I know that there are many people who claim to love travelling but my unpopular opinion is that many people love vacationing not travelling. Although I cant claim to be an aclaimed world traveler, I have gone through phases in life where I have been very fortunate to use travelling as a way to build my own independance. When I was 16 years old I had the opportunity to live and travel alone through parts of Europe. At the time, I was a highschool dropout with admittedly no ambitions but that trip taught me that I could want more. Funnily enough the easiest way to move out and be independant when you are under 18 is to go to college! Which is how I ended up in Incheon...
Although I lived in Incheon for most of my time in Korea, Seoul became one of my favorite cities in the world. I spent a lot of my free time exploring Seoul and experiencing different parts of the city, but Hongdae became one of my favorite areas to visit. Hongdae has a very energetic atmosphere, especially at night, and I enjoyed going out with friends, visiting clubs, trying different food, and exploring the streets until late. Some of my favorite memories from Korea came from those nights because they gave me the chance to meet new people, experience the nightlife, and enjoy the city outside of school. Being able to experience Korea beyond the typical tourist activities made me appreciate traveling even more and made me want to continue exploring places in the future.
Recently I have had a harder time finding opportunities to travel. After spending essentially half of my teenage years managing how to successfully travel on my own, I have been focusing more on finding stability. I still make an effort to travel locally around Texas and have found myself driving home at all hours of the night. I was fortunate that during my last christmas break I had the opportunitiy to visit some of my friends family in Reno. The drive there and back was over 60+ hours but I was able to stop and visit Salt Lake City and Las Vegas!
