Haley Armstrong

Just because I follow wandering feet, it doesn't mean that I am lost.

Life is a roller coaster, enjoy the ride.

I think right up to the point that I left home to travel for the first time, I had felt a little out of place in the world. Don't get me wrong, I have never been short of love. I have an amazing supportive family. In fact maybe it is due to my parents that I felt like this. My parents didn't get back from their oversea's adventures until their early thirties. In fact my mother and her sister started their exploration of the world straight out of highschool. I spent my chilhood listening to stories of adventure and joy from countries and even parts of Australia that I had never heard of.

Regardless of the cause, these feelings quickly subsided when I first landed in Africa. It is hard to put in words how I felt, even before I set foot off the plane. I felt a deep calming, a resolve for a longing I never knew I had. I felt free.

Over the following years, travelling has done more for me than anything else in my life. It helped me to heal, it opened my eyes and brought back the intense joy and gratitude I feel for being present on this Earth. I feel lucky to be alive and understand with a deeper sence that no matter what happens, there is always someone in the world in a worse position.

Being able to free fall and then find myself again, learning that it's ok to be different, has been all the more possible by colliding head on with others wandering around the globe like me. I met one of my best mates while we were running around wild in Canada. When we started backpacking we were little more than strangers, and as much as the word 'fate' pains me at times, I kind of think we were supposed to find each other. Even my boyfriend I met at a time that I least expected it, in a place I never thought I would be. Now, only two years after Canada, these are two of my most valued relationships.

The world is full of experiences to be had and it's so true that 'to see once is worth more than hearing a hundred times.'

Peace x