About Me

Who Are I?

Hi! My name is Sophian (I know, not a very common name), and I’ve finally decided to start my own travel blog after over 2 years of traveling around the world as a digital nomad.

So… Story Time I suppose… no TL;DRs for you here

About 2 years ago, I made one of the biggest decisions of my life. I quit my comfortable Product Manager job in San Francisco and flew to Cancún on a one-way ticket with all my possessions fitting in a 40L backpack. 

Never Really Was Much of a Traveler Originally…

I had never traveled on my own before and in fact, never really took to “traveling”. I never liked the concept of being a tourist in a country. I’m half-French half-Japanese and I grew up in my small hometown of Fontainebleau in France. I remember regularly seeing these Japanese tourists walking around town and visiting Napoleon’s castle with their big tour buses and everyone carrying their own Canon and Nikon cameras hanging from their necks. すごいねぇぇ！これもあれも写真とろねぇぇ〜！I didn’t want to be associated with that!

That’s not to say that I haven’t visited and lived in different parts of the world. Here’s the short story (someday I may reveal the longer story): 

The Short Version of my Life Story

I was born in Boston Massachusetts, but I moved to a small town called Fontainebleau in France at the age of 5 where I did all my schooling while visiting Tokyo every summer to visit the family. Moved to Philadelphia at the age of 17 for my 4 years of college. Then moved to Tokyo at the age of 21 where I worked at a small tech company for 5 years. Moved again, this time to San Francisco for work for 3 years until I decided to embark on my round the world trip. Managed to tell my life story in 4 sentences, not bad…

Sure, when my brothers and I were old enough, my parents decided to spend more time traveling as a family. But I had never really traveled on my own or even with friends or girlfriends. It just wasn’t really my thing…

But after 3 years of working at a tech company in San Francisco and a solid 8 year career (not all that much, I know!), I felt like doing something new. Up until now, I had been doing everything pretty much according to plan: get good grades in school, go to a reputable university, get successful at work and make a six figure salary. And so at that point, I decided it was time for me to take a sabbatical. 

The Origin Story to Becoming a Digital Nomad

At the time, I was having a long distance relationship with a Hungarian girl for almost 2 years. I thought it’d be cool to quit my job and live in her country for about a year without work. I would be able to take it easy until I got bored. And then, I could find some tech work at a company there or preferably, find some remote work with a US-based company which would pay a lot more than most companies based in Eastern Europe.

I had originally met her while she was traveling in California. I ended up flying to Hungary where she lived to spend some time with her and she also flew to my hometown in France. At the end of the day, we did a fair bit of traveling together here and there and so I was starting to enjoy the concept. And so I thought, it would be cool if every other weekend or so, we could continue traveling, we could stay at an Airbnb in different parts of Europe just for the weekend. It’s quite cheap to fly around and there’s a ton of countries I hadn’t been to yet with many different cultures to explore.

Sudden Clarity Clarence IRL

But then, that’s when I got that sudden clarity moment! Why limit myself to only Europe? If I can do remote work, why can’t we be traveling all around the world? Also, I don’t necessarily accumulate a ton of stuff, not so much that I would need to actually have a base. What if we traveled non-stop going from one country to another?

Surely enough, I looked it up and found a ton of travel blogs. I was obviously not the only person with this idea. Plenty of other travelers had been documenting and sharing their experiences online. And the whole thing about working while traveling? They had a name for it. They called themselves digital nomads. Originally, I didn’t really like the term. But over time it became a buzz word and after hearing it so much, I’ve accepted it and am a proud digital nomad now!

I read a couple of blog posts and suddenly I got hooked! I became obsessed with the idea of becoming a digital nomad myself and I was super excited for this new lifestyle! This was something entirely different to what I had been doing up until now. Something that corresponded to my crazy “he’s-kinda-out-there” personality. It also happened to be something that would make a lot of my friends envious. It was something I haven’t done before, and yet it’s the dream of so many people. One of those things people regret not having done when they’re on their deathbeds. This was exactly what I was looking for!

The Bitter and the Sweet – Becoming a Digital Nomad

I asked my girlfriend if she wanted to join me on this journey. But for many reasons, and all of them the right ones, it didn’t work out that way. It was bittersweet but with hindsight, it was the right thing to do. It may have worked out but chances are, it would have been a disaster! I didn’t know what the hell I was doing!

In any case, I obsessed with the idea and so I planned everything out. I read all the digital nomad blogs. And then I ran all my financial projections. It was super exciting to finally buy my 40L travel backpack and to donate all my stuff away. And most importantly, I planned the date to give my notice to quit my job. I was of course extremely nervous about quitting the job and going into the unknown on my own. But I obsessed so much about the idea that “just for practice”, I lived out of my backpack 3 months before I departed! In my own empty rented apartment! After having given everything away!

And so, on Wednesday March 22nd 2017, 2 years 3 months and 3 weeks ago as of the time of this writing, I got on a plane and left my previous life behind…

So… Why am I only starting a travel blog now?

“Oh! You should write a blog while you’re traveling!”

“You should post all your photos and stories on Instagram and Facebook!”

“Start a YouTube channel and share all your stories, take us around the places you’re visiting!”

Whoa, whoa, whoa! Hold your horses! That just sounds like more work than anything!

At the time, I didn’t want to force myself into anything. I just wanted to go on my adventure without having anything holding me back, to do as I wanted along the way and to see where my travels would take me. Also, I was super lazy! And it was a luxury I could afford! I did of course take notes every so often though when I wanted to keep a record of something that happened, someone I met, someplace I had been. But I’m no writer. Although I must admit, I’ve somehow always kind of wanted to be…

And Now, as a True Digital Nomad, The Motivation is Real

But after 2 years of living the digital nomad lifestyle, it’s sad to say but I started to lose touch with that first exciting part of the journey. I mean, this is of course to be expected. But I’m looking to revisit some of the places I’ve been, some of the things I’ve seen and to be more aware of the experiences I’ve yet to have as I continue my journey onwards. Hopefully, this will renew my excitement and passion for this lifestyle (Don’t get me wrong though, I’m still enjoying it thoroughly!).

My travel style has also changed over time and so I now have more time on my hands and I feel like being more productive spending more time on projects like this. Also, many of my friends are super excited about the possibility of traveling around the world and so I’m hoping it will be helpful to share the good, the bad and the ugly about the digital nomad lifestyle. Hopefully I can share some useful tips for anyone else who’s thinking about starting their own journey. Maybe if you’re already traveling, you can relate to a lot of what I’ll be writing about. And hopefully, it’ll just be fun to read for all you internet people!

I’ve not entirely decided what exactly I’ll be writing about. But I figure I’ll want to be as open and honest as I can be. I want to write with my own voice about all the things. I don’t want to just limit myself to travel, but it will most likely be related to the digital nomad lifestyle. And I also want to be open to change. We’ll see which direction this goes at first, but if it begs to go some different direction later on, I’ll be happy to follow that trail.

The Name’s A-Lot, Sir Travels-A-Lot

Oh, and the name of the blog: travelsalot.com? Back when I was a data analyst, I was producing a ton of charts and presentations for executives at my company both for the Product and Marketing departments. The Marketing team organized a happy hour (one of many!) and we played a game where we gave each other hip rapper names. I was from that day on knighted Sir Charts-A-Lot. About a year ago, I created a free online statistical significance calculator for AB tests (yep – that’s what I do). And what better domain name than chartsalot.com (I had to keep it somewhat professional, I didn’t go with sirchartsalot.com!). And so when I thought I wanted to start a travel blog, it just seemed fitting to follow suit and go with travelsalot.com. Who knows, if I start a drinking blog maybe I’ll keep the series going with drinksalot.com!

Cheers, Santé and 乾杯！

Now that you’ve learned more about me, check out my most recent blog posts here!