Note: This is an article from my old blog from article from 2018 when I was living in Malta.

Yet now at the end of 2024, it's nice to see how much of this has not changed at all.

This one is quite self-explanatory. I would prefer living abroad for some time, or having a bit longer trips for destinations.

Sure I do love quick holiday trips and lengthened weekends (who wouldn't) but nobody can learn much from the culture/country in such a short time.

In a short time the perspective is also very touristic, especially if you don't know anybody from the destination. It may not be always bad, but I'll analyze tourism & responsibility in other posts.

Anyhow, goal number one for me would be to actually see the world: how do people live, what do they value and to what values/ethics/histories are the societies based on.

I don't want to only get one more country scratched from scratch-map (whole map stupid idea IMO, would you say you've seen a country after a weekend, for instance?) or stamp to passport, I want to learn from different cultures and grow as a person.

I don't want to go back home with just dirty laundry and awesome pictures: I want to gain new perspectives, challenge my cultural discourses and humbly realize how we can learn from completely different.

This goal is very broad and under this you could basically list anything. Anyhow in my mind mapping topics that came up were:

Side note from future self from 2024 to this 2028 blog post: this website is "it".

This is strongly related to my studies within Tourism Research. I'm glad something related to that came up as something meaningful for me even after 1,5 years not attending to my Uni studies.

I'm still interested in the talks and topics around travel and cultures. I have to admit though that I'm not so interested in tourism business itself: one way or the other it's about developing mass tourism experiences to become even more sustainable.

And when I realized I never actually travel like that, I can't relate to people doing that and I don't want to limit myself learning about those issues.

To the point, I so want to learn more about cultural differences and backgrounds how they affect us. If I wasn't studying travel business, I'd be studying psychology. Ideally, I would find a way to collect some kind of material around the world for my Master's thesis.

I just don't know yet what. Been waiting for the *lamp turning on in my head*-moment for quite a while now but I just need to trust it will come.

Side note from future self from 2024 to this 2028 blog post: my Master's thesis ended up being:

Representation of Orientalism in a yoga travel stories (link to the study in Finnish)

Yet it was during COVID so instead of collecting material all over world, I did it from yoga travel narratives from books.

During my time in Malta I've found my passion within Digital Marketing. I was curious about it before as well, but I knew basically nothing before moving to Malta.

In order to create this cool, visual content online as I defined it, I want to learn about areas that I think are important for creating it. I'm currently doing SEO and I think that is basic fundamental that all articles should base on. I think it should imply in everything, even if it wasn't only planned to get traffic from search engines.

Google is anyhow getting smarter and smarter, and good user experience=good Google experience. So why not always have the idea of good user experience back there?

Not to preach more about SEO, I would like to learn more web design as well, especially about Wordpress. On top of that, I want to develop my photography skills.

I wouldn't call them great, but I love creating visual galleries and updating Instagram.

Would be stupid not to list such an important value as this one here. With good health I don't mean only sports and what do I find from my fridge, but also friends, family and activities that help with mental side.

At the latest during my dance studies I realized how psychosomatic we actually are as human beings. I want to make more time for friends and family and I feel like lately I haven't been doing so.

I want to focus on important things and also do activities that don't only maintain my physical health but also mental health.

In the end if we're in good health in many ways, that's the most beneficial for others around as well, were it the company you work for, people you spend time with or your dog.

Traveling isn't that fun either, if you don't realize to maintain Gut Health While Traveling

and end up with parasite travel experiences instead.

No matter to which number this is related to, I would want to celebrate shared, team efforts.

Doing things alone without having to share it with anybody is just not the same. I believe this can be connected to anything: business efforts, exploring well-being together, meeting people abroad or accomplishing a big content project.

Have you ever asked this question from yourself?

I think we all should.