It All Began With Exasperation

I was nine years old when I experienced my first plane ride. I barely remember how I felt during that flight from Manila to Hongkong. It took another 13 years before I rode a plane again, thanks to our company outing.

Puerto Prinsesa made me realize that the ocean holds more fun than the swimming pool. I used to hate the ocean because the water is salty. PP introduced me to a wonderful activity called snorkeling. I can still recall the joy I felt when I saw fishies eating the bread in my palm. I vowed to travel more in the future.

Island hopping in Puerto Prinsesa in 2007

Unfortunately, being an auditor meant doing lots of overtime while budgeting your meager salary. I didn’t have the chance to travel because of my working hours and my tight budget. I wanted more income and more time – to travel, to save, to spend and basically do whatever I want. So I happily left the auditing world in 2008 to get a normal 8-5 job and vacation leaves that I can use.

My desire to travel kinda slept as I started out in my new work. I started to build my emergency fund first and learned to how to budget my salary. Then, my officemates reintroduced me to traveling. I started to really love traveling after my Coron trip in 2009. The travel bug bit me. 

Banol Beach, Coron 2009

I was introduced to a travel group and I started to meet fellow kaladkarins. I learned the art of crafting my own budget and itineraries. I invited friends to join me here and there, to do this and that.

Palaui, Cagayan, 2010

Magkano?Gano katagal dapat? These were frequent questions because money and time are crucial factors when travelling. Some expect a summarized response for just one question. If I was feeling “masipag” in replying, I’d reply quite long (but I wonder if they will read the whole email). If I was caught in a “tinatamad” mood, my reply would be short. Kinda “unfair”, I thought. I get emails from colleagues, friends and the friends of my friends asking me about the itinerary and costing. For the first few queries, I enthusiastically, typed my responses and gave my tips and thoughts on these.

After a couple of emails and FB messages, I got exasperated typing the same thing over and over again. Sending the same excel file again and again. My excel files were full of notes and screenshots of research. It was not friendly for someone who wants the instant answer to one question. And I was apprehensive to give out a “the-best-way-to-do-it” advice because our travel styles and preferences may be different.

I was somehow flattered with all the questions, but I am not “the” expert of the place.  I would like to think that I am an expert of planning and budgeting. I would like to share the costs and itinerary and how I felt about the place. I was exasperated of typing the same pointers again and again. I’d like to share my story with my own flair. So how can I share my experience to everyone, and type it just once?

Original Vision: To answer all travel questions with one link.

My exasperation created the vision. Adventureaccounting was born in July 2010. I tried 20 + URL names before getting this one. Most of my top choices were already take. What is frustrating is that they are just taken, but not updated. Perfect names, no posts.

This is an except of the options that I listed for this blog. Most of them are taken.

I was not new to blogging. I started to have a personal blog in 2005. Sporadically updated, with boring details of the university life and my college interests. Still, alive, but I seldom update.

As I blogged, I realized that wanted to share more than my budget, my itinerary and my pictures. I wanted to share my approach how I balance being employed and traveling. I am a normal employee, with a salary and a lot of dreams. I want to invest in my future and invest in memories as well. Hence, I modified my original vision.

Current Vision: To share how to balance life on a budget.

Choosing the name was the easy part. Maintaining a blog, a struggle. I have writing frenzy moments and I have stuck moments. Sometimes, the words are spinning out of my mind too fast that I can’t type them all. I am still in backblog status and I haven’t blogged about a lot of my trips. I still have the spreadsheets for other trips, but the costs are probably outdated to share, so I’ll stick with sharing the pics and narratives of the past trips (Yea, yea, I’ll make time to do that).

I joined an awesome group called Pinoy Travel Bloggers which continue to inspire me to continue to blog. They remind me that I am not crazy to continuously want to explore other places. I haven’t personally met any of the members yet, but I somehow feel the connection when I read their blog entries. It keeps me inspired to travel, and it keeps me inspired to blog.

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This is my journal entry to PTB Blog Carnival for July 2012 with the theme: "The Journey that made us a travel blogger", hosted by Edmar of Edmaration.

Click on the pic to see the archive of PTB's Blog Carnival.