What Travelling The World
Has Taught Me
I'm not shy about my love for travel or how I was very much late to catching the travelling bug but as someone who has been lucky enough to visit so many countries and wants to travel even further in the years to come, I thought it only right to look back on what my adventures have taught me.
So many of my memories over the course of my almost 7 year career, have been made in the most beautiful of cities and some of the most sought after resorts in the world, but it's the things I've learnt from those adventures and the people I experienced them with, that truly make the memories so important to me.
Setting aside the beauty of the destinations themselves, here's what my travels have really taught me over the years and why what I've learned over time, is priceless.
Inthefrow uses affiliate links. Some of the above outfit was gifted.
Read the disclaimer here.
To Embrace New Things
I love to travel and one of the parts of my career that I love the most, is being invited to experience a place I've never set eyes on before. As Alex and I start to think about where we would love to spend our Honeymoon after we get married, our list of destinations is getting so long I feel to someone on the outside it looks like we're planning a gap year trip! Travel excites me, it gives me the opportunity to learn something new, to explore somewhere beautiful and to embrace other cultures. It's those unique experiences that leave you feeling like you left a part of your heart somewhere and leaves you feeling like the only person in the world who is lucky enough to have that memory. Embracing all that a place has to offer is almost impossible but to at least embrace other cultures from the people who call that place home, is one of the most important lessons that I've learned. These are the memories that I treasure and share with loved ones on my return home far more than how beautiful a resort was.
To Be More Patient
I am very much someone who likes to be in control and although I sometimes wish I could relinquish control more, the workaholic in me finds comfort in knowing, organising and planning everything. Travelling with others on my 2013 Trek America tour, with friends on girl's holidays and with brands over the past few years has really improved my ability to be patient. After all, life happens and things don't always go to plan! Take our trip to Aspen last year after visiting friends in Chicago as the perfect example. A snow storm swept in and not only cancelled our connecting flight but left us stranded overnight in Denver. 2014 Victoria likely would have panicked at control slipping away but instead this Victoria calmly found a local hotel to stay at overnight, organised a driver to take us the 3 hour drive to Aspen the day after and embraced the change. The ability to be patient meant a far more enjoyable trip for everyone concerned and we experienced some of the most wonderful mountain views on that car journey that I've ever seen in my life. Learning to be patient over the years, has improved so many parts of my life.
To Always Be Thankful
I grew up in a very stereotypical Northern household and the importance of manners were instilled into me from a very young age. To be kind, to be grateful and to be thankful are hugely important and they're also very good indicators to me, if other people and I will be immediate friends. Some of the most wonderful places in the world I have travelled to are engrained in my memory for the welcomes I received, the people I met and the experiences I had, far more than if my room was Instagram worthy. It's the things we think of as 'the little things' as we travel, that are the experiences I am most thankful for above all else. It's realising the effort that others have put in and recognising when people have the warmest hearts, that make me so thankful for my travels over the years. Learning to be thankful for everything and to be grateful for everyone who goes out of their way to make life special for you, is something I try to use throughout every part of my life. Being kind costs nothing, but is quite simply priceless.
To Be Confident
Almost 6 years ago now, after saving for years and year I embarked on a 3 month tour of the USA with Trek America. If you'e never heard of Trek American before I couldn't recommend it more. You can experience the USA and Canada with the company and other like minded individuals and what that trip taught me has never left me. I have always been fairly confident in myself but after a few bad relationships in my younger years, I felt my confidence waver. I told myself I would save up and road trip with Trek America to push myself out of my comfort zone. I came home a more confident, more capable person who had made life long friends with people I had never even met 12 weeks previously. My outlook on people, on life and on how to hold my own in my career changed for the better.
And finally to want to travel more. To see places and people I haven't seen before and to experience things that will continue to allow me to grow as a person, as well as pushing my creativity and broadening my horizons. To travel is such an amazing thing and I will never take everything it gives to me and allows me for granted.
Images taken during a press trip with the Bentley team driving through Seville to celebrate the new Bentley Continental GT Convertible.
