Travel

In September 2015, I visited Reykjavik, Iceland with a good friend. We were only there for a 3-day weekend, but during that time, we met so many interesting people and fellow travelers that it inspired me to make up my own life plan. I ve been lucky enough to travel and study abroad throughout my life, and I see no reason why that should end with a full-time 9-5 job.

I started working two weeks before I had even graduated from university. Without any transition period between school and real-life, I spent most of my early 20s busy making a career and being responsible.

It wasn t until I met people my same age from all over the world (doing very different things than what I was doing) that I was inspired to take some action. It just seemed unfair to think they had all these amazing stories to tell, and here I was, beginning to feel more and more complacent in my generally comfortable life.

It was on my IcelandAir flight back from Reykjavik to Boston that I realized there s no reason to stop traveling. I could make something work somehow whether through my job or on my own. In seat 19F, I wrote up a list of questions:

• Could I travel not work?
• Where would I go?
• How much would it cost?
• Would I be able to live like that?
• What would I learn/do?
• When would I go?

I didn t have all the answers (actually, I had none at that moment), but I knew they were questions I would be able to answer. Honestly, I m surprised at how easy it was to make the decision to pick up and leave Boston without answering a single one of those questions.

As my round-the world travels wound down (read how I spent $20,000 in over 15 months ), I made a difficult decision: do I return to America and look for a job there? Or do I try my luck one more time and pursue my dream of living in Europe. I took a chance in the summer of 2015 and moved to Berlin, Germany .

As of January 2015, I m living in Berlin and continually traveling around Europe and the rest of the world. You re welcome to subscribe to my public Facebook feed here for other updates and interesting news stories related to travel tourism:

Check my blog s homepage to see my upcoming trips. Though I live full-time in Berlin, I still manage to travel quite a lot for work and for pleasure

When I first moved to Berlin after my trip around the world, I worked in a few different tech start-ups before ultimately going 100% freelance. Like many other Millennials, I ve pieced together a career from my experience in design, marketing, tourism and writing.

My travels are funded a number of different ways. First off, since January 2015, I mange the online marketing for Eating Europe Food Tours. The European tour operator sells walking food tours in four of my favorite cities: Rome. London. Amsterdam and Prague. It s a great job—combining all my passions: travel, food. tourism and marketing! (Note: you ll find their food tours featured in each of my hipster city guides. but I wouldn t recommend them if I didn t actually love their tours. In fact, I wouldn t even work for the company if I wasn t such an advocate!)

Secondly, this blog does in fact make money. You ll find banner advertisements across the site and, on occasion, I work directly with tourism destinations and brands. You ll find that disclosed in the posts as well as within my media kit .

I fund my travels through my own hard-earned savings though I do occasionally reach out to destinations, hotels or brands before traveling. I only contact tourism businesses I m interested in visiting myself and reviews on this site aim to be as honest and open as possible. If you ever have any questions, don t hesitate to ask .

Check out this blog s Frequently Asked Questions for more Q As, or learn more about my work as a marketer on my professional portfolio website, adamgroffman .