Today we have Marian from Travel Shop Girl tell us all about her travels! You may already be familiar with Marian’s travels, as we tend to retweet her a lot! Read more about her awesome adventures in Iceland, Colombia, New Zealand and more!
Why do you love to travel?
For some people travel is about the destination. For me, it’s about the entire experience, from the planning, transportation, and the people you meet along the way. Every aspect of the entire trip is a learning experience and I feel like a much better person as a result. Learning about a city or country’s culture and history makes me more informed and better educated about the world I live in and what’s better than that?
What destination is top of your bucket list?
This is hard because I have so many places that I want to visit. But if I had to chose today I could probably narrow it down to the Faroe Islands, Easter Island, the Galapagos, and Hong Kong. All very different, but in areas of the world that I have yet to discover.
Where is your most favourite place you have travelled to?
This is not an easy question to answer because I find that the place I have traveled to most recently ends up being my “favorite” for the moment. But in the past few years I would definitely have to say that Iceland is at the top of my list, but that’s mostly because I never thought I would travel there and I knew absolutely nothing about it. But once I did visit, I found that it had something familiar about it while at the same time it’s a country like none other. It has landscapes that are so ridiculously breathtaking that you have to remind yourself that it’s real and not a photograph. I find both the country and the people incredibly refreshing and while I would want people to visit, I don’t want anyone to ruin Iceland’s nature that I have grown to love.
What is your most favourite memory or experience whilst travelling?
I have a few where I had to do some kind of physical activity that I didn’t think I would ever do or could do and then accomplished it. For example, climbing up a 100′ rope, jumar style, in the Colombian Amazon to go ziplining, hiking up a glacier in Iceland, or jumping off the SkyTower in Auckland, New Zealand. People ask me why I would do any of these and I always say that I like to do anything that reminds me I’m alive!
What is your favourite photo from your travels?
I’m still chasing the Northern Lights so I’m sure that once I do, that will be my favorite picture. Until then, whittling down what is my favorite picture is incredibly difficult as I’ve had the chance to visit so many wonderful destinations like Venice, Dubrovnik, Barcelona, Fiji, Paris, Having said that, this picture is of my glacier hike in 2012 and I love it for so many different reasons. One is that it was one of my first activities in Iceland, but also because you can see how much the glacier is receding as well. But I love it mostly because of how small the people are in the picture in relationship to the glacier itself. For me it’s a great reminder of just how tiny we are in the world and the universe. Every time I travel I think I’m seeing more of the world, but now I realize how much I haven’t seen. It’s because of that reason that I have to see more of the world!
Follow all of Marian’s journeys on her blog, Twitter and Instagram!
