Hi, I’m FJ. Welcome to A Fly Off The Wall!

I started this travel blog as a way of sharing and funding my adventures around the world after quitting my 9-5 office job to pursue the digital nomad dream.

Only joking… I’m not quite a full cliché just yet.

Two trips to India/Sri Lanka/Malaysia and Central America/Ecuador after I graduated university took me through to the end of 2016, where I realised I still had nine months of freedom left before my job was due to start. I was a little tired of being constantly on the move and wanted a longer stay in a fresh environment. I settled on Melbourne as I’d never visited Australia (‘the world’s most liveable city’). Optimistically,  I thought that heaps of coffee shops/bars/restaurants would equal heaps of jobs, allowing me to do the odd shift during the week and keeping me busy.

A week before my flight, I spoke to a good friend about my plans and she reminded me that as I was technically unemployable (I didn’t have a working holiday visa), I probably wouldn’t be able to find a job in Australia. This was a valid point. I couldn’t risk staying in one place for 6 weeks without a day job or project to occupy myself with. We started going through a long list of possible options I wasn’t keen on, which is when I finally said that I wished I’d started a travel blog earlier.

My friend replied, “Well, why don’t you? You can write in hindsight. Most bloggers do.”

When I thought about it, I decided that I could definitely make it happen. For most of my big trips I had kept a well-updated journal (thanks past-me and 20-hour South American bus trips) and this was also a good way of having something to do for the next few months. Additionally I could collect all my travel memories in one place and share them with family and friends (+ myself when bored and vitamin-D deficient). So here we are! I hope this will be of help to you and that you enjoy reading through my posts.

Not sure where to start? Click here for all blog posts or have a look through my photo gallery for some visual inspiration.

More about me:

I’ve grown up in six countries around the world so I was lucky that family holidays always involved a lot of travel to new and exciting places. Living in the Netherlands meant plenty of European road trips. Five years spent in Oman allowed us easy access to nearby countries like the U.A.E. and Egypt. Our stay in China was convenient for Asian destinations such as Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Macau, Singapore, South Korea and Japan. More recently, my family’s base in Texas was perfect for me as a pitstop before my travel adventures in Central and South America.

My first experience of independent travel was after I left school in 2012 and took a year off before I started uni (desperately trying to avoid using those words beginning with ‘g’ and ‘y’). My friend and I spent 5 months backpacking around South America, going through Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia and Peru. I kept up the travelling after that by making the most out of our generous uni holidays. 28 weeks a year in return for your mental stability and health isn’t bad, especially when you can spend those on a beach in Cuba or Colombia, pretending Cambridge is another planet away.

I am now working in London and Los Angeles, trying to make the most of my less generous holiday allowance by visiting new destinations as and when I can.

I’ve had the best experiences along the way and I’m excited to share these with you!