March 2022: Life Update
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Welcome back (and if you’re new here, just welcome!)
I thought I’d start doing little ‘life updates’ on here. It means I can just type whatever I want, freely, without feeling the need to optimise and get everything set up for Google.
And it feels pretty good!
Just me. Typing away. Being me.
The lowdown of my little life
A life update from my mini corner of the Internet and my little bubble 🙋♀️
We moved house early Feb (from East London to SW London) and it’s been one of the best things that could have happened to us.
Being in East London, I got stuck in a bit of a rut. We moved in a week before the pandemic began, and it tainted our whole experience of living there.
We weren’t able to live our normal lives, share our home with friends and family, socialise or be ourselves, and I’ll be honest, I let it suck me up and fell right down the rabbit hole.
I spent a year not looking after myself, being down pretty much every day. I was in a toxic 9-5 and realised my career of teaching didn’t align with who I was anymore. And this is pretty huge when you’ve spent 7 years doing it and 4 years at uni studying for it.
I knew something had to change. I’ve always wanted to write, and my biggest passion in life is travel.
So in January 2021, I set up Jennie Wanders, with the dream of being able to earn money whilst being location free.
It hasn’t been easy, and my journey to becoming a fully-fledged digital nomad is only just beginning. But I feel GOOD about the fact I’m chasing it. As hard as it may be now, in the long run, I’m going to thank little old ‘past’ me.
So let’s fast forward to now, where we’ve moved from East to Southwest London, and it feels like I’ve been given a new lease of life.
Like someone’s topped my powers back up.
Like my magical powers.
I feel MYSELF again.
Thank GOD.
I’m still working around the clock to make my dreams a reality, but I feel better about it. My mindset is different. My energy is different.
And being myself again, I feel like I actually have MORE time. Even though I’m spending more time away from the laptop, more time with my family, friends and boyfriend. More time exploring sunny London.
I feel like I have MORE time to work on my dream career.
Small positives count!
Plus, I’m seeing it in my business!
My hard work is starting to pay off (slowly) and the temporary jobs I’m doing to pay the mortgage will soon be gone.
I’ll be location free (even if it takes me another 12 months) because of all the work ‘past’ and ‘present’ Jen is doing.
So, where does that leave us and our plans now?!
Future plans for Jennie Wanders
(The exciting part).
If you know anything about me (or zero), it’s that I love to plan.
Plan, plan plan. Well, it’s what keeps me motivated to work.
Even if those plans change, I like planning ’em.
Spreadsheets, Pinterest boards, travel blogs, bookmarks, Clickup…you name it, I’m organising it.
So, where are our plans leading us to now?
Well, we’ve just moved into our first flat which we’ve bought (yay, go us!) and we LOVE, love, love it. We are so happy here in our little bubble and just couldn’t be happier.
Life is just so much sunnier here, you know? ☀️
Our plan was always to travel permanently from August 2022, but we love our little home and life we’re building in Putney.
We’re not too sure about renting it out full time, so we’ve considered other options (all still with travel involved, of course).
All I know is, we’re off on a big one-way-trip around September time.
We’ve both decided we don’t want another English winter, so we’ll be chasing the sun somewhere. What we do with our little Putney flat (Airbnb, renting, paying whilst we’re away…will have to be decided another day.)
But for now, I’m just planning allllll the travel whilst living our best lives in LDN!
Where are we off to next?
As I’ve said, our plans change a LOT.
But one thing that always stays the same: we will be travelling in 2022.
A LOT.
(I mean, I’m quite literally a travel blogger. How could I not?! 😉)
We have some INCREDIBLE trips coming up in April, May & June (I’m seriously so excited for them) andddddd…..
I’ve finally started planning our BIG trip for September to South America and Central America!
As we will both be remote working, we’ll hopefully (if life stays good to us!) be doing a bit of slow travel around countries like Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala and Mexico.
Countries that have a good digital nomad base, where it’s easy to make friends (half my Instagram are out there now, can’t wait to meet some of you!) and just travel whilst we work.
Live the dreaaaaam.
A wrap-up
So, our March has been pretty good.
We have new business ideas, new outlooks AND a whole new life that we’re building in an incredible part of London.
But don’t get me wrong, every day is different.
Sometimes I wake up raring to go, and some I just think “what on earth am I doing and who do I think I am?!”.
I think part of getting into the digital nomad world is to fight through this. Just sometimes it can feel pretty overwhelming.
Moving from everything I’ve ever known and been told to do (work the 9-5, live for the weekend…) is HARD! It’s bloody scary. And some days, of course I’m going to doubt myself. It’s just about reminding myself this is normal.
And I’ll get there. Even if it takes me 10x longer than anyone and everyone else, I’ll get there.
And it will all be worth it.
Like this post? You might want to check out the rest in my travel journal.
Hey you! 🙋♀️ I quit my job in 2021 to become a full-time travel blogger + visit as much of the globe as possible. Come and join me on my chaotic and hilarious travel journeys!
📷 Instagram: @jennie_wanders
🎥 Youtube Channel: Jennie Wanders
📍Pinterest: Jennie Wanders Travel Blog
