Susanne More than five years ago I started what has become the project of my life – a travel website. Why – you might ask? Well, I got sick of my desk job. Running a small business for more than a decade and half, getting stuck with spreadsheets, implementing marketing strategies, handling customer service issues – I was starting to feel frustrated and confined. It seemed an early mid-life crisis had set in and I seriously needed a change.
Funny enough, every since I was a kid, growing up in a small town in the beautiful Austrian countryside, I had a fascination with travel, with people from other cultures and with learning foreign languages. Then, at age 20, I immigrated to Canada, Toronto to be exact. My god, all of a sudden I was able to experience the whole world in one cosmopolitan city! It was and continues to be amazing, meeting people from all different countries; learning about their cultures, lifestyles, value systems; forming connections and friendships with people from vastly different places.
But then, to be realistic, I also needed to make a living and I ended up taking two business degrees and opened my own translation and language services business in 1990. That’s when the business world caught up with me and sucked me in. And for 15 solid years it was mostly business. And the explorer, the adventurer, the eternally curious soul inside me went silent, for a long time.
Finally, that’s when I woke up and started the project of my life. Since then, www.travelandtransitions.com has become my most challenging and most personally meaningful endeavour. In the past 5 years, this website has grown into more than 700 pages, 3700 video clips on Youtube (viewed about 5,000,000 times so far), dozens of travel photo albums on Flickr, and more recently, a presence on Twitter and Facebook. And right now I am starting the arduous task of recreating the entire website in WordPress, replacing the outdated Dreamweaver site. A real challenge in itself.
But why “Travel and Transitions”? Well, “travel” is obvious. I love travel and in the past five years some of my most fascinating journeys have included off-the-beaten path discoveries in New York City, San Francisco, London, Prague, Rome, Madrid, Sicily, Austria, Mexico, Slovenia, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and of course to different destinations across Canada, my chosen, and much beloved, home country.
The “Transitions” part is a bit trickier. It really stems from my own inner search for a more fulfilling life, making the transition from a standard office-cubicle lifestyle to a life that is filled with new experiences, insights, and connections with interesting and inspiring people.
I am still running my full-time business, while I am working on the travel website. Burning the candle at both ends does take its toll at times. But so far it’s been absolutely worth it.
It’s been quite the journey so far – and no doubt, it has helped me gain a different perspective on life. And it has broadened my horizons. I’ll keep marching on this journey of discoveries and will share my adventures and insights with you as I go along. Hopefully, along the way, this endeavour will inspire others to reframe their life and discover the adventurer inside themselves and to appreciate the amazing world that surrounds us.
And hopefully it will provide some great opportunities to connect with other travellers and people on an interesting life journey. I’m looking forward to it!
Life is a Journey – Explore New Horizons.
For more info or tons of travel-related content please visit my website: https://travelandtransitions.com.
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