Ignore this very formal photo, it was taken this summer for a conference photo shoot. 😂
It’s my third winter since moving England permanently, and I feel ever so slightly more settled than I did last year. This feeling reminds me of when I moved to China in early 2017, it took me eight months to feel truly at home. Yet, that sense of belonging never arrived during my six months living in Istanbul.
Traveling has always felt like my sense of normality and where I feel most at home, but it can also disrupt my emotional stability. I try to maintain certain routines to stay grounded on the road, but my brain also thrives on the structure of being at home. At first, staying put was really tough, I often experienced withdrawal, emotional crashes, and frustration with the abrupt changes.
Over the years, full-time traveling and creating travel videos have helped me shape and discover my voice. Creative work, I’ve learned, requires giving parts of yourself, sometimes even the whole of yourself, to bring ideas to life. Your voice becomes embedded in the final outcome. This process has helped me shed old layers of my identity, breaking free from my past.
Creating travel videos has also taught me not to listen to the fears that hold us back, those small yet significant doubts that can stop us from becoming who we’re meant to be. When I started on YouTube over eight years ago, I was rusty, with no knowledge of storytelling, filming, or vlogging. I was juggling this passion alongside my full-time job in China, while still following my deep curiosity for international politics and relations, which I’d studied at university. But when you keep creating, you start to experience momentum. Something within you feels liberated, freer to express yourself, and better able to uncover the real you, free from the negative thoughts and doubts that may have held you back.
I’m not quite where I want to be yet, but this morning, as I walked in the frosty winter sunlight, I felt so grateful, content, and hopeful. I hope you feel that way too.
Syifa Adriana
Ignore this very formal photo, it was taken this summer for a conference photo shoot. 😂
It’s my third winter since moving England permanently, and I feel ever so slightly more settled than I did last year. This feeling reminds me of when I moved to China in early 2017, it took me eight months to feel truly at home. Yet, that sense of belonging never arrived during my six months living in Istanbul.
Traveling has always felt like my sense of normality and where I feel most at home, but it can also disrupt my emotional stability. I try to maintain certain routines to stay grounded on the road, but my brain also thrives on the structure of being at home. At first, staying put was really tough, I often experienced withdrawal, emotional crashes, and frustration with the abrupt changes.
Over the years, full-time traveling and creating travel videos have helped me shape and discover my voice. Creative work, I’ve learned, requires giving parts of yourself, sometimes even the whole of yourself, to bring ideas to life. Your voice becomes embedded in the final outcome. This process has helped me shed old layers of my identity, breaking free from my past.
Creating travel videos has also taught me not to listen to the fears that hold us back, those small yet significant doubts that can stop us from becoming who we’re meant to be. When I started on YouTube over eight years ago, I was rusty, with no knowledge of storytelling, filming, or vlogging. I was juggling this passion alongside my full-time job in China, while still following my deep curiosity for international politics and relations, which I’d studied at university. But when you keep creating, you start to experience momentum. Something within you feels liberated, freer to express yourself, and better able to uncover the real you, free from the negative thoughts and doubts that may have held you back.
I’m not quite where I want to be yet, but this morning, as I walked in the frosty winter sunlight, I felt so grateful, content, and hopeful. I hope you feel that way too.
5 months ago | [YT] | 1,342