Wanderlust

I am very happy to share with you all that last week I was accepted into a volunteer program in the Philippines! Before I know it, I will be spending two months in Leyte with the All Hands Organization to help the local community in the aftermath of the typhoon that struck down back in November. I am excited about this upcoming experience for multiple reasons:

1. I get to continue traveling! This time, internationally!
2. Being half Filipino, this is a great opportunity for me to finally experience some of my family’s culture, as I have never had the chance to go to the Philippines.
3. Lastly, but absolutely not least(ly), I will be helping people in need. Serving others is a truly enriching experience. I in no way intend to belittle the struggles of others with my expressions of gratitude to travel. I hope to channel my appreciation in the most humble way I can.

The organization’s website has a lot of information in regards to the project I will be working on, including updates on those currently volunteering there. Specifically the type of work I am expecting to do is clearing debris from damaged houses, salvaging reusable goods, and potentially some rebuilding as well. This is right up my alley; I really can’t wait to get out there and get my hands dirty – I wish I was leaving tomorrow!

I am also hoping to use this opportunity to launch some travel in other “nearby” countries as well. For those of you on Facebook, this would explain my questions of “Japan or Australia?” and “Japan or China?” If everything goes my way, I’m hoping to add all three of those countries to this trip’s itinerary. I will most likely be using Tokyo as a layover on my way to/from the Philippines, and so why not take some time to explore while I’m there? Australia is also a big draw, especially as I’ve found out that they have an easy work-visa system that could allow me to stay up to a year! Not that I’m necessarily planning on doing that, but it is an option. All of this is in the preliminary stages, so none of it has been hashed out yet much at all; I’m letting myself dream of all the possibilities, and getting pumped about making as much of it come true as I can!

You may be wondering, where is the money going to be coming from? Well, when I was working and saving up money for my road trip, I also saved up a decent sum of money for my life post-road trip, because I loosely had plans to move away after my trip. As the trip came to its end though, I knew I wanted to keep going; I wanted to keep traveling somewhere. Wanderlust really is insatiable. The idea of going to the Philippines to volunteer came out of nowhere. I can’t pinpoint at what moment I conceived it as a desirable option, but suddenly it was, and I couldn’t wait to find someone who would take me there. I am so grateful it has worked out, almost like it’s meant to be. It just feels right. As this reality solidified, I decided that “the world is my oyster”, so they say, and I have no qualms spending the money I’ve saved on more travel.

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I do owe some of the inspiration to keep going on a book that I picked up just a week before I finished my trip: Wanderlust, by Elisabeth Eaves (post title reference doubled). I recommend this book to any woman with the desire to travel – that’s pretty much every woman I know. It’s a travel memoir, where the author spent 15 years traveling the globe simultaneously in search and escape of self and love. I posted a passage from it on Instagram the day I found it at the bookstore, which really doesn’t relate so much to my travel side as it does to my hopeless romantic side. But she makes great reflections on travel as well:

“By leaving our safety net, we have thrown our souls upon the wind, exposing ourselves to all of the fears and dangers that we sought to protect each other from, and in doing so, we have made ourselves available to experience things that border on the magical.”

Hm, I guess that could also relate to relationships. She is an amazing writer, and her introspective and observational thoughts remind me a lot of my own throughout my travels. I don’t want this to turn into a book review, but just for the record I will say that this isn’t the best book ever. I didn’t like a lot of things the author did, nor did I agree with a lot of things she would think. She focuses a lot of her adventures on the men she was intimate with at those particular times in her life, which I don’t think should necessarily be understated, but I felt she definitely overstated. I would have enjoyed reading more about what she was doing rather than who she was doing (some online reviews said the tagline should have been “Love Affairs in Five Continents” rather than “A Love Affair with Five Continents”, hah)…but again, her writing was very well done and I do feel that makes up for the times I felt like shaking some sense into her.

Anyway, point is, this is a book about travel. This is a true book about a woman traveling! And it’s good! There aren’t many of those! I already want to read it again.

Do any of you have recommendations for travel writing books?