Meg Goes Global

Plan A

Settle into Gold Coast life. Work my little bum off. Save up all the big bucks. Retain mental sanity. Buy a van. Convert said van into my mini home. Complete lap of Australia. Become a skilled surfer. Accept myself as at one with sand. Have new neighbours everyday. Be certified (or uncertified) yogi. Own no real shoes. Live off grid.

Plan B

Go to Spanish immersion school in Guatemala. Learn fluent Spanish. Travel around Central America. Volunteer in a surf hostel. Or an eco conservation project. Move to Mexico. Then travel South America. Hike Machu Picchu. Eat only beans and rice for the budget lifestyle. Attempt to not get drug trafficked, whilst preaching about how you can travel South America safely. Forget English.

Plan C

Hiking holiday in New Zealand. Hire a van. Achieve legs the size of Patty Carrigan’s from all the hiking. Be at one with nature. Shower in natural springs. Lose phone and not care, because I’m at one with nature now. Stay for a snow season. Become professional snowboarder? Take my skills to Canada while I’m at it?

Plan D

Go home for the Summer. Barbecues and beer gardens. Full European travel season. Live out my Donna Sheridan dreams (minus the baby). Have a siesta become part of daily life. Eat exclusively pasta made by Nonnas. Call dinner any earlier than 8pm ‘crazy’. Spend months in Italy. Frolic in some fields and/or beaches in my linen skirts. Have a wardrobe consisting of purely linens and hand made crochet items.

Plan E

Work in hospitality in a humble beginnings way, not an I have no other experience kind of way. Write a book. Become renowned author. Have my blog become my main source of income. Travel freely for the next few years. Have people wonder ‘how does she afford this?!’ Retire young and tell the grandkids all the things I got up to ‘back in my day’.

Plan F

Marry rich.

Plan G

Move home. Buy a house. Settle down.

Look, this is clearly satire; but I’m often asked what my next plan is, or when I’m going to be finished travelling, or what I am doing. And evidently I have no clue. But I think that’s okay: I’m only 22 and the world is my oyster. I have so many different version of myself I want to see and experience. Who says I just have to pick one?

My brain is constantly swirling with these and many other possible paths I could take, and changes on (at least) a weekly basis. I don’t think we need to be held to our ideas, and it’s more than okay to change your mind. But for now, does anyone have any Central America travel recs?