People on Instagram and YouTube often ask me, “How the hell do you afford to travel so often?” and my answer is often disappointing. I do not do anything special other than work hard, discover a place, focus, and eventually go. That hard work has almost always come through regular jobs, whether in a doctor’s office, retail, or whatever it took to keep moving forward.
That part has always been real.
What also feels real, and honestly sad at times, is that from 2007 to 2011, I dedicated those years of my young, ambitious life in college to become a web developer, eventually graduating with a degree in Digital Media. Once I stepped out into the world, I really believed I was on my way into the career that would support the life I dreamed of, one where I could build, create, and travel the world.
Travel pose atop Haleakalā National Park, Maui
But those ambitions crashed hard.
Not even a full year into that chapter, I found myself in and out of jobs to the point of unemployment before eventually walking away from it altogether. For the next ten years, I barely even looked back at that world except through random job emails, memories, or the occasional mention of web development that would immediately trigger the same thought in my head.
“I can’t do that.”
Or maybe more truthfully, “That didn’t work out for me.”
This was all until May 2022.
What I came to realize is that it was never really about the industry evolving too fast, or it being too hard to keep up, or any of the excuses I had used over the years. It had everything to do with where I was mentally and emotionally back then. I was ambitious, yes, but I was also depressed, lost, and carrying a darkness that I never properly separated from my idea of success. I tied so much of my worth to that career working out that when it didn’t, it felt like proof that I had failed in some deeper way.
And that pain stayed attached to it for years.
The beginning half of 2022 had already been working on me in ways I did not fully understand yet. My lower presence on social media was not because nothing was happening. It was because I was doing a lot of work on the back end of my life. I was learning my camera more seriously, becoming Part 107 drone certified, and proving to myself over and over again just how capable I actually am when I commit. And when I look even wider than that, I have ten years of travel behind me as proof that I already know how to follow through on the things I truly want.
Wrapping up 3 weeks of Greek Islands travel in Santorini, Greece (2016)
That is not nothing.
May is always a month of reflection for me, both because of travel and because it is the month I graduated college. But this year felt dramatically different because, for the first time in a long time, I felt utterly and completely lost in the world. I loved to travel and I knew I would keep traveling, but the question hit me harder than it ever had before.
What is my plan?
Was I really going to keep doing retail everywhere I went, burning myself out before I made it to India or South Africa?
No.
And I hit a breaking point.
I remember coming home one day and just staring off into the wall while sitting on my bed. Earlier that day I had seen all these graduation posts across social media. “I’m officially a social worker.” “Your new engineer.” “Graduate in nursing.”
And I just remember telling myself out loud,
“Why am I trying to learn entirely new industries just to sustain myself? I went to school. I graduated too. I built something once. I know what it means to commit. I know how to learn. I know how to create. I know how to build a path if I decide to.”
That was the real shift.
New Zealand (2017)
“Champions are made when no one is watching”
It was not about forcing myself back into an old version of my life. It was about realizing that I had never actually lost my ability. I had only buried it beneath pain, disappointment, and the story I had been telling myself for years.
I cried hard because for the first time, I fully understood why I had walked away in the first place. Not because I was incapable, but because I had connected that whole chapter with failure and loss. Once that clicked, something opened up. Not long after, I ran to the store, bought study materials, researched courses, and started learning again. I committed.
I am not hard on myself for what happened ten years ago. Not at all. I was a different person going through a lot at the time, and I needed a different path. Even if it took me ten years to see and understand my own potential more clearly, I owe something to everything I did in between.
Maybe I needed to explore the world. Maybe I needed to island hop through Greece and the Pacific. Maybe I needed to motorbike New Zealand and become a storytelling content creator over the course of a decade in order to finally ground myself as a more confident, capable human being.
Living a dream (literally) – Motorbiking New Zealand (2017)
alert(“Welcome Back Anthony”);
I balled so hard because I finally understood why I walked away from my career. Because I connected it with pain, disappointment, and loss I experienced at the time. Not long after that, I ran to the store, bought study materials, researched courses and materials online, and got back into my career. I COMMITTED!
(Note: The code in the title is basic Javascript I am learning 😉 )
Sometimes A Divergence in Our Path is Everything We Need!
Maybe that divergence was not a mistake at all.
Maybe it was exactly what I needed.
At this point, I am still in the middle of my learning process and fully aware that there is always something new to grow into. But what matters most is that, unlike ten years ago, I no longer feel like I am moving through life blindly. I know what discipline feels like now. I know what commitment feels like. I know that direction is not always about returning to an exact old dream, but about reclaiming parts of yourself that still matter and allowing them to evolve into something new.
And that is what 2022 gave me.
Not some perfect answer. Not some final form.
But direction.
And honestly, that has made all the difference.
A Note Looking Back
Coming back to this post now means more than just cleaning up wording or reformatting something from a different time in my life. It is a reminder of where I was mentally, emotionally, and creatively at that point, and how much has changed since then.
At the time, returning to web development felt like the answer. It gave me structure, discipline, and most importantly, direction when I needed it most. And while that path did not ultimately become what I pursued long term, it served its purpose in a way I will always be grateful for.
What it really did was help me close that chapter properly. It allowed me to separate the pain and frustration I once associated with it and see it for what it actually was, a skillset, a foundation, and a part of my journey that helped shape who I am today.
Because once that door was closed with understanding, something else became very clear.
What I truly love.
Media. Storytelling. Photography. Voyaging.
All of the things I had been building over the years, often without even realizing how much they were becoming my actual path. This moment in 2022 did not define my future, but it gave me the clarity and grounding I needed to fully step into it.
And for that, I would not change a thing.
