Most people when they start off travelling go to an english speaking country, or somewhere not too far away, slightly outside of their comfort zones but still with a slight safety net. Not me, back in December I flew to Costa Rica, solo, 10 hours on the plane (16 hours due to time differences) to a country that spoke little English. the funny thing is that I have no memory of flying before, I've only been out of the country once before (to Disneyland Paris when I was younger, once by plane when I was 8 and I have no memory of it), I don't speak any Spanish and honestly had no idea what I was doing.

So on 1st December, I set off with my mum and uncle up to London where we stayed overnight in a hotel before I got the plane the next morning. My friends and family were all there for the send-off, and god wasn't it an emotional, to think how much all those people had impacted my life, I couldn't think of spending 14 months without them but I needed to do it, travelling is my dream.

The following morning we got up and headed to the airport, my uncle wouldn't let me carry my bag, even though I told him I needed to get used to it. They checked me into my flight and we said our final goodbyes, of which all were said through tears. I can still remember that moment like it was yesterday. I think this was the moment when I realised what I was doing, today was the day I would be following my dreams, what I had spent the last 3 years saving for (I also didn't realise only 2 months later, this 14-month dream would come to an end)

I'm not going to bore you with the details about the flights etc but it wasn't an easy journey.

You can imagine how stressed I was, I had no idea what I was doing! I had a breakdown in the line for my connection flight because I had no idea where I was going and I couldnt communication with anyone, so I cried and texted my family (note to readers - that really didn't help, crying does nothing and you just make your family 1000000% more worried) but I did it. A lovely Costa Rican helped me to the right terminal, he spoke good English so we had a nice conversation about the amazing place he got to call his home. That was one of the moments when I realised this is what I was meant to do, I was meant to travel the world and meet amazing people that I would learn so much from. I didn't realise that this was only the start and that along this journey I would meet so many human beings like him.

When I finally got to the check-in desk, I got told to move any important item into my hand luggage because the flight was fully booked and they would have to bring our bags over on the next flight in the morning - great. This is all I needed. so I quickly stuffed a pair of underwear into my bag and was good to go. oh, I was wrong (but that's for another post)

Next came a 50-minute flight in the smallest plane I've seen. That small that I had to sit next to the pilot. I'm not making this up I promise you! All 8 of us was stood next to the plane when the pilot pointed at me and told me to get into the front, so I sat in the front seat behind the pilot's chair, that's when he shook his head and pointed to the very front. I didn't know what to do, so I just sat there, too scared to do anything but move my head to the right and look out the window, however, the view was beautiful! The ocean was so blue, it was like something you only see on Instagram.