Talking Travel With Taylor’s Tracks: Keeping It Real While Working Around The World
Do you find yourself staring at your Instagram feed wondering how so many bloggers and Instagrammers manage to make their travels look so…well…perfect? You aren’t alone!
In a world where travel sometimes looks like a fairytale, it’s great to hear a voice that tells things like they are. For this reason, I’m so excited to be interviewing Taylor this month on my Talking Travel Interview Series.
Taylor is the blogger behind the honest travel blog Taylor’s Tracks, a site aimed at showing the truth about budget travels and traveling as a millennial.
Taylor is on a mission to travel to every continent before she hits 30 and shares her tips for backpacking on a realistic budget on her blog. From teaching English in Thailand to heading to Australia on a Working Holiday Visa, discover how Taylor is making her travel dreams come true and working her way around the world.
Hi Taylor! Tell us a little bit about yourself!
I’m a 20-something Canadian on a mission to be a digital nomad by the end of 2017! I studied film and media production in college only to graduate and realize that I didn’t want a typical career, so I took off on a trip. I will never turn down a glass of wine, am the occasional yogi, an avid reader (I love female travel memoirs), and have a serious Netflix addiction. So far I’ve visited four continents and currently living on my third. I have a major sweet tooth, will try most foods and have a bad ear for languages.
How did you first realize you had a love for travel?
I never got to take yearly trips with my family which is pretty much the standard for Canadians. Instead, I went on weekend trips for my dance competitions or my sister’s soccer tournaments. In high school, I got to visit Austria with my dad (where he’s from), went on a 10-day tour of Europe in grade 12 and then did the classic trip to Cuba for my graduation. Through college I did a few day trips to the US, realizing that I did love to explore. But it wasn’t until I graduated college, spent months saving and got to Europe that I really had a desire for travel.
I spent two months backpacking around western Europe discovering the different tastes, sites, history, and culture. The realization hit me of how much I loved traveling when I learned so much about multiple cultures in such a short period of time. If places could hold so much discovery for me on one continent, what it held for me on other’s was simply something I couldn’t ignore.
What first inspired you to create Taylor’s Tracks?
Originally Taylor’s Tracks started as a happiness blog when I was going through a rough patch in life. I was inspired by the book The Happiness Project and decided to start a blog to document things that I was doing to make myself happier, thinking that if I was publishing things online that I would hold myself more accountable.
I quickly found myself writing more about my previous travels than anything else and decided to make it a travel blog instead. I spent a month creating my logo, graphics, setting up a new blog and finally I relaunched as a travel blog aimed to inspire millennials to travel and hoping to help others realize that they don’t have to live the conventional 9-5 life.
How do you “keep it real” on your blog, and why is this important to you?
I keep it real by being completely honest in what I write. In person, I’m very blunt and straight forward and that reflects in my writing as well. There are so many blogs out there that show the perfect side of travel and Instagram shots of places where there isn’t a tourist. And though those blogs and Instagrams can be true, I just think it is completely unrealistic. People will see those images or read about those places and expect the same thing. But in reality, they’re most likely not going to get the same picture or experience a place as they read in an article.
For me it’s important that how I show the “real” side of travel because we put so much pressure on ourselves (especially the millennial generation) to be perfect. I want people to realize that it’s okay to make the wrong decision, that something going wrong while on the road isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and that we can learn from our mistakes.
When did you start looking into jobs abroad, and how did that process go?
After I came back from my two month Europe trip and had my bit of a mid-life crisis (at the age of 22) I decided that teaching English abroad would be the next step for me. After saving up some money and getting my TEFL certificate I secured a job in Thailand. I did a ton of research on how to find a job teaching English and ended up finding one through the most popular website for teaching in Thailand, Ajarn.com. I accepted a job that I wasn’t 100% satisfied with but thought it was good enough.
One year later when I moved to Australia everything I read said to wait until you’re in the country to start applying for jobs, so I did. Little did I know that finding a job in Melbourne would be extremely difficult. I was picky at first but eventually started applying to pretty much anything. My issue in Australia is that most people on working holiday visas work in hospitality, which I have next to no experience in. So I was left with underpaid door to door jobs or call centers. I did both, quitting one because I refused to be underpaid and got fired from the other because I wasn’t pushy enough. Unfortunately a lot of people lie on the resumes/CV’s to get jobs here in Australia but I just don’t feel right doing that. To avoid more disappointment with jobs I’ve decided to move elsewhere, where there is less competition.
Can you tell us about your experience teaching English in Thailand?
In Thailand I lived in Phitsanulok, a city halfway between Chiang Mai and Bangkok. Almost no one spoke English, I was the only full-time teacher at the private language school I taught at and struggled on a daily basis learning how to drive a scooter on the wrong side of the road and order dishes at restaurants that sometimes had pictures. It was a challenge. But I got to experience real Thai culture first hand and without the tourist prices.
My days consisted of me working on my blog in the morning and then visiting the local noodle shop across the street for lunch where they would always give me a fork because they didn’t think I could use chopsticks. In the afternoon I’d relax then go to teach classes in the evening and hit up the locals markets after work. I’d point at foods having no idea what they were and ended up enjoying most of them.
I taught kindergarteners at a private school, then picked up a second job teaching at government schools in the area that really opened my eyes to what it was like for locals in Thailand. Lastly, I volunteered for a week to teach women in their mid-forties to sixties the basics of English and finally understood just how kind strangers can really be.
If I had a solid social circle I would have stayed in Thailand and not have left after only three months. Unfortunately, teaching was not a career move but only something to help me travel more and experience a different culture, so teaching itself wouldn’t have kept me in Thailand.
Many people would get discouraged when a travel experience or job abroad doesn’t go as planned. What made you determined to head back out on the road?
It is so discouraging! But I knew I couldn’t let it bring me down. There was no way I was going to let it affect the rest of my travels. I knew I wanted to make travel a major part of my life and if I let one mistake throw me off my path then I knew I was only hurting myself. I told myself that Thailand was only one country, it was only one continent, and it was only one stepping stone along a path that would lead me to wherever I wanted to be.
I went home and regrouped, put some more money aside and got myself together. The first country I went to after leaving home again was Thailand. And now I consider it one of my favorite countries in the world.
So often we just hear about the amazing parts of traveling, can you tell us about one of your biggest travel “disasters”?
Where would you like me to start?! I have so many disasters from my travels. I’m a big planner and quite often things don’t go to plan. I watch my perfect itineraries crumble in front of me. But luckily I’ve learned to let go of so much planning and just go with the flow a bit more.
One disaster was traveling with a friend who ended up driving me crazy. We just weren’t right travel companions. She wanted to be together always, I valued my alone time. I like trying new foods, she was a picky eater. It made little daily tasks difficult when neither of us were on the same page.
But my most ridiculous disaster was when I was trekking in Sapa in a typhoon. I was doing a 2-day trek through the famous rice paddies with a tour group. Not one person mentioned how dangerous it was in a typhoon so we set off. An hour in I sprained my ankle, walked 10 km on it, and then the whole group was evacuated from the area the next day. At one point while I was sitting on the side of the road a local walked up to me and asked if I was afraid about the land collapsing under me. I sure was after she made that comment. I was miserable, in pain, and wanted out of Sapa as fast as possible. But now I have a pretty cool story and am constantly telling people about the time I almost died in Vietnam.
What are some of your favorite destinations you’ve been to thus far?
Country-wise I’m in love with Thailand. The food, the people, the culture and the diverse range of beauty from the islands to the mountains. It also holds a special place in my heart because I went through so much while living there.
City-wise Hoi An takes the cake. It was so charming.I felt at home even though I was in Vietnam, such a foreign country to me. I loved the slow pace and relaxed atmosphere, the historical sites that dotted the small city and cute shops where you could get clothes tailored. Most importantly the food was unreal and the beach was close by.
The city I most want to return to is Vienna, and the best place I’ve seen for nature is Banff in Canada, a small ski town nestled in the Rocky Mountains.
You recently relocated to Australia with a Working Holiday Visa. How is the move going and how are you liking Australia?
The initial move over here was not smooth at all. From accidentally booking my plane ticket in USD instead of CAD (spending quite a bit more than I wanted), my luggage being left in San Francisco when I landed in Sydney, not having a bank card my first week even though I ordered it plenty in advance, my SIM card not working, and not being able to find a job…it has been a bit of an ordeal!
But not being able to find a job in Melbourne has been a big eye-opener for me. It has made me realize that I don’t really want to settle down in one place for a bit, that I don’t want to be in a city, and that I know what I want to do with my life. So for now I am relocating to Queensland to do my farm work for a second-year visa done.
Australia itself has been wonderful, expensive, but also a place with so much good food! I love how relaxed Australian’s are and how unique the country is even though it is similar to home. The culture here really values their time and the beauty that is here and that is something I have not seen enough of in my travels.
Do you have any exciting travel plans coming up in 2017?
First stop: Brisbane! Then explore more of Queensland. Expect lots of beaches and perhaps a town in the middle of nowhere! I’d love to get off the grid for a bit and experience life with locals outside of the city. I’ll be working my way down the east coast and will eventually hit Tasmania. There may be a sneaky trip back to SE Asia in there at some point but for now, I’m choosing to just see where this year takes me.
What advice do you have for millennials who are looking to get out there and travel?
Be logical and don’t be afraid to make mistakes. Think rationally about what you want to do, sit down, work out a plan and follow it. The only reason you’re not traveling when you want to is because of yourself. There is always a way travel. If you make excuses there will always be a reason why you’re not traveling. Make mistakes while you travel, then learn from them. The mistakes will keep you grounded and they’ll quite often turn into the best stories.
Read more from Taylor on her blog, Taylor’s Tracks, or follow her on Instagram @taylorstracks
For more inspiring travel interviews click here! You might also like:
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- How I Spent 1 Month In Greece (Almost) For Free!
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