Hi! Welcome to my site: My Bucketlist Journeys — a site I created to fuel your wanderlust through my bucketlist moments. Here you’ll find all my travel tips, travel guides, photo albums, and more!
How did it all begin?
My name is Claudia. I’m a native New Yorker — born and raised in Brooklyn. A child of immigrants, I grew up with the expectation that I had to do very well in school, graduate with at least one degree, and get a very lucrative job. I had a great childhood, but I also realized that many times money was super tight and we couldn’t afford everything my friends could. This is pursuing excellence and “status” so to speak, was always the end goal. In order to achieve this, my parents always pushed me to do great in school. As early as elementary school, I remember being on all the honor rolls, student of the month boards, getting invited to all the breakfasts with the principle etc.
When the chance to enter a middle school for the “gifted and talented” came around, I had no option but to take it. I took the exam, passed, and graduated in 4th grade. I started middle school in the 5th grade, and nothing changed. The goal was always to excel. I was even pushed to learn a new language.
I opted to take French, and I guess this is where my wanderlust truly began. I learned about France, all the famous landmarks and the delicious food, and all the francophone nations. I always thought it would be cool to visit someday … someday. I kept a mental list of all the places I would want to visit: Eiffel Tower, Champs Elysees, etc.
Fast forward to high school. Most of the students in my high school were a bit more well off financially than I was. I remember hearing about students who went on the many international trips the foreign language department offered. I would always take flyers, but deep down I knew I could never afford the trips. Again, I figured I would be able to, someday. But in order to eventually make good money, I had to work hard in school.
When I was 18, I finally got my passport. I remember the feeling of opening that envelope and pulling out my brand new blue book that would allow me to travel the world. My first trip was to meet my family in Ecuador. It was a start. I remember getting on the plane for the first time and just being in awe of everything. Of being in the clouds and then landing in a foreign land. After a few weeks in Ecuador, I couldn’t help to wonder what the rest of the world could be like.
College came around. After a good freshman year, I started to lose interest. I was coming to the realization that this dream of excelling in school and becoming a lawyer (a career I decided on in high school) was really for my parents. It wasn’t my passion. My mind was always on those trips my schools offered that I could never afford. Even in my art history class, instead of focusing on the art, I was focused on the locations where these famous pieces were found: the Acropolis in Greece, the Sistine Chapel in Italy.
At one point, I tried to dedicate time into fashion design, thinking maybe my major was just off. That wasn’t it either. After my previous trip to Ecuador, I knew my heart was elsewhere. That feeling I had when I landed in a foreign country for the first time just kept calling me. I wanted to feel that again!
In 2016, I graduated with my degree in Political Science, as planned. By this point though, I was just going through the motions. The degree was just to have it, to make the thousands of dollars I spent in college “worth it.” But I knew graduate school was not in my future. I knew the time to live out my real dream was now. All those places I learned about in my years of school, it was time to explore them beyond the textbooks!
That summer, I told my mom I wanted to travel somewhere as my own graduation gift. She suggested Israel, thinking I wasn’t serious. Weeks later, I had done my research, planned my budget and printed out the itinerary. This was going to happen. I showed her all my research and at first she looked at me like I was crazy for spending a large amount of money on a vacation, but I wasn’t taking no for an answer. That fall, I was on a plane by myself bound for the Middle East. I was about to cross off my first country from my bucketlist .. one of the best trips of my life.
Now, four years later, I’ve been to over 15 countries and checked off so many items from my bucketlist. I’m not going to lie — there have been moments when I’ve gotten pushback from my family for not pursuing another degree and instead spending my savings on travel, but I don’t care. I welcome advice, but in the end, my life is about making myself happy and I just so happen to find happiness when I check in at the counter, when I walk down the aisle of a plane, when I set foot on a foreign land. Travel has and always be my passion. I’ve learned so much through my trips — things you simply cannot learn behind the desk flipping through a textbook. Of course, learning about the Eiffel Tower in my French class was cool, but being physically at the top of the Eiffel Tower was even better! 🙂
I’ve gotten so many questions from my trips, which is why I eventually decided to start this site. My Bucketlist Journeys is all about sharing my journeys to checking off items from my bucketlist, and to hopefully inspire you to follow your dream, regardless of what people think!