Well, here we are! My friends and family have been telling me for what seems like forever, that I should start a blog, so here I am! If you’re just joining me, and don’t know me in real life, feel free to visit my About section to get to know me a bit. As for this post (my first official post!), I wanted to talk a bit about why I decided to start a blog, and what my hopes are for this new adventure! I am hoping this will become a useful resource to my inner circle, as well as those out in the “internets”
My husband and I really enjoy traveling, so many of you have asked if I have always traveled. While my technical answer is no, in my head, there’s a million treasured moments of exploration logged from the time I was old enough to remember them. Most of them took place in my backyard! I always loved Beauty and the Beast as a kid – and I still do. Belle is my spirit-animal with her love of books, her zeal for life, and her longing for new experiences. If you’re familiar with the enneagram types, I am an enneagram 7. If you’re not familiar with enneagrams – you’ll probably eventually start learning about them if you follow me here for long. Ha!
Sevens are extroverted, optimistic, versatile, and spontaneous. Playful, high-spirited, and practical, they can also misapply their many talents, becoming over-extended, scattered, and undisciplined. They constantly seek new and exciting experiences, but can become distracted and exhausted by staying on the go. They typically have problems with impatience and impulsiveness. At their Best: they focus their talents on worthwhile goals, becoming appreciative, joyous, and satisfied.
– The Enneagram Institute
The type seven description describes me to a T! Although with these traits I can be kind of a mess at times, these are also the things that allow Belle (and myself!) to treat every small affair as though it were a grand adventure. And that is really the mindset I’d like to pass on in this blog.
Prioritize Adventure!
For the longest time, I dreamt about travel and just couldn’t muster the resources to make it happen. For most of my childhood, and a long stretch of my early adulthood while my husband and I were in school, we had little to no budget to allow for any real travel. Still, we managed to find a way to fit our love of adventure into our lives. I soon realized the fun thing about travel is truly the sense of adventure found in a new experience, which doesn’t necessitate long-distance journeys far away from home. Adventures could be had in our own backyards! Whether it was a trip to the local park, trying a new ice cream place we hadn’t tried, or an actual trip somewhere outside of our immediate vicinity, we made the most of it. I can’t even say how often people see us traveling to new places and say “gosh I wish we had the (time/money/creativity/fill in the blank) to do stuff like that” – and the truth is, you do! It’s all about the mindset, and what you put into it. Partly how you prioritize other parts of your life to build-in time for adventures, and partly how you choose to frame them in your thinking on what an adventure consists of or requires. Just like anything, start small, and build as you go. I’ll talk about that as we go, but wanted to say early to those of you walking the stages of life where it doesn’t seem as attainable: please don’t shy away from adventure because of the obstacles in the way. You’d be surprised what you can accomplish with a bit of strategy.
I can’t even say how often people see us traveling to new places and say “gosh I wish we had the (time/money/creativity/fill-in-the-blank) to do stuff like that” – and the truth is, you do!
Why start a blog in the first place?
Full disclosure; I did NOT want to do this, and resisted the idea for a really long time before I caved. When I first sought advice on whether or not I really should go for this, a friend told me not to do it unless I could be sure I wasn’t doing it for other people. In other words, don’t bend over backwards trying to please people at the expense of taking the fun out of something I love. Great advice! I know a lot of people are creating blogs these days, and I’m sure each and every one of them wants to angle it as if they’re not “just another blog” – and while I’d love to jump on that bandwagon and say this one will be exceptional, the truth is, I find a lot of freedom in the idea of it being “just another blog” in a sea of other blogs and resources. That means I don’t have to be the best at it *hooray for less pressure* Nearly every travel journal you read these days will tell you that people my age, or Millenials if you will, are traveling more than ever! While there are quite a few negative implications to this that I’m learning to be more mindful of, I realize it is also cultivating a unique culture and a lot of really wonderful resources. Social media is littered with inspiration and resources to help you dream up and then plan an epic adventure whether its near or far, pricey or on-the-cheap, simple or elaborate. That means that even though I haven’t traveled the whole world, even though I do work a full time job that isn’t this, and even though *spoiler alert* I don’t have any real qualifications for giving you all advice, I can share my experiences with you anyway! And through that, you will hopefully be inspired to seek adventures of your own, and in turn, inspire me too. How exciting is that?
Enter: The Vicarious Bee
So here we are. I decided to go for it! Intimidating, but exciting all at the same time. Long before I ever even considered starting one of these, I became an avid travel blog follower myself (favorite accounts linked HERE). So when I determined I should follow everyone’s advice start my own, I wanted it to be a bit broad, and not necessarily exclusive to travel, even though that is primarily what I’ll focus on. I named my blog The Vicarious Bee, because of my love for bees and because of my primary inspiration for starting this blog….which is inspiring YOU GUYS. If I had a penny for every time a friend, coworker, or family member has told me they were living vicariously through my adventures, I’d have enough money to travel the world for real. Ha! And the truth is, I’m living vicariously through you guys as well. The dictionary definition of the word vicarious is “experienced in the imagination through the feelings or actions of another.” That’s what I love most about blogs, and that’s want this to be. A way for me to document my feelings and actions, and a little glimpse into that imagination of mine, and the grand adventures I get to dream up and execute! So without further adieu, let’s get going!
This is the first post on my new blog. I’m just getting this new blog going, so stay tuned for more. Subscribe below to get notified when I post new updates.
thevicariousbee.com 
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