Today is baby blog’s first birthday! One year ago today I took the leap and bought the domain name that started it all. Though I’m not really sure what “it” is yet. I’m still trying to find my voice as a blogger because honestly, the market is over-saturated with blogs these days and everyone wants to fancy themselves a photographer/writer/travel blogger. Writing about Paris seems almost redundant because there are so many other established Paris blogs out there, and I can’t afford a life of permanent travel (not yet anyways…). So what exactly is The Glittering Unknown?
It began as an outlet for me to write the stories connected to my photos as a way to keep people back home up to date as I took off for a year in Paris. The plan was to be here for a year, work on my French, go back home when the school year ended, work for awhile and save up enough for my next adventure. Hell, I had intended to try to get a work and holiday visa for Australia and go try my luck in the land down under. But all of that changed when I met D. He’s one of the most wonderful things to ever happen to me, but I admit it’s been difficult reconciling my life with him with my dreams of seeing the world, as well as the distance from my family, with whom I am very close.
So now the intent is to stay in Paris, continue working on my French and hopefully achieve real fluency (I can conduct my daily life in French without issue, but it’s not the same as being able to jump into conversations the way I can in English), grow the blog, and make enough money to be able to travel. That’s one of the major benefits of staying in Europe- travel is relatively cheap here, especially compared to the US, and there are so many places I still want to visit. Plus, I have easy access to other continents. I want to go to Morocco, Israel, Istanbul, Prague, Italy, Budapest, and continue exploring la belle France. My hope is that through my blog and contributing to other blogs and websites I can add a little extra to my revenue, enough to allow me to continue to explore. Travel shouldn’t stop just because you’re settled in one place, and I don’t know at this point if Paris will be the final destination. But for right now, it’s a good fit for me.
I also want to take the chance to thank all of you who have followed along or supported me, even from afar or without direct communication, on the journey that this past year has been. I feel like I’ve learned so much, changed so much, that even returning home would be difficult because nothing could go back to being the way that it was. And I don’t want it to, but when that’s the only image you have in your head of a place, it’s hard to shake.
That being said, I have a number of great collaborations in the works, all of which I’m super excited about. I can’t wait to share more about those! But the general point of this blog is to remind us how exciting the world can be, how beautiful and unexpecting, and that the unknown doesn’t have to be scary or intimidating- on the contrary, it glitters with possibility. This is how I hope to live my life, and maybe through this blog, inspire others to do the same 🙂
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