Hello Hello
Firstly thank you for taking the time to check out my Travel blog. Lets start with the basics.
My name is Dain Luka. I am a 28 year old content creator from the UK. In this blog post my aim is to tell you about me and why I travel the world.
Let's start off with one of my first travel memories. The year is 2002. I was 8 years old and a very excited kid about to head off on his first all inclusive holiday with the family to Majorca, Spain. Some highlights of this trip that I remember were: visiting my first water park, laying on the beach and eating ready salted Lays. Some of the not nice memories include: getting third degree burns from the sun, spilling tea on my lap during the flight and my cousin convincing me it was a good idea to swim very far out in the sea in our rubber rings. Mostly I have very fond memories of this trip, I just remember the feeling of getting out of the airport and feeling the heat from a different land that wasn't England. It was GREAT.
Growing up Spain became a regular place that we would holiday (I think this is the case for most people in the UK). I can safely say I come from a family that likes to travel so it was no surprise that I caught the travel bug. My family have travelled all over the world and now some even do it all over Europe in their converted campervans!
My love of travel was born through my love of YouTube. From as a long as I can remember I have always loved YouTube. I idolised YouTubers and thought they were the coolest people on the planet. It was around 2017 when I started watching travel vlogs and became OBSESSED. I loved watching people go to countries, particularly in South East Asia. A travel vlog would consist of vloggers showing us their accommodation, a cool coffee shop and crystal blue waters in some exotic paradise. Such a simple concept but I became so interested in "travel vlogs". For months I watched as many travel videos as I could whilst unknowingly it started to spark something inside me. Deep down I always thought "that would be amazing" but I didn't have the guts to travel let alone film my adventures and stick them on the internet.
After graduating at the University of Brighton in 2016, I worked for several years as a Social Worker before my travel curiosity began to creep in. On a drunken night in 2018, my friend and I decided to book a flight to Bangkok, Thailand. We woke up in the morning and said " OH SHIT". I mean we had both spoken about going but drunk courage pushed us to book the flights. As a sober person now I can say this was the BEST drunk decision I have ever made. Several months later we arrived at London Heathrow with our £30 Amazon backpacks. I had used YouTube to plan the entire trip from the bluest waters to the quirkiest little cafes. I had all this newfound knowledge and I could not wait to get there.
- Thailand 2018
What really shocked me on this trip was how many people my age were traveling. I would get talking to people in hostel dorms and I would hear backpackers say they were traveling for 3 months, 6 months or even years! All I could think was WOW. I want to do that. This trip was where my love and passion for travel ignited. I loved that I only had a backpack with me and I could literally go anywhere I wanted. It was total freedom. I also made so many amazing friends which I still speak to today.
The trip was perfect for my young 23 year old self. I vividly remember being on the plane flying back to London. Even though I was exhausted, I was fulfilled in a sense that I had never felt before. The few months that followed this trip I found myself sat at my day job dreaming of Thailand and how much I wanted to escape my job for something else. I started to think of ways that I could travel and how one day I needed to make this a reality. Back then I had no money and was living paycheque to paycheque.
Later that year I was on a trip with my partner in Orlando, Florida. I decided I wanted to try solo travel. I had this idea in my head that maybe in the next few years I could go backpacking for a year but I would first need to see if I was capable of doing it on my own. I looked at a map of Orlando and thought 'hmmm where could I spend a few days after?'. The result: MIAMI BEACH.
- Miami Beach, Florida
Here's how that went...
I anxiously got on a greyhound bus after my partner dropped me at a random hotel in the middle of Orlando (it was sketchy af). After 4 hours I arrived and headed to one of the only hostels in Miami beach - Miami International Hostel.
A factor I had been worried about when considering solo travel was dining out alone. If you travel alone WHO THE HELL DO YOU GO OUT TO EAT WITH? I sucked it up and headed to a local cafe. Whilst I was eating I ended up talking to a local guy who was kind enough to show me some Miami sights. I later rocked up at the hostel for free watermelon vodkas before boarding a party bus which took us around the best bars and clubs in Miami beach. It was an amazing night. I danced around, drank till 4am and made friends with other people my age.
How I felt at the start was anxious and I couldn't help but think "WTF AM I DOING". BUT by the end of the trip I was like 'wow I can totally do this. I want to do this. BRING IT ON!'.
After I came home I told everyone I was going to travel the world on my own. I set a date which was 1st January 2020. I saved all my money for the following 15 months and managed to saved around £16,000. Saving was very hard. I said no to most plans, stayed in a lot and dabbled with sobriety as a way to save pennies.
Fast forward to January 2020. I had said farewell to my job, family and friends. Goodbye secure life and hello FREEDOM!
First stop: LOS ANGELES
I decided to break up a hefty 36 hour flight with a short 3 day layover in a city I had always dreamed of visiting. I had many plans for my year of travel including a month group tour through China, backpacking through India and making my way back to Thailand. Due to the big C-19 99.9% of my plans were cancelled. I was so grateful that I had an insane 3 months of travel, which included sky diving out of planes in New Zealand, travelling the East Coast of Australia and seeing the electric city lights of Tokyo.
- January - March 2020
After the world shut down I made a quick decision to book the first flight home to London. The next year and a half was tough. I had dreamed of my year long adventure only to be struck with the biggest global health pandemic in our lifetime. Who would have thought?
Given that all I wanted to do was travel and the world had closed down indefinitely it was only natural that I felt a bit lost. Reflecting back on this period I am grateful for the time I used during the pandemic to plan my future and my brand. I patiently waited for travel to resume whilst branding myself CHASING DAIN. Chasing Dain is about chasing dreams. We all have them and it's important we try we not only follow our dreams but chase them.
With all my new found free time, I was able to focus on figuring out what I wanted to do: that was becoming a content creator. I wanted to travel and have adventures but in that process inspire others to do the same. Whilst I chase my dreams of traveling the world and taking photos I hope that I can inspire people to do the same. I am an average guy from a small town in England. I never thought I could have such amazing adventures. But I can and if you are reading this. You can too. The biggest thing I have learnt in all of this is: whatever you want to do in life you can DO IT.
After feeling pretty hopeless in my mundane life working from my bedroom travel finally resumed. I was able to escape in July 2021 with everything I owned in a suitcase.
I call this part of my 20's TAKE TWO
After being dropped at the airport nearly 2 years on it felt like deja vu. The only difference was I had arrived at a ghostly terminal instead of the bustling airport 2 years prior. I planned to spend the summer traveling Eastern Europe and had an amazing 10 weeks exploring the Balkan region whilst reconnecting with travel, making friends and staying in dorm rooms. It took a few weeks to get back in the travel mindset but I felt I made the right decision. When everyone was saying I was taking a big risk leaving my work and home to travel during a pandemic that wasn't quite over. I knew I had made the right decision.
What started as a 3 month Euro trip turned into visiting Egypt, Jordan, Turkey and seeing over 10+ European countries. Each day I fell more in love with being on the road, camera in hand and the world at my finger tips.
During this trip I did not make any specific plans, I just followed what I felt the right thing to do was. This led me to touch down in Mexico City. By the end of my second week in Mexico I had arrived in a small beach town called Puerto Escondido. The journey here was HORRENDOUS and that may be the reason why I chose to stay here so long but I really found home in this town.
I started my journey in Oaxaca city. Now there are 3 ways to get to Puerto Escondido. Option 1: a $200 flight (1 hour), Option 2: A $20 night bus (13 hours) or Option 3: A mini van: ($15) and the promise to get there in 6 hours. Oh yeah, Option 3 is also nicknamed the vomit bus.
(Below) The vomit bus
In my mind the 6 hour option sounded the best so of course I went for this one. Within those 10 (YES 10), not 6 hours, I really had the ride of my life. Joining me on this journey was a local Mexican man that got on with a machete and a live chicken in his tote bag, a lady with a bucket of meat and a family throwing up in the backseats. This journey was not for the faint hearted but I survived and was greeted in Puerto with the most gorgeous sunset that made the journey worth it.
After enrolling in Spanish school and meeting a Canadian girl called Ellen we spontaneously decided to rent a bungalow on the beach. I spent the next few months really immersing myself in this tiny beach town. I surfed, practiced yoga, went on weekends away and felt so at peace with my life. What I loved most about my experience in this town was the sense of community. I also got to see the most stunning sunsets an 8 second walk from my house.
- Puerto Escondido, Mexico
The saying really is true. All good things must come to an end. My budget wasn't endless and I really wanted to see a few more countries before my budget had run out. I concluded my trip by heading to Costa Rica, Nicaragua and finishing off with a mighty road trip across the state of California. California was the starting point to my next big adventure. AUSTRALIA.
I mentioned earlier in the post that I travelled the East Coast of Australia. My plan for the 2020 trip was to head to Australia after backpacking to start a Working Holiday Visa. This never happened due to C-19. Towards the end of my latest big trip I started to consider that I did not want to return back to England. An impulse decision was made and I had I applied for my first working holiday visa for Australia.
At the time of writing this post I have been living in Sydney for 6 months whilst venturing out to places around New South Wales and Queensland. I plan to base myself in Australia over the next year whilst I explore this MASSIVE country and head to Asia and the Pacifics. I hope you can join me on this adventure as I showcase real and raw travel whilst showing you beautiful destinations you can travel too!
If you have gotten this far THANK YOU for reading about my journey into becoming a content creator. If you would like to work with me please click here.
AND
If you would like to follow the adventure here is what you can expect from me:
- Blog posts
- Real and raw adventure travels!
- Travel inspiration, tips and advice.
Take care and peace!
Dain
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