When I began thinking about starting a blog, I couldn’t decide which interest I wanted to focus on, but over the past few years, if there’s anything I learned, it’s that you have to celebrate your everyday adventures. I don’t necessarily lead an incredibly inspiring or adventurous life, but as I considered this, I realized that it’s likely that most people don’t.

For many people, travel is a luxury that they cannot afford. Throughout my life, it was the same for me. I still scrounged and saved to make it happen, but there was always a a sense of sacrifice in travelling, even though it brought so much happiness. When I see Instagram accounts urging people to quit their jobs and travel for a year, I immediately think of that viral TikTok response where a woman interrupts to tell you the video is not speaking to you.

It’s not feasible for most to do that. It’s a dream and a wonderful idea, but not something the average person can achieve. So, I dreamed up this blog, which is for the people who dream of travel, who manage to save and take one trip a year (or less). It’s not about grand trips or #vanlife (though both are amazingly fantastic).

Instead my blog will be a more personalized account of navigating my journey through life. My focus will be on travel adventures, hikes, and some silliness along the way, and I will also focus on mental health and personal well-being.

Over the past several years, I have gone through many ups and downs, and I’ve found that it’s so important to take stock of what’s great in your life so you’re able to survive it. And beyond that, you have to work to create a life that you’re not simply “surviving” but enjoying. Next year, I turn 40, and the true realization of that came to me last year. However, it spurred something completely unexpected… a new adventure.

The Middle Ages are upon Us

Even if you’re not dreading getting older, nearing 40 can truly make you step back and try to gain some perspective on your life. Have you accomplished what you’ve wanted to so far? Are you happy with where you’re at in life? Are there things you want to make sure you do? Each of these questions can serve as a guide for what to do next, or they can make you sit there with a glass of wine in hand overthinking each choice you’ve made along the way that put you where you are today.

INitial Panic

In August 2023, I had just finished planning a normal trip with friends and finalized plans for my 38th birthday party, when the idea of 40 came and smacked me in the face. How was I going to be 40 in two years?!?

Had I done all that I wanted to? Well, five-year-old me would be disappointed I wasn’t living in a castle with many dogs surrounded by the English countryside. But 30-year-old me was happy with how far I had come in eight years. However, I still felt a piece missing from my life.

My therapist usually suggests I sit with that feeling and work through it as I have a tendency to just tuck feelings like that away and do the next impulsive thing that comes to mind to distract me. 

Steady Now

Although I felt my impulsive self begin to rise to the surface, this time, instead of taking over the show, I asked myself why I was feeling this way. Was there a reason? It was just another year. Being 40 wouldn’t change anything about my life. Age is just a number, right? My joints sighed at the mere consideration of that cliché, but it really didn’t change all that much.

When I think back on how much I’ve done, seen, and experienced, I have 38 years of experiences which feel like they’ve taken forever to get through. Why, then, could I not experience the same amount of adventures or more in the next 38 years?

I hear people talk about middle age as if it’s the beginning of the end, but maybe, just maybe, it’s actually just the middle of your story. You still have time to experience new things or go out and be whoever you want to be, which was a fantastic, mind-opening thought to have at that moment. 

My brain screamed, “Yes! I will go on adventures! I won’t simply find myself doing a birthday party and drinking far too many glasses of wine or some themed cocktail I’d dreamed up for my 40th birthday. I will think of something that will truly mark the occasion and be extraordinary to show myself that I am still alive and here and that I have no plans of slowing down!”

The moment was giving Mrs. George in Mean Girls “I’m not like a *regular* mom, I’m a *cool* mom.” But ya know, you lean into those inspirational moments when you have them. Though tempered, I allowed myself to think of what I could to truly mark an occasion such as this. 

Choosing My Adventure

After a few hours of stewing on it, I thought back to a previous international trip. At the end of my flight from New York to Edinburgh, the woman next to me and I began chatting about our planned adventures.

She had just retired and was taking a trip with her best friend and planned to do the Coast to Coast Trail in northern England, a nearly 200 mile trek from St. Bees, England on the west coast to Robin Hood’s Bay, England on the east coast. She told me all about it in the last hour of our flight. I loved every bit of the energy these two ladies were bringing to the table. 

The memory of their joy and determination was exactly what I needed. I knew exactly what I was going to do for my 40th birthday. In two years, I was going to hike the Coast to Coast trail.

Wainwright’s Coast to Coast Trail

The Coast to Coast trail initially was not founded as a national trail in England but has since become one. It was the adventure of one man: Alfred Wainwright. In 1973, Wainwright published A Coast to Coast Walk, which was a detailed account of his rather long walk across England.

The walk itself covers anywhere from 185 to 192 miles depending on the route choices you make.

It crosses through three national parks: the Lake District National Park, the Yorkshire Dales National Park, and the North York Moors National Park. It is an amalgamation of public footpaths and roads, permissive paths (which is when the landowner has given permission for people to cross their land), and access land (which are places with expanded rights that give people the “right to roam”).

The trail is said to contain the same amount of cumulative elevation as hiking up Mount Everest… twice. So, needless to say, I have a lot of work to do before getting to it.

I Hope You’ll Join Me

Over the next year and 3 months, I’ll be capturing the details of preparation, gear testing, and planning along the way. I hope you’ll come along with me as I navigate this trip (both figuratively and literally).

As I leave you today, I will impart one bit of small wisdom on my way out. Prioritize yourself. So often we allow life to get in the way and forget to take care of ourselves. We are truly the only person who is with us from day one until we leave this world; make sure to appreciate yourself along the way.