Surprise! I bought a one way ticket to Europe

Life is a book and those who do not travel read only one page...

My love for travel knows no bounds. I am also blessed with the greatest parents in the world who support my extreme wanderlust. From a young age my family traveled extensively. Some of my earliest memories are trips to my grandparent's Florida vacation home and on their boat. During my school years we took family vacations, cruises and even a cross country trip to visit my late uncle in California. Imagine, 2 weeks in an RV with your brothers and parents. As I grew up and became independent, I wanted to explore more of the world and my parents were right there every step of the way encouraging me. At 19 I left the country for the first time to study abroad for 6 weeks the summer of my freshman year of college. I still refer to that time as some of the greatest days of my life thus far. When I graduated college, my parents bought me a plane ticket to return to Europe for 2 weeks. Since my return home, I have been dreaming of the day I would go back and now my time has come.

5 years ago on my first Europe trip

After much thought and deliberation I have decided to leave Orlando to embark on an extended backpacking/work exchange trip across Europe and then some. I will be leaving July 25th to visit London for a week with my aunt. After London we will travel to France (my third time visiting the beautiful country) and from there I will embark solo to Italy. I will be doing a work exchange to make my travels more affordable and will be staying on a vineyard just north of Rome in a city called Montefiascone for 6 weeks. 

The house I will be staying at in Montefiascone

Excited is an understatement but I am also nervous and curious. Nervous to be alone in foreign countries and curious to see what I will be able to learn and how much I will be able to grow by pushing myself outside of my comfort zone. As I travel, I plan to continue my blog and post as often as I can but my goal is every Sunday. I am looking forward to sharing all my traveling tips and lessons learned while traveling this amazing planet.

Until then I will be taking these next few weeks to spend time with my family and friends in Ohio before leaving on my trip. I have not set a return date and have no itinerary after Italy, so all suggestions are welcome!

For those of you who have followed my blog from the start, THANK YOU! Thank you for reading, for sharing and the constant stream of ideas since I started writing. Disney will always be my home, but I hope you enjoy the next part of my journey just as much as I plan to. For now, join me on this trip down memory lane as I reminisce on some of the amazing places I have been so far:

Nantes, France

Barcelona, Spain

Cliffs of Moher, Ireland

Paris, France

Mont Saint-Michel, France

Brussels, Belgium

Disneyland Paris

Munich, Germany & Neuschwanstein Castle

Strasbourg, France

Minor shout out to my idols:

I am not sure if they will read this but I would like to give a special shout out to the Bucket List Family (can be followed on Instagram, @thebucketlistfamily). I had the absolute pleasure of meeting the Gee family last year at Disney World and have followed their adventures for quite a while now. The Gee's sold all of their possessions nearly 3 years ago and with that money, decided to travel the world full time as a family of "photo journalists." Their journey means more to me than they can possibly imagine since it inspired me to journey a similar path. So thank you Bucket List Family, I will be watching your weekly videos from around the globe and hopefully we will run into each other on our travels :)