Our Personal Travel Story: From the Beginning

I think it’s fair to say that I’m a big advocate for travel. I’ve learned so much more about the world and its people through travel than I ever thought possible. I strongly believe everyone should take a ‘gap year’ it doesn’t matter if you’re 20 or 50. 

Fit in as many countries as you can, take long journeys on shitty buses, get up early to watch the sunrise in a jungle or on a volcano or some other crazy location, eat food from a roadside stall, and lose sleep in a noisy hostel. These are all memorable learning moments and some aren’t pretty (especially the noisy hostel part ‘cos I love my sleep). But, I guarantee if you do travel you won’t regret a single moment.

How we started this life of adventure

What brought me to this life of travel? If it wasn’t for the recession in Ireland back in 2009 I’d probably be living a completely different life. 

I graduated with a Media degree in May 2009, the absolute height of the recession. With no options in my preferred field (I really wanted to be a Journalist) I got a job in retail. After a couple of months, I got really fed up, this wasn’t the life I wanted. And I started to consider a move to Australia after watching acquaintances on Facebook who moved there and seemed to be living the life. What have I got to lose, I thought, if it’s awful I can always come home.

So, I applied for an Australian visa at the end of 2010 and got it a few weeks later. I honestly thought I’d last max. a year. How wrong I was!

I moved to Sydney, Australia in January 2011 and I haven’t lived in Ireland (or even Europe since).

We lived abroad for 10 years

I was very homesick during my first few months in Australia, I’d never done anything like this before. But I gave it a chance and soon fell in love with Sydney. I lived in Sydney for four years before we decided we should experience somewhere else, we applied for our Canadian visas.

I’ll be honest, it was a bit of a nightmare of a process, especially for Paul but we knew it would be worth it. So after a few months of traveling through Central America and Europe, we landed in Vancouver. The start of our two-year working holiday visa.

We liked Vancouver, it’s such a pretty city, but we found it difficult to live there. It was hard to meet people and I found it difficult to find a job with most employers favoring Canadian candidates.

We would have stuck it out and probably would have ended up landing on our feet there until we went to Whistler one weekend and fell in love. And so all our focus went into moving here.

We moved to Whistler six months after first landing in Vancouver and it was probably the best decision we could have made. We spent 18 months in Whistler, this mad magical place that we miss every day. But we were getting older and wanted to experience more of the world before putting down roots somewhere.

So, I got it into my head that we should move to Capetown, but that didn’t work out. So, we went with Paul’s first choice – New Zealand. Which is where we currently live, we spent the first year in the sunny Bay of Islands and for the past two months we’ve been living in picture-perfect Queenstown.

Everything happens for a reason

So, that’s just a short summary of how this life of travel happened for me. I strongly believe that everything happens for a reason, if it wasn’t for the recession in Ireland and my not being able to find a good job back home in Cork, I’d probably be living a very different life. Or maybe not.

Maybe this life was always meant for me and if it wasn’t for the recession something else would have forced me out of my comfort zone to lead this ‘charmed life’. Fate they call it, don’t they?

Because it is a bloody fabulous life we’ve created for ourselves but it’s not without its hardships. We work very hard to lead the life we do. Of course, the way things have happened for us is a little to do with luck but it’s also a lot to do with sacrifice, lots of research, and goddamn long hours working to save for our next adventure.

I wouldn’t change a thing about our life!

I know the phrase “I wouldn’t change a thing” is so overused and you’ll probably roll your eyes but 100% I wouldn’t change a single thing so far. And we’re not finished with our adventures yet, we will probably stay in Queenstown for another year. We got married in Italy in 2019 and after that, we are very seriously considering a move somewhere else!

The absolute life!

Update for 2025: We now live in Ireland (we bought a house in West Cork) with our two daughters. We still have the traveling bug and in the last few years, we’ve traveled to places like Madeira, Mallorca, Lake Garda, Lanzarote, and more as a family!

Thanks for Reading!

While you’re here, you may also enjoy reading my most-read blog posts –

How to Spend 3 Days in Seattle

48 Hours in San Francisco: The Perfect Two Day San Francisco Itinerary

How to find Mrs Doubtfire’s House in San Francisco

Which Milford Sound Cruise Should I Choose? (A Local’s Verdict)

Last Updated on May 14, 2025 by snaphappytravel