Let’s get real around here! This last month has been really, really hard and I haven’t had the best time here in Greece. It is approaching eight months since I left home and it has been five weeks since I last wrote a blog post. This marks the longest time I have gone without writing on this humble baby blog of mine. Despite all the things that have gone badly over the last couple of weeks (head-lice, computer malfunction, exhaustion, group-travel woes) the thing that has upset me the most is that I haven’t been able to write.
In the time since I have last updated, I have done some amazing travel in Northern Greece. I have spent time on beautiful, rugged coastlines, swam in the bluest water and traipsed around many a greek city (below is some pictures to prove it). It has been travel that should have had me jumping onto my computer to write about. Instead my to-do list grew longer, my spare time grew significantly shorter, my technology got more frustrating and so I just threw in the towel. After reading so many articles written by travel bloggers about how hard it is to travel and write a blog full-time all I have to say is I BELIEVE YOU!
Throw in a full-schedule with the program I am with here in Greece with (read more about it here), a computer that actually just deletes blog posts from in front of my eyes, sketchy wi-fi and skin-roasting, inescapable 31 degree heat and you have yourself an almost impossible updating your blog.
The BIG dream
It’s just a blog, you say.
And rightly so.
It is just a blog. An often neglected, little-read baby blog.
And I say, oh but it is so much more than that!
I havent spoken about this much (to anyone) but in the last couple of years it has become my *big* dream to become a writer and not just any writer, a writer for the National Geographic.
As a kid, I would pour over old copies of the National Geographic. I would cut out the giraffes (my favourite animal), marvel at the pictures of brightly painted Masai and dream of floating down the amazon in a dugout canoe. Those early days of NG- love lead me to choose Geography throughout high-school and I quickly became the star pupil writing papers on marine conservation, volcanoes and human population. While my fellow students spent time smoking under the cafeteria, I spent time in the library reading outdated Lonely Planets (now thats a useless activity. Want to try that restaurant? well, it shut down twelve years ago) and concocting plans to travel the world. Whilst my maths, biology and french classes dragged on, my geography teacher took us to swim in rivers, scramble up rocky cliffs and spread out sprawling maps across our desks.
I eventually went on to get a degree in Geography and promptly fell more and more in love with the subject, the world and with the idea of becoming a person who got to write about it.
The point of this long, nostalgic ramble is that , although small and relatively insignificant, writing this blog has helped and is helping move me towards this big dream. When I’m not writing this blog, whether out of neglect or necessity (like now), I become stagnant and frankly just a little bit hopeless.
Of course I am aware of what a difficult field I am trying to break into and I’m not sure if I have what it takes.What I am sure of is that we are stepping into an age of business where we have to create our own opportunities. We can’t just wait to have them handed to us on a silver platter. No one is about to knock on my door asking me if I would like to be a writer. No one is stepping out of the jungle to hand me a writing assignment.
Thats where this blog comes in. I want this blog to be a place where I can, word by word, learn to be a better writer, a better photographer and a better geographer. A place where I can learn what works, and what doesn’t. A safe place to learn how to write, amuse and inspire.
I would love to hear your big dream! what are you working towards? Leave me a comment or email me at dirtypawsblog@gmail.com.
dirtypawsblog.wordpress.com 
Really great, honest blog! Can completely relate to the struggles over finding the time to update consistently to a travel blog – just got to keep plugging away 🙂
Thanks! It has been difficult 🙂 glad others can relate.
I feel ya girl, it’s hard and you have to pitch, pitch, pitch! You’ll get in the grooze- it’s easy for me to say as an expat, but on the road I bet it’s impossible!
Oh to be an expat haha! You have got the good life. Im jealous. Although I am only travelling for another two-ish months so then I can be an expat too!