Hello! Welcome to Travel, Linger, Relax

Hello blogging world! Hey everyone! I’m so super excited to be here to meet you all. I’ve been thinking about launching my blog for so long, it’s kind of surreal for it to be actually happening.

I hope you’ll be a bit patient with me while I keep working on the site to make it work like it should in my head, but I’m totally new to WordPress and we’re not exactly friends just yet 🙂

About Me

So a little about me. I’m 49, a mum to 3 grown kids and 2 fur babies: Bean & Ellie. I’m an English teacher in my full time job, a bit of a geek and a definite bookworm. I love fantasy, sci-fi and urban fantasy, both books, and TV and don’t understand why the rest of world doesn’t agree that it would be a better place if magic really did exist! But most of all, I love travel.

I live on Shetland at the moment, which is very remote, rural and beautiful. I’ve been here 3 years now and have spent all my adult life living in Scotland, so I’m a bit of an expert. I’ve lived in Edinburgh, Stirling, the Borders and now Shetland.

I struggle a bit with Shetland, as all my close friends know. It’s been really good for me, the people are amazing, such a lovely community, my job is great, the beaches stunning, however the weather gets me grumbly. I need a bit more sun in my life.

A cunning plan to become location independent

So here I am with a 5 year plan – secretly hoping it’s a 2 year plan – to be able to become location independent. I have a three-pronged approach planned to make this dream come true. Stage one is creating a successful blog.

My blog is all about solo female travel. Why do we need another? I hear you ask. Good question.

My solo travel journey

I only started travelling solo 2 years ago at 47. Prior to that I had bought into the fear. You know, the general underlying fear that I would be raped, mugged and murdered, that the world was a scary place and that I had no skills to help me navigate it.

Then I stumbled across a travel memoir written by a young women by the name of Kristen Addis. ‘A 1000 New Beginnings.’ You may know her better as Kristen from the very successful travel blog, ‘Be My Travel Muse.‘ This book opened my eyes to this whole world of young women out there travelling and exploring and not only surviving, but flourishing.

I’m an avid reader and I began reading everything I could about this new word: books and blogs and YouTube. Another favourite blog of mine is Never Ending Footsteps by Lauren Juliff, she struggles with anxiety and writes openly about her experiences and how she grew stronger through her travels. Eventually a little voice started in my head – ‘if they can do it, why can’t you?’

So I bought a rucksack and took my first steps into the world of solo female travel at 47. I went to Venice and Rome for 11 days and fell in love. I fell in love with Italy, with the feelings of freedom, with all the art and the architecture and just the beauty of the world.

Yes, I was nervous, yes, I got lost a lot, but I gained so much more than I lost. I gained confidence, I gained a new perspective on myself and what I am capable of.

Empowering women is my goal

And now I want to support other women in taking those first steps. I’m a member of a lot of travel and female travel groups on FaceBook and I see similar concerns from women in their 40’s and older worrying about the same things I did. ‘Am I too old to stay in a hostel?’ No. Will I be safe? Yes

I am a still a fledgling traveller. I’ve been to Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels, Bruge and London on my own. I’ve organised and taken groups of teenagers to China, Barcelona and London. But I’ve still not been to Asia or to India or Nepal or any of the myriad of other places I want to go. I want to see all the places and I want to take you with me on my journey.

And I hope I can fill some of you with a sense of confidence that if I can do this then you too can take those steps and find the joy that I have found in travelling.

If you’re still with me, you may well be wondering what are stages 2 & 3 of my plan to become location independent?

Stage 2: Independent Travel Agent

Stage 2 is becoming an Independent Travel Agent. Not the best timing you may think, due to the global pandemic situation!! But I hoped to be trained and ready to go when borders reopen – which I am! And maybe I can build a team of like-minded women to join me.

I offer travel planning services to solo female travellers, as well as booking anything from budget hostel backpacking itineraries to self-guided or guided tours, package holidays, country cottages, city breaks, to luxury honeymoon destinations and Disney trips.

Check out the image above to take you to my travel services page.

Stage 3 Becoming a VA

Stage 3 will be my work as a Virtual Assistant in my company …. Currently, I’m in the process of launching this business. I will be offering content creation, copywriting and editing services alongside canva and social media management.

To read more informative blog post visit https://travelingerelax.com/

So now you know a little about me and about my hopes and dreams. Hope they resonate with you enough for you to stick around and follow me on this journey.

You can expect a mixture of helpful travel tips to encourage you to travel solo, journal entries from my travels and general musings on life. Hope to see you you soon

Tracy xx