Today it’s 6 months since I left London. And I can’t say I’ve looked back much since. It has been beyond amazing so far, I’ve had so much fun, visited some incredible places and met some amazing people along the way. But what’s been both the most surprising and the most satisfying thing is that I’ve felt very consistently very happy. And when I left London in June, it had been a long time since I’d felt that way.

Since I’ve been away, I’ve only cried once, way back in July, which has been an awesome change from February of this year where things properly broke down for me in London and I rarely went a day without doing it. But that time in July, I was drunk and as we all know I’m emotional when sober on a good day and it’s only exasperated by drinking. In hindsight, while I accept (and own) what caused it, I do think I owe a massive apology for that to the guy who, after some heavy consumption of imported Nicaraguan rum, had to try to make me feel better. We’ve hung out since then and I like to think we are well past that night but I never apologised. He says he reads this but I suspect not in much detail so I’ll just put it out there here as it’ll make me feel better: sorry I’m a fucking emotional idiot who overthinks things! (I swear when I’m drunk. A lot. So I had to include that. Sorry family who thinks I’m better than that!)

I’m not going to go on some hippie rant and proclaim that everyone needs to go out and see the world and how much doing so will change their lives for the better because I very much believe that everyone picks their own path in life and finds happiness in their own very different ways. Not everyone needs to jet off to faraway countries and ride on dodgy buses overnight in countries where they don’t speak the language. But for me, doing just that has been one of the best decisions I have ever made. I don’t want to think of how things might have played out if I hadn’t set off on this adventure.

There have been less tough times on this trip than I thought there would be, I have been alone but haven’t felt lonely, I’ve been challenged but never felt I couldn’t overcome anything, I haven’t felt judged and I haven’t felt foreign (among travellers, that is), I have grown accustomed to a weird, often-changing daily routine, I have felt confident enough to be as open to total strangers as I usually am only with my closest friends, I have played to my strengths (I’m good at planning, its a fact), I have adapted to changes quicker than I ever have before, and I have taken on so many things I wouldn’t have believed I could do just 6 months ago (uhm hello, I climbed a freakin’ glacier-covered mountain!)

I have missed merchandising (but have talked about it lots) and reading Vogue and chatting to people who work in fashion but not the company I left at the end of May. I said I’d check the new-season product on the website but haven’t done it once – I accept that I’m too all-or-nothing to be able to check in and not remember how small and unworthy that place made me feel at times. I think I’ve already mended the heartbreak they caused me but I’m not about to test if I’m totally over it just yet. But more importantly I don’t think I have to test it. I doubt myself a lot less than I did before I left and I can’t change the fact that my efforts weren’t what they wanted. Other places have appreciated them before and other places will when I get back.

I spent a lot of time the first few months trying to evaluate my options for when I get back and what I think I’ll want when this trip ultimately comes to an end. But since then, I’ve more and less just let all those options stand, none fully addressed, none eliminated, none chosen. I’ll pick up all those thoughts again in a few months’ time when I’m closer to heading home. No rush on that just yet. I’m in a beach town in Uruguay! Other things are more important right now!

I figured I’d get homesick at some point and get travel fatigue but I don’t feel like that has happened. Not yet at least. I went through a few weeks around 4 months in when I wished someone had wanted to travel with me or that a few more people had been in touch because its easy to feel very forgotten about (not by my parents though, lots of emails from them and they are top comment posters on here. Well, one if them is. Hi mom! ). But then I stayed at the Wild Rover in La Paz for a few days and remembered that strangers don’t actually mind hanging out with me and that that will do just fine for now. It probably helped that I always lost the stupid dice drinking game the Irish guys in my dorm had concocted and had to buy everyone shots.

For awhile, I was coming through under budget but then I did way more things in Bolivia (and lost way more drinking games) than I was supposed to and now I’m pretty much in line with where I was planning to be. The next 2 months will test my budgeting skills though – Ihla Grande at Christmas, Rio at New Years and Australia are coming up. I think I might need to learn how to cook to save some money. If worse comes to worst and I need to start working at a party hostel to get free accommodation, please someone come rescue me! Or at least come take advantage of my drinks discount!

Time has gone so fast, I don’t know if it has back home but it doesn’t feel like long since our last pub catch-ups, coffees in cycling distance and chats over pizza and wine but I do miss them and am looking forward to those in a few months. I think I told most people before I left that I made predictions on what will happen to certain people while I’m away. I haven’t heard news that prove many of those right just yet so please, people, make things happen! I like being right.

And now that I’ve taken 45 min out of my day to write and post that, the most self-indulgent thing I’ve written on here so far, it’s about time I go to the beach and take advantage of being on the Atlantic coast in the southern hemisphere in December.

Since I won’t get to have one this year, do feel free to have a mulled wine for me and I’ll make sure to have my next maté for you.

There aren’t many photos of me (because I’m not photogenic and I prefer to stay behind the camera) so below is the best photographic timeline I could scrape together to show that I actually went to a bunch of different countries: