Hana Abdullah travelling the world

Introduce yourself – Where are you from? Where in the world are you currently?

My name is Hana Abdullah, and I have lived in London my whole life. I ventured out into the world in October 2013 and am currently in Colombia. I will sadly be returning home back to reality in August.

 

2. Tell us about your first trip abroad? What first attracted you to a life abroad tomtom kostenlosen?

Since I left school I wanted to go travelling but I wasn’t entirely sure where exactly I wanted to see and needed to save some money so I waited until i had finished university and about 18 months of work in accounting before I packed up and set off. I had planned to go alone but found a friend who wanted to do a similar route and we ended up heading to STA and planning it as a trip together. Our group ended up as a trio about half way through as we had another friend join us, and we have been lucky to have lots of visitors join us for parts of the trip. Lots of people told me how crazy I was to spend so much money on what they considered a giant holiday (not far from the truth). I simply pictured myself sitting in a nice house with a nice job, and feeling empty and regretful that I never chose to follow my desire to run free around the world for a long while listenbooks for free.

 

3. What kind of traveller are you? Backpacker? Long-term traveller? Short term? Other?

Currently I am a long term traveller, as I will have been away for about 11 months. I think it’s a totally different experience that I worked really hard to save for. Even though it is at times very challenging being away from home for so long, it’s a unique experience that I may find harder to do further along in my career c# datei downloaden. Now that I have fell in love with a few special places, I would be happy to spend a few concentrated months at a time in each one, as my next travelling adventures.

 

4. How do you fund yourself when travelling?

I funded almost the entire trip before I left. Recently a tax rebate saved my bacon as I was running pretty low on money. I am pretty good at not blowing my money on stupid things, and the beauty of being away for such a long time means I am never in a rush, and can afford the time of taking a 24 hour cheap bus instead of flights, which saves a lot of money wie kann ich instagram videos herunterladen. We have done a few random jobs while we have been out here. My favourite  job was joining the promotion team for the infamous yacht party on the Gilli Islands, which worked out quite nicely for us!

 

5. Your favourite place you have been to? And why?

I instantly fell in love with Cambodia. I understand that some may find it quite a big culture shock, as it is one of the poorest countries in South East Asia, but I found it to be my favourite one of them all cap-j downloaden. The people were so happy and always friendly towards us. I have great memories of being scared for my life in a tuktuk on the crazy roads of Phnom Penh. Food is a big deciding factor for whether I like a place, and the food in Cambodia is always delicious and costs next to nothing. I will be attempting to recreate the traditional Amok curry dish when I am back at home in my kitchen. While we were there, we heard lots of travellers talking about a recently discovered by backpackers island called Koh Rong. It did not disappoint. There were no paths or roads, just the most beautiful beach I have seen with a handful of guest houses and juice bars herunterladen. Paradise. I plan to go back to Cambodia in the near future and volunteer in a school teaching English, as I found during my travels in Asia, that this does really benefit the people living there the most as a skill due to the growing tourism there.

 

My other highlights of the trip are as follows:

Thailand – despite the boom in tourism, avoid the classic destinations, and it still has some of the worlds most beautiful tropical beaches, and Thai cuisine is also unbeatable. I would highly recommend a Thai cooking class. We spent an unforgettable New Years at the full moon beach party.

New Zealand – we rented a car drove the whole of the north and South islands in a month which was the most scenic road trip I can imagine netflix to laptop. The views on both islands are consistently breathtaking as we were always surrounded by mountains, green grass and trees and luckily for us – bright blue skies.

Fraser Island, Australia – we were lucky to have an amazing guide who took us to the best parts of the island and truly knew every inch of the whole place. Driving on the sand and through the bumpy rainforest tracks in 4 by 4s was so much fun, and well worth paying the insurance for!

6 herunterladen. Your least favourite place you have been to? And why?

My least favourite places were some of the beach towns on the east coast of Australia. Though undeniably beautiful beaches, I soon grew bored of the lifestyle of beer drinking and surfing. I am sure it is most peoples dream scenario, but it is not mine. There are lots of backpackers there that do not see the light of day and just want to party, which I would advise them to save some money and just go to Malia herunterladen.

 

7. What advice would you give to other people looking to travel?

I would advise anyone who is in half minds whether to go or not, to book tickets and think about the decision after. I would advise people to let go of any preconceptions and stereotypes they may already have and talk to everyone and anyone you meet along the way. You will be surprised at who are the people you go back to have a second conversation with.

 

8. What is left on your bucket list for you to accomplish/see?

My next new adventure will be a North America road trip songs for tonie. I think this will be a totally different experience to the trip I am currently on as a backpacker, but it’s another one I have always wanted to do. I’d love to rent a car and do the classic Route 66, but I would also like to go to as many wierd places as possible and see what strange scenarios I manage to find myself in. After struggling as a poor backpacker, but still having an amazing time in Sydney, I have also decided I would love to work there for a year in the future. It has a really different working lifestyle and outdoors culture to London that I could see myself really taking to.

 

9. Where do you see yourself in 5 years time?

In five years time, I hope to have worked abroad in at least two destinations, and scratched off a few more countries on the atlas scratch map. I have really enjoyed taking photographs on my trip, and have particularly loved building my instagram profile. I’d like to do a digital photography course, buy a really good camera, and see if my passion for travel photography develops.

 

10. What is the biggest difference to life overseas compared to life at home?

Life at home is not just about you and what you want to do that day! Life as a backpacker is hard in terms of planning and budgeting, but the luxury of designing my day however I like is something I will really miss when I am at home again with work and time pressures. ‘Work to travel’ is a good way to describe how I will be returning to working life back at home and prevent early onset of post travel blues.

 

Instagram : han16a

Twitter : hanathespana

My travel buddy’s blog (by Chiara Pelizzari) on our trip is: goingglobal-chiarapelizzari.blogspot.com