One of the biggest parts to planning a trip, if not the biggest, is who you are traveling with. And if you are traveling alone, it can feel super lonely if you don’t have people to share experiences and memories with. The company you keep can make or break an experience.

So if you’ve been keeping up with my posts so far you already know that when I moved to Australia, I knew not one person. I had Skyped a couple times with my host parents, but still.. I didn’t really actually know anyone. It didn’t hit me until I was in the airport on a layover and I had an “oh sh!t.. wtf am I doing” moment. I panicked. I began to bawl, in front of everyone at my gate. A real gem for the people watchers. I called my friend Katie and told her I was scared. It had just hit me like a ton of bricks that I was about to leave the country and I wouldn’t have people to go to yoga with, or out to eat or just to hang out and do nothing because I didn’t have people. Period. And on top of that when I landed, I wouldn’t have a working phone, my friends would all be asleep anyways and that’s how it would be for the next 6-12 months. Opposite sleep schedules. She told me, “Sam. You can do it, you’ve been wanting to do this for so long and you can always come home.” She was right, I could always come home. But I didn’t want to. It was time to buck up and get stoked. I WAS MOVING TO AUSTRALIA! I boarded the plane and fell fast asleep.

When we landed I was exhausted, excited, nervous, anxious. All of the above. You name it, I felt it. I deboarded the plane, got my bags and set out to find my host family. The WiFi was spotty and I couldn’t see anyone that looked familiar. Finally I heard someone yell “Sam!” It was my host family. They had a big sign with my name on it. I was so relieved to meet them finally. We got home and settled, went out to see the Sydney harbor and have lunch on the water. I was exhausted so I passed out as soon as we made it home. The first week flew by because I was distracted by meeting my host family, working, finding a gym, opening a bank account and getting settled.

The second week was hard. I still hadn’t made any friends. I quickly began to feel lonely. I walked down to the gym at the end of my neighborhood. I signed up and told the girl that I had just moved here from the US and if she wanted to go out ever that I would totally be down to join her. It’s awkward trying to make friends. I had never really had to put myself out there like that before but I was so desperate. Thankfully she was so nice and asked for my number. It was funny. Like trying to pick up a guy at a bar, except you’re not at a bar, there’s no alcohol involved to calm your nerves and you’re just hoping you don’t come off as a complete loser but anything’s better than spending every weekend alone, waiting until 4 pm for your US friends to wake up and FaceTime with. She texted me and when I came in to workout the next couple days we chatted and mentioned going out soon. I was happy but it wasn’t the same. I really missed my friends in the US. I knew it would take time but damn. This was not how I pictured my move to Sydney. I remembered Claire telling me about Facebook pages for Au Pairs and how a lot of girls meet friends on them because it gets lonely moving to a new place and knowing nobody. But I was going to meet friends organically. I would NEVER turn to Facebook to meet friends.. how strange is that. Ew.

Well another week went by and requested to join a page called “Sydney Au Pairs”. I swallowed my pride and was ready to surrender to social media to make personal connections. I felt defeated. Like a complete loser. I’ve always said I would never meet a guy on a dating app or online. Now here I was, trying to meet friends for crying out loud. Thankfully my host family was amazing and I loved my family dinners with them and morning talks over coffee and breakfast but it’s not like we could all go hit the clubs together or hike and shop and layout on the weekends. I needed friends. I remember calling my best friend Emily. She is like nocturnal I swear. Up all night and sleeps in until early afternoon. Shit used to piss me off when I lived stateside but when I moved to the Other side of the world, I had a new appreciation for her sleep schedule, or lack there of. She listened to me complain for two weeks straight and she always comforted me. But this time the conversation went differently. She didn’t let me complain. I was so mad at her for telling me I needed to deal with it and make friends and a life for myself over there. I just wanted her to let me bitch and tell me she was sorry and she missed me. But she wouldn’t. It was tough love and it sucked but it was what I needed. I made a post while she was on the phone.

“Hey my name is Sam and I live in Roseville Chase, Sydney. I just moved here two weeks ago and I really like to hike, swim, go to the beach, or even meet up for coffee or dinner! Let me know if you live near by and want to get together!”

I felt sooooo stupid. But I hit share. And then I checked my Facebook like I checked my bank account on payday. I hit refresh every five minutes. I got a few likes , a few more, and then a few comments starting coming in. I was so happy. Why did I wait so long to do this? There are so many friends to choose from. Who do I want to hang out with first?! A girl named Lèa messaged me along with quite a few others. She lived right down the street so we made a plan to meet up the following night.

I told my host mom if I didn’t call her within five minutes, send police.. it was a human trafficking set up. She laughed and told me she didn’t think it was but she would text me to make sure everything was okay. I walked down to the end of the street and saw a girl walking towards me. Okay, she’s real, it’s not a grown ass man just trying to kidnap me. We talked for five minutes. Her English was okay but not great. I didn’t care though. I think I had a new friend. We exchanged numbers and went back to our homes. My host mom was waiting in the kitchen to hear about it when I got back. “That was fast” she said. It was really fast. But it was awkward for both of us. It’s an awkward thing. Like imagine meeting someone on tinder for a first date but instead, it’s not even a date, it’s to see if you like each other enough just to hang out and spend time with, maybe grab food once in a while. I got a text from her 5 minutes after being home. Yay! She didn’t completely hate me! We made plans to watch sunset over the harbor bridge.

So the next night we met at the bus stop. We took the bus into the city and walked almost 45 minutes to Mrs. Macquaries Chair along the Harbor. It was beautiful! Finally I was getting to see the city! She asked me if it was okay if another boy from Italy met up with us. She met him only one other time before from another Facebook page “Sydney socials”. Who am I to turn down friends right now? Of course I didn’t mind! The more the merrier. He arrived and it turned out he was an Au Pairs as well. The kids he watched were wild. Two boys and within his first month one of the kids got into the car while he was watching them and drove it into the house… we laughed so hard. The stories kept coming, hours flew by and we were all cold once the sun went down but nobody wanted to leave. We were having so much fun. We even took pictures of each other for Instagram. Signs of a true beginning of a friendship. Lol the sun set, we exchanged numbers, made plans for the city that weekend and parted ways.

Friday rolled around and we met up in the city to go to a club. I loved to dance With my friends at home on Saturday nights and I was really missing that. I was excited to get out of the house and would take anything over sitting in my room on another Friday night. We walked in and it was awesome. We didn’t have anything like it on the little island I’m from. I was in a city now. There were four rooms and each one had a different dj with a different vibe. We got drinks and walked through the place, another cocktail later we started to dance. It was too good to be true. No way these people loved to dance as much as me and didn’t care about looking stupid. It was a friendship meant to be. It was that moment there in the club, with us all dancing and laughing and not giving a shit about anything but having a good time that everything finally felt like it was going to be okay. I could do this. I had my people now. I have a family here now. It sounds stupid but after a week we just knew. And we were friends ever since.

Every Friday night we went out after that. We rented cars on the weekends to drive out of the city and see more of Australia. We spent saturdays on the beaches of Sydney. We texted throughout the week venting about our days. What did Mirko’s host kids do this week? Always a good story. We met up early on Friday nights to share a bottle of wine in the park before going to the bars. I helped them with their English. They taught me some French and Italian. We learned about each other’s countries, cultures and politics. They learned that not every American is obsessed with guns and Donald Trump. We spent holidays together. When my family came to visit for Christmas they all came and met them and joined my family for the two weeks they were here. Then they really felt like my family. My little Sydney family. We got to experience so much together over 6 months. All because I swallowed my pride and joined a Facebook group page.

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Here we are about two months into our friendship, on a famous hike in Bondi beach. We asked a stranger to take this photo. It’s one of our favorite pastimes. Asking strangers to take photos of us :,)

Fast forward two years. I just got back from Europe. I met Mirko’s family in Italy. He showed us around and his mom cooked for us. Finally. He always talked about how amazing the food is there and now I know why. It’s the bessstttt. A foodies dream. We flew to Paris from there. I met Lea’s Mom and got to see where she goes to school now. I got to eat a crepe!! A real French crepe! She made me some in Australia and these were just as good! I got to practice the little bit of French I knew. We sat and drank champagne in front of the Eiffel Tower. Like we talked about doing in Australia. I may have eventually made it there’s one day. But I doubt it would have been an experience like this. With my local tour guide/Australian family.

I think it’s also really important to note that I eventually made so many different friends along the way through other friends, going out, more Facebook posts. Probably the most out of my comfort zone was posting on a page asking if anyone would want to come to Byron Bay with me. My favorite place in the entire world. If you are my Facebook friend you will see me share stuff from there all the time. I never would have seen it if I hadn’t used Facebook to network. We planned the whole trip over Facebook messenger and then met in the airport that day. After one weekend together I made so many amazing memories and I still keep in very good touch with one of the girls from the trip. Another one… I always dreamed of seeing Sia live in concert. I saw a poster randomly on a telephone pole one day with an announcement about her upcoming show in Sydney. I immediately bought a ticket. Traveling alone will do that for you. It will teach you that it’s okay to do things alone. It’s not as bad as you grew up thinking. I made a post on facebook about it on one of my pages and turns out there were another two girls going to the same concert from the US they invited me to meet up with them. We stood together, sang her songs at the top of our lungs together and then we all left alone. Never saw them again. But that’s okay. It was fun in the moment. The concert was one of my favorite memories of Australia. And I went alone. Another first for me. I went to a pub crawl alone because how frigging cool is it to do a pub crawl with actually Australians. Real people that use the term pub like actually for real. I had to do it. So I went to the beach alone and wore my bathing suit underneath with my backpack and towel in case I decided I would rather lay out and swim. I met a CRAZY group of girls. Some from Australia, some from the US and some from various other countries. We had the best day. Fast forward a year later and three of them flew into key west to visit me for a week. We talk almost every day. All because I walked into a bar one day with a backpack and a Santa hat.. life is crazy guys. I can’t make this shit up.

Making new friends in Australia opened a whole other world for me outside of my own. It’s led me to people and places I never would have met had I not gotten outside my comfort zone and reached out via social media. It’s a really cool world we live in today with access to things like Facebook social pages and Instagram location tags. I encourage everyone reading this to take advantage of all of that. It’s basic. Sure. It’s inorganic. Fine. But it serves a purpose and I can’t imagine how my experience would have been tainted had I not taken advantage of the internet today. So book a trip, join a page. Make some new friends and make some new memories. You never know what kind of doors they will open for you.

It’s that simple.

I used to think life was hard. Like really hard. And when it felt easy, I felt anxious, like something bad was waiting for me around the corner because life wasn’t supposed to be this good. Life was supposed to be ruthless and unfair. And it totally is sometimes. The funny thing is, the period I stressed the most was probably when my life was the easiest. I just didn’t have much life experience to compare it to. I had barely any perspective. I used to worry about the smallest things when there was nothing to worry about to begin with. I still do it from time to time. I think it’s human nature. I hold myself back from reaching my full potential out of fear. For no reason at all I worry that I shouldn’t be doing something that makes me happy. I worry about booking a trip and getting sick the day I’m supposed to fly out because that’s life. I worry about quitting my job and going back to school because I might waste money and realize it doesn’t bring me joy, but again that’s life. But what’s worse than all of that is staying comfortable, living out the same, mediocre reality day after day after day and not growing, not learning and not taking leaps of faith because you might not land on your feet. A lot of people want to go on an adventure, they want to quit their job and move across the country, they want to live their life but because of fear, they end up uncomfortably, comfortable. When an opportunity presents itself, you owe it to your future self to take it. If we could just see how simple life really is.

The last twenty-five Years have taught me a lot but way, way up there, on my long list of lessons, there’s a really important one.

Life is short and as far as we know, it only comes around once.

I’ll say it one more time… louder… for the people in the back…

LIFE IS SHORT!!

You hear it growing up and you kind of understand it, but you really don’t. Not until you move back down to Florida with your dad and brother and 2 months later your mom and sister come to visit. Everyone is helping make dinner, Grateful Dead is playing in the background and your dad is drumming on every pot, pan and countertop. Your mom and sister are dancing and your brother is the only one really focused on seasoning everything to perfection. Even the dogs are at your feet, hoping someone drops something. You pause to soak it all in. It feels so good. It feels like home, like your childhood. But it’s different. It’s not your first home and you’re not a child anymore. This time you appreciate it because you realize it’s not going to last forever.

It’s not until you’re in Paris, staring at the Eiffel Tower really hard, soaking in your last ten seconds of being physically in the presence of somewhere most people only dream of being. You’ve seen it all over town for the last week but this time it’s really hard to look away because you don’t know when you’ll be back. There’s so many places you want to see before you die.

It’s not until you lose a best friend. Someone that you shared so many memories with and now the last of those moments reside with only you. You made plans for the future and for some reason, way beyond our realm of understanding, they won’t be around to see them through. It doesn’t make sense and your heart really breaks. I mean it physically hurts. But it reminds you that life is short.

If life weren’t short it wouldn’t be as amazing. It just wouldn’t. It’s the realization that nothing lasts forever that makes it so much more exciting. And the bad things that happen, they shape your perspective. They live in the back of your mind as reminders to enjoy the good when it comes because the good never stays forever. They make the good in life, better. Think about it. If you knew you had the rest of your life to visit Europe, it wouldn’t be as special. If you had the rest of your life to eat dinner with your grandparents, you would put it off. But when you promise someone you’ll take them fishing because that was their lifelong dream and you put it off for a few weeks, and then weeks turn into months because work picked up and then suddenly they fall and hit their head and within 48 hours you’re saying your last goodbye, you learn the hard way that it’s okay to take a day off work. It’s okay to say no to a shift or a project. Because in the grand scheme of life, it doesn’t really matter how much money you have, how big your house is or what tax bracket you fall into. What matters is how you treat people, how you make people feel, how you make yourself feel. What matters is what you learned along the way that you can share with your children and your children’s children. What matters is that your life matters. Did you do things that you’re proud of? Can you look back and say that you loved, that you laughed, that you got the most out of your life that you possibly could and you didn’t take it for granted. I think the younger version of me could see me now, and all that I’ve accomplished, all the fears I’ve faced, all of the places I’ve been and friends I’ve made- that she would be proud. And it’s all for her really. ❤️

There’s usually only one thing that stops people from taking that life-changing trip or making that life-altering move and that’s themselves. If your job doesn’t pay you enough to save up, get a second job. If you’re scared to go alone, find a friend to join you or make friends with someone who travels a lot OR you could even just face your fear and go alone (I highly recommend the latter 😉 ). If you get on social media and you’re depressed because you follow travel pages of places you’ll never go to or models with bodies you’ll never have then don’t unfollow them. Don’t settle for a mediocre life. LEVEL UP. You have complete control of your happiness. I guess what I’m trying to say in more words than I hoped for is that life isn’t supposed to be so hard. It’s really simple when you take a step back and look at the big picture. Nine times out of ten it’s only you that gets in the way of yourself. Life can be SO SO GOOD if you just let it. Don’t sweat the small stuff because in the end it’s just that. Small. Insignificant.

So, relish in the fleeting moments that feel like home. Take a day off work to spend with people that matter. Dance like nobody’s watching in a bar full of people. And if you want to go on the trip, go.

I’ll never forget my skype interview with Claire. The video wasn’t working on my laptop and we could only hear her voice. I say we because my dad and brother were in the kitchen while I was on the call. Cooking silently and just listening. I threatened them that if they messed this up for me I would be living with them, bossing them around for the next year, so needless to say, you could hear a pin drop. Lol. I wasn’t used to hearing the Australian accent and neither were they. I think for the first time it felt real to us all that I was actually doing this. I remember my brother telling me it was really cool after. I could tell by the look on his face that he was being genuine. At the time he was 20 and sooooo much cooler than me (or so he thought). So I thought it was cool that he thought it was cool. I was a little more proud of myself with every step I took closer to the big leap.

The weeks after that flew by. So. Damn. Fast..

I had an interview with a couple from Sydney (Sarah and Damian if you’re reading this I love you guys so much!!) I was nervous. Practicing interview questions, asking my coworkers what to wear.. you would have thought I was preparing for an Oval Office visit. That night I raced home from CrossFit, showered and changed, and read over the sample contract they sent me for an hour leading up. When I finally got their call I answered it and immediately knew that this was a good thing. I don’t know about you but I’m the type of person that can talk to someone for a minute or two and I know from there whether we’re going to click or not. We clicked. I may not have answered all of their questions perfectly. But we clicked. I think that’s what matters most in these types of situations. You’re merging families, cultures, living space. When you feel it in your gut that it’s a good thing, on both ends, then it’s easy from there.

My host family and I had some more emails, Skype dates and FaceTime appointments in the weeks to follow. The time difference made it a little tricky but modern day technology is amazing and we were able to communicate really well considering. I didn’t hear from Sarah for a little while and I kept working, the weeks kept passing, and I was okay with it. I was comfortable. Until one morning I woke up with a new email from Sarah. Attached was a final contract and a message from her stating how they would like me to read over the document, sign it, and return it if I would like to move in with them and start working in the fall.

I was ELATED FAM. I did it. I had so much more to do but I did IT. I got a job overseas. Remember when I said the weeks flew by? Well they started flying even faster. It was July. I was getting ready to leave to go to Europe with another family I babysat for. (That’s another blog for another day) I was working my booty off because we were in mid-summer season. I had so much to do and they wanted me to start in September. You know when you’re in high school and you’re getting ready to graduate and you’re so excited because after 12 years you’re about to be free but then all of a sudden the college you’re planning on attending in the fall wants all this bullshit from you like immunization records, orientation fees, dorm deposits, transcripts etc?! Like damn life can you just let a girl enjoy her accomplishment for a minute before you throw some crippling anxiety at her again? I felt very similar to a recent high school graduate. Worried that I wasn’t going to get everything submitted on time, or at all. Because unlike college, these waters were a little more uncharted. I didn’t have a guidance counselor to walk me through the steps. But I had the next best thing. Shoutout Katie Fry!! My BFF of 25 years now. The one that was planning to move to Spain to teach history. She was my only hope to getting all of my ducks in a row. The closest thing to my guidance counselor. We sat down and made a list of what I needed to do.

1. Find an overseas healthcare plan
2. Get my immunizations and medical records scanned
3. Call Verizon and get my phone unlocked so I could put an Australian SIM card in once I arrived.
4. Register my passport and visa on my vevo. (An app on your phone that registers your passport and visa information. Necessary when traveling to and from Australia.
5. Get my medical records sent to the Australian government along with my visa application.
6. Book a flight

At one point I remember it all seemed impossible. It all seemed crazy. It would be so easy to spend my days off on the boat, on the beach, anywhere but inside on a sunny day chipping away at a to-do list that seemed never ending. But thank God I had grown so uncomfortable with being comfortable. And one visa application, several Verizon phone calls, two health clinic trips and a few anxiety attacks later, I had one more thing to cross off my list.

6. Book a flight.

Oh Australia…

Oh how I love me some Australia.

And the crazy part is, I never knew I wanted to go.

Until I was on a lunch break from my post college, unpaid physical therapy internship and I realized how badly I wanted to go on an adventure and not return to my internship, to my job waiting tables, to my morning workout routine of running down the same one-lane highway. I think it was a combination of the repetitive lifestyle I was living, me receiving the news that my best friend was moving to Spain to teach elementary education the week prior, and talking to a few friends and acquaintances along my journey that had briefly mentioned their time abroad. All of this was in my subconscious mind fighting its way to the surface. I think I’ve had it in me, the desire to travel, the passion for life, for a long time now but in that 15 minute lunch break it’s like my subconscious hunger for more life finally made it to the surface, ravenous an adventure, like someone who had been underwater for ten seconds too long and finally took a breath.

I will never forget sitting on my swinging bed on the screen porch out back, on my 15 minute break, making the decision. I was going to go. I didn’t know where, I didn’t know how, but I did know there was no way in hell that I was going to waste my 20’s away, the “best years of my life” sitting on a swinging bed and dreading going back to work, to my internship, to the same bar every Saturday. I wanted a new bar. I wanted a new morning run. I wanted new boys, a new scene.

I grabbed my computer and typed in the search bar “ways to live in another country for free”. I shit you not. My host parents still get a kick out of that. When I hit enter a ton of pages came up, mostly advertisements, so I scrolled down to the first one that didn’t have “ad” in fine print and clicked on it. I remember it like yesterday, reading a list of pros and cons of living in various countries. I huge deciding factor for me was that I didn’t speak a second language and as much as I wanted to learn one, moving abroad would have many challenges already, I wasn’t quite ready to add language barrier to the list. So from there the website provided a list of countries that spoke English. And at the very top (it was in alphabetical order) I read, “AUSTRALIA”. And that was that. I was moving to Australia. I was so excited and had about 10 minutes left on my break. I reverted back to the search bar and googled “ways to live in Australia for free”. I scrolled by the ads, and came to a website with an application. I didn’t know what for but I was so limited on time and it was a practice run anyways. There was no way this was actually going to work but let’s do it anyways type of thing. I began checking boxes of attributes and skills I possessed.

“Good with children”

“CPR certified”

“Speaks fluent English”

I typed up a little bio. I mean little. 3 sentences maximum, proper grammar— doesn’t exist.. Remember, it was practice. And I was about to be late to my internship. Finally it asked for an email so I filled in the last blank, and hit submit. I closed up my laptop, put my shoes on and didn’t give it a second thought.. until I got home that night and checked my email.

There was a response.

Not an automated response, but a very personal one. From a woman named Claire that ran an au pair (nanny) agency called “Niche Au Pairs”. So I emailed her back. And she emailed me back. And I emailed her back. And like four emails later we set up a Skype interview.

And before I knew it, I was moving to Australia.

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton