I'm traveling! Please like me!

Traveling is tough enough. But you know what’s even tougher? Not getting the validation you deserve from the outside world! I mean, here you are, spending all your vacation money or parents trust fund or actual compensation from your job or whatever means you’re able to use to pay for that two week girls trip to Cancun, and people are just going to scrolllll through Instagram without giving your choreographed beach pic that double tap it deserves?

Listen. I get you. I travel the freakin’ world and my Instagram can’t even get over 1,000 followers. It’s been over a year. I mean, all I want is a K after that number. I know that’ll take time, but damnit, I’ve posted so many photos that Travel and Leisure would (SHOULD) kill for, and these bitches don’t have the heart to actually heart my photos? I thought we were friends, Carol. 

You risked your AirBnB rating to book this trip for those girls and you’ll be damned if you don’t get over 49 likes on every photo this week. And while people are working their 9 to 5s, eating a sad desk lunch at their office, you know they’re checking out Insta, jealous AF. Maybe they’re just jealous. I mean, check out your girls at Carlos and Charlie’s having a drink as big as a t-rex’s head with 6 straws coming out of the top, which later caused Sheila to fall off the table after jamming a little too hard to Lou Bega’s “Mambo #5”.

(We’ve all been sheila before.)

Whether you’re on a vacation or your “year of you”, we’re all looking for that stupid thing that we all claim isn’t a big deal: validation. On the outside, we say we could care less.

“You do you. I’m just gonna do me.”

“Look at all the F’s I give!” 

“I’m finding myself and I don’t care what you think.”

When deep down, we’re really all screaming,

PLEASE LIKE MEEEEEE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASEEEEE! JUST LOOK AT THIS PHOTO I LOOK ON THE TOP OF A MOUNTAIN AND I’M JUMPING SO YOU KNOW IT WAS SOOOO EPIC! ALSO LOOK AT THIS ADORABLE LLAMA! I HIKED MACHU PICHU AND PLAYED WITH LLAMAS! IT’S F*CKING ADORABLE LOOK AT IT! BABY ANIMALS SEEM TO WORK, WHAT ABOUT THESE ELEPHANTS? THEY’RE BABY F*CKING ELEPHANTS. LOOK, JUST F*CKING DOUBLE TAP THE DAMN THING YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO AND I REALLY HAVE THIS GOAL OF GETTING OVER 100 FOR THIS ONE (CAROL!!!!)

I feel you.

And whether we want to admit it or not, we all want this. Somewhere, deep down in a dark, dark, crevice of our self-conscious, a little voice beckons to be heard.

Confession: The more I travel, the more I’ve strayed from posting as much because a) I have recognized this in myself and I hate it and b) I’m not sure what good it’s doing, unless you’re genuinely curious about what I’m doing with my life or you actually want advice on the places that I have gone to. And the weird part? I hope it’s both!

The truth of the matter is, I want to make an impact on someone. I hope you do like it. I hope you’re happy for me. I don’t want you to be jealous, but rather know that you, too, should follow whatever the hell it is that your heart wants.

If it’s world travel, hop on a plane. If it’s finally quitting your job and taking control of what you’re passionate about, quit your job and open that Etsy shop selling miniature silverware for all those people who now make videos of themselves cooking tiny versions of food. And if it’s a cheeseburger, get your ass to Whataburger.

Whatever it is, do it already.

Sometimes, as much as I’d love to stop posting completely and disappear from all of social media in general, only checking in with my family via message in a bottle every once in a while, I can’t. I feel obligated to tell people about things. Not all the times, but most, I want to share the experiences I’m having with the public and hope that they get to feel the same things I did while doing them. I want to pop up in a search and I want you to go to my blog and I want you to see the amazing cafe I went to or show I saw and go there also.

I now understand part of the struggle that my industry deals with. Marketing, advertising, public relations - it’s all bullshit unless someone relates to it. Blogging, specifically, is the truest form of “I did this and you should too” versus “look at this stuff, isn’t it neat?” (i.e. TV, print, radio, basically everything I write for a living.)

So I hope, down to my core, that you enjoy seeing what I’m up to, doing the cool things that I did, and getting something out of this. This post will also hopefully force me to post more often. (It's for me, sorry you're so selfish.) For example, did you know I moved to Japan? Or went to Oktoberfest? Or played with elephants, as seen in the photo above?! I'm vowing to keep up and I hope that I do! Because I love writing about it, I love hearing people say they read it, but most of all, I love seeing that nice little notification come up on my phone. (Maybe go do that now, just to be safe.) <3