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Hi 🙂

You can call me Anna, born in Nepal and later turned into an Australian citizen and a solo female travel blogger! This is where I am sharing how it all started. With travel being a huge part of my life for the last 9 years, it really is no wonder that it has somehow molded me into the person that I am today. 9 years ago I left for my first solo travel and I knew I was hooked! If I hadn’t been traveling since then, the hole size of Russia would exist in my heart.

Long story short, I was born in Kathmandu, Nepal. Right after high school, I started working in an office in Kathmandu. Although the pay was below average, I enjoyed working there because, at 15, it was a dream to have my own little money coming in doing honest work. It was like your first Maccas job when you were a teen for my Western friends.

It wasn’t too bad but it wasn’t great either and I wanted to focus on continuing studying. So, after some time, with the help of my family, I then applied to complete my further studies in Sydney, Australia. We had to take on a big loan to make it work and my mom /we struggled just to make ends meet – this is to say I don’t come from a rich family.

Little did I know my life was about to get hard and busier! Alongside my studies, when the visa allowed I worked three jobs to pay my tuition fees and helped pay off the loan back home, which meant I did not go anywhere for the first 5 years. Slowly after that, I started with domestic flights visiting Melbourne, Queensland, and Canberra. I have always been inquisitive by nature, so visiting new places was fun for me and a way to relax. (Years later I visited all 7 states including Adelaide, Perth, Tasmania, and territories – Alice Springs, Darwin in Australia)

Fast forward a few years, following my studies I worked for a tech industry. It was my dream job at the time and I was good at it too (did well, got promoted, managed a team etc) and had a steady salary, the comfort of my place, friends for parties, fancy dresses, high heels, and designer bags. I was living a typical adult life, working hard, and going on a 2 weeks holiday in a year, and shortly after, I also became an Australian citizen through my studies and work. I was happy with my life knowing I had achieved the goals I had set for myself when I left Nepal.  

But slowly my life started to feel dull! I couldn’t find excitement and passion in my work anymore which I used to love but didn’t have the courage to leave either. My personal life was chaotic (maybe one day I will write a book about all the crazy and sad details that went down around this time) and because of that I was confused with my feelings, thoughts, and decisions, my relationships suffered and eventually, I had to deal with a life-threatening health issue, depression, and internal struggles. Coming from a narrow-minded society where talking about mental health isn’t taken positively made me hard to open up and still find it hard to write about.

In saying that, I am also grateful I met people from different walks of life around the same time.

I wouldn’t have found clarity had I not gone through my deepest darkest times alone and with few good people around me.

It was harder to start over than ever to have changed.

Learning that materialistic things were not making me happy or fulfilled was a true realisation. I wanted more from life than just paying bills and doing the same things over and over again. I needed change; a true transformation. So it was then that I left for my first solo trip.

After that, it took me another 6 months to wrap everything up and finally start traveling the world non-stop. So, I understand when people tell me it’s not easy to drop their life, pack and leave right away even if that’s what they want. The solution here is to plan smart because Travel is worth it. It is life-changing!

So when did I become a solo female travel blogger?

I was actually deep down in the blogging world even before I started traveling, I meant as a reader! I used to read travel blogs a lot, about Australia, New Zealand, and places I wanted to visit or watch on youtube.

I was obsessed with the idea of becoming a travel blogger. That lead me to design my first website named traveling records, it took me three months to do it all by myself and I also got all the social channels to go with it. Hence the reason why, if you scroll all the way down my Instagram page or Facebook page (if I haven’t deleted it already) you may find images with @ travellingrecords tag on them.

My plan was to write blogs and travel at the same time as all these big bloggers were doing it. I was inspired, excited and super pumped. So when I was leaving to solo travel the world in June 2015 I hoped to nail this blogging and traveling thing!

But again little did I knew my life was about to get harder as it was a massive headache trying to traveling and blogging at once! It didn’t take me very long to realize it was a tough skill to manage both things. In saying that though, I did give it my best for the first month! Since I had pre-planned everything for the first month of travel like where I was staying, things to see, do, eat, and all. I had some spare time and I invested that in writing blog posts. From memory, I published 3-4 blogs that first month.

By the way, my initial plan was to solo travel for only 3 months to central Europe, then come back to Sydney, get a new job, buy a house, etc (still keep a blog as a hobby though) but as you would know that 3 months went to become 6 months to 9 to a year, to two years and now 5 years! One thing that has stood the test of time is my love for traveling and sharing solo traveling tips, places I have been, or things I’ve seen.

So I was excited to be in Europe for the first time and as I went on to spend the second month and the third month, I absolutely loved exploring new places, meeting new people, making new friends, and always planning my next destination on the go. Looking back, I enjoyed my newly found travel life so much, I didn’t give blogging much-needed attention.

As an Australian passport holder, you could only stay in Europe for 180 days. So I went from central Europe to North Africa then to Asia, starting with Thailand. I explored the country and went up to the north in Chiang Mai to complete the 1-month silent meditation. By this point I was exhausted from fast traveling and really wanted a place to reflect on my past travels, plan my future travels, just be still for a while and have a sense of being at home.

Europe Travel Tips

10 Days Thailand Itinerary

Bangkok Blogs

Now coming back to my story, this is one of the important parts of my blogging journey. During the last few days of my Thailand visa, I had to quickly decide where to go next. so I ended up booking a flight to Hanoi, Vietnam.

Hanoi itinerary for 7 days 

Ninh Binh travel guide

All Vietnam blogs

I had a calm peaceful time up in the forest in Chiang Mai not for 1 day but for the whole month and then I was in Hanoi, which was one of the noisiest cities in Asia. The day I arrive in Hanoi, I wanted to leave because Hanoi was noisy and the crowd everywhere was not settling well with me.

Up in the forest, I had planned to slow-travel moving forward so, I gave myself some time to adjust and ended up loving Hanoi eventually. Do you know it is one of the countries I lived in as an ex-pat? I absolutely enjoyed my life there and maybe will return one day to relive the good old days! 

Anyway, making money via teaching English became my work in Hanoi which I enjoyed but at this point, I had not touched my blog for months. When an email came to renew the domain name, I finally logged in to my blog and realised over the last 12 months, I had only written 5 blog posts (remember all that jazz about writing everyday lol) So with my sad little heart, I decided it wasn’t for me and I didn’t renew that domain name. THE END

Yep, it was the end of that website! But the story doesn’t end there obviously.

6 months later, I was living as an ex-pat in Vientiane, Laos but all this time, there was not 1 day I hadn’t thought about having a blog. In a way, I felt like I killed my own baby! yes, dramatic I know but the truth is I had built that website all by myself and even though it was only 5 blog posts it was the start of my dream to be a travel blogger and now it was nowhere to be found.

All about Vientiane, Laos

Blogs about Southern Laos

At that time, I had been on the road for 1.5 years already and there was a lot I wanted to share. So, it was then I decided to try again and this time with my name and social channels. I could have hired someone to build a website but I am a bit of a nerd. So, here I went again for the second time!

While teaching English was my main gig at the time, I was also in the process of opening an ecomm store on the side. Then add life happenings and all. So in total, it took me about 2 months to make this website ready. Yes, the one you are currently on 🙂 Then it was finally time to write.

The first thing I wanted to share here was – What is it like to solo travel as a female? So, I spent hours crafting a piece thinking no one will read it and hit publish but to my surprise, many people read and relate to it and started following me on social media!

What to expect on solo female travel is the original article if you want to read it.

Since publishing that first piece, many other well-received articles, tips and tricks, and travel photography have been added to this site. I work hard to deliver value in my writing meaning most times I spend all day in front of my laptop writing on my own. But all of the hard work has allowed me to work with some of the biggest brands in the world. Plus it has brought some loyal following and support.

Another thing I also want to mention here is that, although this is my second try at blogging I have been posting continuously on Instagram since 2015. I may have taken a break now and then but I never gave up on it. If you scroll all the way to the bottom of my IG feed, you can see pre-blog Anna too.

Perhaps some of you experienced it already, it is not easy to take pictures when you travel solo but with time, technology, and habit, I do my best. Then comes the editing, processing part, and content planning and going live. There are many things that go behind the scene of travel blogging as well as managing your social media channels.

Some say I got an easy life looking at my gram but the reality is I currently work the job of 5 people. Why? Because my why is to inspire everyone to solo travel at least once in their life and live the life they love. Whenever I receive an email or comment saying, someone was inspired to go somewhere because of what they read on my blog or pictures, it gives me validation that I’m on the right path. I appreciate those messages & welcome them.

Having done my share of fast traveling and backpacking. I am now a fan of slow and comfortable travel because it lets me know the place and people more closely. (still just on a carry on though) If I am able, I stay in one country until my visa runs out for that country and then on to the next, but sometimes I also extend my visa & have lived in 7 countries for up to 5 months also. 

So what’s next?

I will continue to be a travel blogger and hope to add a business partner or an employee soon to help me run this gig more smoothly. And one of my goals in life is to travel to all 193 countries in the world! So let’s see how that goes!

So far I’ve solo traveled to over 100 countries in all 7 continents, lived in 7, and have ticked some big adventures off my bucket list.

That being said, I am not in a mad rush either. As I travel around the world, I want to reduce my carbon footprint also. Hence I’m catching an absolutely must flight only. I have listed other things I’m doing in this post.

I’m forever grateful for the journey I’m on and to gain an understanding of this beautiful world, people, culture, lifestyle, and more. It wouldn’t have been possible if I hadn’t risked my comfy life for adventures on the road.

Thank you for taking the time to read about my journey. If you enjoyed it, I invite you to subscribe to the blog for the monthly newsletter and follow my journey on Instagram as I share my adventures from all the 193 countries in the world.

This blog is a place where I can share travel tips, explore new destinations, experiment with different travels styles, and update on future travels. If you’re interested in my thoughts on something, please let me know!

Happy Travels,
Anna

Email: anna (at) annasherchand (dot) com
IG @annasherchand
FB: @annasherchand
Tweet: @annasherchand
Pinterest: @annasherchand
Youtube: @annasherchand

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