Hey, I'm Renne from Travel Lushes and I'm super excited because one of my favorite vlogging
couples, Niko and Cythina from the Journal of Nomads, reached out to me they said that
they wanted to a little profile piece on me.
It's something that they do on their website where they interview bloggers and just kind
of find out about their travels and some of their best travel stories and they asked me
to contribute.
I thought, hey you know what, we're both vloggers, so I'm just going to do a little video answering
your questions.
Here we go!
First up.
Who am I?
Well my name is Renne Simpson and I'm from Travel Lushes, and I am 30, 30 years old.
And I am from the United States of America.
Um alright, so you know who I am, you know where I'm from, let's get to the fun stuff.
Let's talk about my travel - my story.
Man, I'm not going to lie.
It's really not that exciting.
I didn't quit my job to travel the world.
I'm not an expat.
I don't volunteer abroad.
I'll be honest.
I am just your average 9-5er who follows her dreams.
I am not defined by my job.
I follow my passion.
I believe in being happy and that is the main premise of my story and it's the message that
I want to get out to people that it does not matter who you are, it doesn't matter what
your story is, it doesn't matter what your situation is, you can travel if you really
want to.
So how did I get started with traveling?
10 years ago when I was 20 years old and I did a study abroad trip and I didn't just
go to Mexico.
I didn't start small.
I did it big!
My first time out of the country, I went to Egypt.
EGYPT!
Oh my God.
It was the trip of a lifetime.
And here was the really freaky part right - this is how I know it was fate that I went
on that trip.
So one day, I went to class and I found out that class was canceled.
And class is like never canceled!
So I was like, what am I going to do with my life?
So I left class and I was walking through campus and I just happened to see something
that caught my eye.
And it was some students sitting at a table and they had these brochures in front of them
advertising a study abroad trip to Egypt.
Now let me tell you why that was fate.
Number 1, because class was canceled, duh, what are the odds, and Number 2, I never thought
about traveling out of the country.
At the age of 19, it was not even on my radar.
It wasn't something that I was even thinking about doing.
BUT, when I was younger, when I was a kid, I had a weird obsession with Egypt growing
up.
So it was fate that I would miss class that day and I would run into this kiosk talking
about a study abroad trip to the one place that I ever really was interested in.
But, it just moved me when I saw it, I don't know what it was - I said, I'm doing this.
And mind you, I'm just a college student, but I was saving my pennies and I saved up
enough money to go on that study abroad trip.
And my life was forever changed.
That trip was the trip that started my travel addiction and I always tell people, it takes
one time.
One time going out of the country, stepping out of your boundaries, and going to experience
a culture that is so drastically different from your own.
It takes one time for you to get that travel bug.
So many people have excuses and you know they say "oh I got so much going on" or "I have
this job and I can't travel" or "I only get 10 vacation days" - BS.
I was a college student.
I wasn't making that much money at my little part-time job, but I saved those pennies up
and I followed my dream.
And now I'm addicted to traveling.
And I have found a way to make it an important part of my life.
Last year, about 50% of Americans didn't use a single vacation day.
And that is crazy to me!
You can have a 9-5 job like I do and still follow your dreams.
Don't quit your daydream.
I will quit my dayjob before I quit my daydream.
I have probably traveled every single month this year and I have a full-time job.
It can happen.
It is possible.
So I'll tell you a couple travel stories.
Some of my favorite travel stories.
One of my favorite travel stories is when I went to St. Lucia.
This girl that I went to high school with - she was St. Lucian, she lives in St. Lucia,
and she participates in Carnival every year, and she wrote on my Facebook wall and she
said "hey, you should come to Carnival and participate in Carnival with me."
Now I think she was just kidding, she wasn't serious, but me being a very serious traveler,
I said "Ok" - I took her up on that offer.
I bought a plane ticket, I sent her a message, I said "I bought my plane ticket.
I'm staying with you right?"
She was just like "yeah...come on."
That was one of my favorite travel stories and when I went there, when I tell you I had
the time of my life, like when I like to travel, I like to immerse myself in the local culture
and it was such an amazing experience because she was St. Lucian, so she was able to get
me the outfit, she was able to get me in the actual parade - I was in there, I was dancing
with the other St. Lucians.
I was being apart of this local cultural experience that the people of St. Lucia love and look
forward to every year and I was in the mix of it and it was just such an amazing and
incredible experience.
Another favorite travel memory of mine - I will say it was the time when I kind of evolved.
So I went to Bali, and I was really saddened by some of the stuff that I saw there.
I went to this beach and there was litter everywhere.
And it was a really big moment for me when I saw all that litter because it made me realize
the impact that we have as tourists.
Now of course, there are all kinds of reasons why there is so much litter on the beaches
of Bali.
It ranges from the government, to the locals, but tourists also do play a role.
It's made me start to kind of pay attention to the little things that we as tourists do
that are so destructive to the places that we visit.
And it almost became kind of a mission of mine to educate not only myself, but other
people on how to be responsible tourists.
And I want to make sure that whenever I'm traveling and when other people are traveling,
we are being the best travelers that we can be and we are really getting out there and
we're interacting with local culture.
So that's kind of what my blog is actually all about.
So I like to go to different places and get off the beaten path.
I like to immerse myself in the local culture and I want to show people no matter what your
reason for traveling, whether you want to do those things, or your mission is a little
bit different and you just want to go to tourist attractions, I want to show people the fun
ways to find the hidden gems in the destinations that they're visiting, even in some of the
most touristy places.
And it really kind of takes your experience to another level.
So that's what my blog is all about Um, I don't know what else can I say?
Fun fact about me, I like hats, other than that I have no other fun facts to share about
myself.
Yeah...I like to travel!
Come watch my travel vlogs.
Yeah...Okay...That's it.
Bye!