My name is Ainars Ciesa and I left my home in Latvia to travel the world back in 2016. I always dreamed of travelling long term however it always seemed like an impossible goal, especially coming from a country with not so good economy. I got my bachelor's degree in 2014 and I was working full time for a major nordic bank since my second year in uni. At the time I thought this was the path for me and I would stick to it but it just wasn't doing it for me.
Later I went to see a talk given by a girl who backpacked New Zealand and I found out about a working holiday visa which allows one to live and work in New Zealand for up to a year. Seeing how beautiful New Zealand was I knew I had to take advantage of this.
I had a lot of time until the applications would open so in the meantime I ended up going on a trip to Indonesia with a small backpacking tour company. I loved the trip so much and it basically opened my eyes. I learned that long term budget backpacking is so common these days and it's really easy to do it, especially if you just change your mindset and save a little bit of money.
I loved Asia and Bali so much I knew I would have to do this again by myself. I learned a lot during this trip and went home I started reading up more about backpacking Asia in particular. It was difficult to shake off this trip and go to work the very next day though.
I read about all kinds of possibilities to save money travelling like Wwoofing, wWrkaway, house sitting etc. I also found out that working holiday visas are rather common and most developed countries have a lot more of them. Still to this day I am frustrated that I don't have access to one for Australia.
In 2016 me, my cousin and his fiancee applied for New Zealand visa however we still weren't ready to go. That year I changed my job and quit altogether after couple of months because an opportunity came up to go to Iceland before heading to New Zealand. And this was the official start of a completely new life and I never looked back.
Since then I have spent five months working and exploring Iceland, I backpacked around Vietnam, visited Kuala Lumpur, spent an amazing year and a half exploring New Zealand and lastly I went on a 9 month long backpacking trip that started in Australia and ended in Iceland.
During this 9 month long journey I visited Australia, Japan, South Korea, Nepal, India, Singapore, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, UK, Czech Republic. I did a 6000km long motorcycle trip in Asia, hiked for 10 days in Himalayas reaching 5400m in altitude, rode about 4000km in local Indian trains, did rock climbing in Laos and Vietnam, spent Christmas on a little tropical island in Cambodia, watched fireworks from rooftop bar in Siem Reap on new years eve, met so many incredible people and so much more.
Right now I am enjoying the fresh air of Iceland and taking a break from all of this before starting a new chapter in Canada.