A FRIULIAN GLOBETROTTER

“Welcome to my blog!

If you’re here, chances are you want to know the story.

My name is Miriam, for my friends “Miry”. Although I call myself a “globetrotter”, I’m Friulian and I care about this in a special way.

I grew up on bread and Montasio at the foot of the Friulian Dolomites. The air of these parts has transmitted me the passion for the mountain and nature, in fact instead of shoes with heels I prefer trekking boots. My curiosity was born thanks to a dear aunt of mine who, working as a hostess of airplanes, from time to time she showed me the photos of her travels around the world and told me stories of distant lands. And that’s exactly how, as you can imagine, my thirst for discovery and my great passion for exploration was born. I collected all her postcards from all over the world and with my first atlas I fantasized with my child’s mind.

With the first works began also the first trips outside Europe, such as Tunisia and Egypt. In those years I experienced different forms of travel: from the resort to camping, from traveling with friends, to traveling alone, before understanding that what I prefer is the DO IT YOURSELF version, traveling alone with a backpack instead of the classic suitcase.

Why the solo trip?

For the precious freedom that is part of this indescribable and unique experience: the freedom to decide where to go, when to go, what to do and how to do it.

How did my solo journey start?

The first step towards my transformation was to get out of my “comfort zone”; I moved to Bristol to improve the English language and to have a life experience in a country different from mine. From here I developed more independence and I left for my first adventures alone, first for Scotland and then for Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia (small tests that went beyond my expectations).

I returned to Italy and after a short time I found a job in Venice, where I then moved. In the two weeks of vacation I had been granted, I decided to go to Indonesia alone. There I met a lot of people who were traveling for a long time; on my return to Italy I had a fixed thought, that of wanting to make their own experience, dedicating a period of my life to travel without deadlines. I state that, although my life seemed perfect, with a good job, a family and friends, I had a strong sense of restlessness due to the monotonous everyday life, where my thirst for discovery made me feel more and more (the two weeks of leave were beginning to be insufficient).

I believe that time is the only resource that does not return and the most precious good that we have, so I wanted to upset the patterns that society praises as just – to work to live and not live to work.

A little voice inside of me was telling me that the time had come, so in 2018, after several months spent evaluating and thinking about what to do, I decided to leave my job in the bank and leave with a one-way ticket to Southeast Asia. It was just me, my backpack and my camera.

That trip lasted 11 months, in which I explored 13 countries with a budget of 15 euros a day, faced a difficult situation, ate the strangest things, slept in the most absurd places and used all the means of transport that Asia proposes, (sometimes I came across the classic journeys of hope). I donated blood in a children’s hospital in Cambodia, I collected tea leaves in the Vietnamese mountains, I swam among the most beautiful seabed in the world in Borneo, I conversed with Buddhist monks in Thailand. These are just some of the fantastic experiences I’ve experienced. The journey strengthens body and soul. I realized how few objects I need to live on, and that I can do whatever I want.

This trip was the most incredible adventure of my life, an intense year in which I seemed to have lived 10 years.

Traveling I follow numerous blogs where I found a lot of valuable information. The idea of the blog was born in one of those rickety buses of Southeast Asia, in a place where even on the web I had not found many info on how to reach it. Hence the decision to put into practice my travel experiences, giving practical and useful advice to try to spread as much as possible the wonders of the world and the people who live there, in the hope that my information may be of help and inspiration to others.

If you’re reading this, it means you’re witnessing a little dream I realized.

And now get ready to immerse yourself in the adventures of Miry Giramondo… the journey is about to begin!”