Hey! Hi! Hello! Sawatdee ka!

Sam here, obviously... Thought it'd be a good idea to introduce myself a bit before we get this whole blogging thing going. The names Samantha, my friends call me Sam. I was born and raised in a small town just outside of Salt Lake City, Utah. I graduated from Dixie State University with my bachelors degree in business administration, December of 2018. In my 22 years of living I have traveled to 22 states and 22 countries. My favorite being Asia. I am an ambitious, adventurous, and compassionate person. I do most of my travels solo through volunteer programs.

As a child I traveled a lot with my family, but it wasn't until I was 17 that I took a trip of my own. I worked as often as my highly involved high school schedule allowed me, in order to save up for a trip to Europe with my AP history class. I think every high school kid dreams of visting Europe with their best friends and WOW it was one heck of a dream! This was the trip that started my fernweh.

Fernweh? Yup, not a typo. Fernweh is a German word translating to "far-sickness." This word straight-up means "an ache to get away and travel to a distant place." When I found this word I was like dang, this is me! It has a deeper meaning than wanderlust, because it's not just the yearning to go travel, but an empty feeling inside that can't be repaired unless you are traveling.

Since that trip to Europe, just before my senior year of high school, I have traveled to countless places and lived in 3 foreign countries. My goal has been to see at least one new country every year and since graduating high school I've stuck to that. Post-graduation I lived and volunteered in Bali, Indonesia. A year later, after getting my associate degree, I took a break and lived in Weihei, China volunteering again. After that I went back home and finished my college degree, taking a summer trip to Canada. And now here I am living and working as an ESL teacher in Phichit, Thailand. Thailand makes the 21st country I have been to! I've been living here for just over three months and have already ventured over into Vietnam and have plans to hit at least five more countries within the next year.

My outlook on life is very positive. I think that if we work hard and set our mind on something, we will achieve it. There is this saying, "try is a lie, try is an option to fail." We as people need to stop saying "I'll try" and start saying "I WILL." I will visit a new country, I will be happy, I will make the most out of each day. If you can convince yourself that what you want is true and envision it long enough, it will happen. We are all scared of the future, but we need to remember that one day we feared the now and we made it didn't we?

There you have it, I'm a young adult whose caring, outgoing and loves to travel. I live life with the mindset that each day can be a new adventure with a learning experience.

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Some random useless facts:

-- I'm an English teacher with awful English skills... HA OOPS!

-- I'm a professional procrastinator.

-- I LOVE food and HATE exercise. Needless to say, I'll either look like this forever or get insanely fat here real soon, it's gonna be a fun surprise!

-- My favorite color changes every time someone asks .

-- I think I'm hilarious and will laugh at my own jokes.

-- I laugh like a dolphin. Which then makes everyone else laugh at me so win win.

-- Could be the laziest person you know.

-- Water is my favorite element, I wanna be near it always!

My skills include:

-- The ability to wing just about anything.

-- Cleaning ink out of eye droppers (fun skill you only need as a teacher in Thailand probs.)

-- Having amazing legs without an ounce of effort.

-- Rambling (sorry if you got bored before making it this far into my post.)

-- A good memory when it comes to lyrics, but somehow a non-existent one when it comes to anything actually useful.