga teacher training can be and it just made sense for me to do it.  I’ve always been interested in health and good habits, and to me there really isn’t a much better habit than yoga and meditation when it comes to well-being.  Learning more about the body and ways to balance my mind, body, and soul was incredibly appealing.  Read more about my yoga history here.

This decision will also give me a chance to explore new places that I have always wanted to see.  The Yoga Teacher Training takes place in Bali, Indonesia.  The plan is to spend some time in Bali after the training, then meet some friends and family to explore Thailand, Australia and New Zealand (& possibly some other countries thrown in along the way!).  The only thing stopping me was a bit of fear of the unknown, but everything else about it excited my soul.  That’s how I knew it was the right decision to make…

How?

Have you ever heard that expression “Where there’s a will, there’s a way”?  Well that is me in a nutshell.  I’ve always been good at figuring out ways to make things happen and once I set my mind to something there is usually no turning back.

The idea first came up when I was looking into buying a new car.  I realized that most of my money was going into paying my rent and bills and that adding a new car payment would just make me that much more of a slave to material things.  It was then that I decided to consider the opposite scenario -get out of my lease, sell my car and all of my belongings and dig into my savings a bit to help me finance the yoga teacher training and travels to new places from my bucket list that I’ve never been before.

The truth is that when it comes to travel, there are so many ways that it can end up being even less expensive than your everyday life when paying bills and basic living expenses. Also, check out my blog post on using credit cards to earn free flights for one of my main savings tricks.

Why the blog?

I’ve always had an interest in doing a blog and the timing of this moment made a lot of sense.  It’s a time where I can focus a lot of energy on sharing some travel tips and information that I’m often asked about, while documenting my experiences for myself at the same time and connecting with other people with similar interests.

As I was packing up my apartment I was looking through my journals and notes and I found this page that shows just how powerful it can be to put things in writing…

This page in my journal was written years ago, as starting a blog as a hobby and doing a yoga teacher training have been something I’ve wanted to do for quite some time.  These types of things are what inspire me to hopefully inspire others while sharing my experiences!  I look forward to posting more from my upcoming travels and I welcome you to follow along as I share my journey!