If you’ve made it this far you might be wondering, who is this guy Wes and why did he start a travel blog?
In most ways I’m just an average guy from Ohio, born and raised in Cincinnati which I still call home. As much as I like being on the road for extended periods of times, it’s nice to have a place in the Midwest with a great pace of life to call home.
You might be surprised to know that growing up I barely did any traveling. We’d be lucky to take our family of seven people down for a road trip beach vacation to Florida, and we went many years without traveling at all.
In fact, it wasn’t until I turned 20 years old that I visited a country outside of the United States. Since then, I’ve definitely caught the travel bug as I’ve been to 23 countries and counting!
When I was younger and not working on this travel blog, I liked to hop around a lot more and sample different countries when I traveled through places like Europe.
As I’ve gotten older however, my appetite when it comes to travel has changed. Nowadays I much prefer slowing it down, spending more time in the cities I do visit and exploring broader areas of a country I visit instead of hopping on a plane after a few days to hit the next nearest capital city.
Fast forward to 2020 when the COVID pandemic disrupted the world as we knew it in many profound ways. Sadly, for many this meant the loss of loved ones. Many others faced mental health struggles, economic hardship, waves of lockdowns and a variety of other challenges.
For me, it also instilled a completely new perspective on how life was meant to be lived. I now knew, and fully appreciated how quickly all of the good stuff in life could be taken away.
No longer could I be satisfied sitting at the same desk, in the same office building, spending 50+ hours a week toiling away in the same spreadsheets, day after day.
By mid 2021 I had spent well over a year working remotely and when our company mandated us back into the office I knew it was only a matter of time before I finally burned out.
If I could work remotely, why couldn’t I live remotely as well? Did I really need to be back in the office?
I didn’t need to be on the road all of the time, but I knew that the few weeks of vacation each year that my current career afforded me wasn’t going to satisfy the level of passion I had for travel and adventure.
At that point (mid-2021) this blog was little more than a hobby and consisted of just a few posts. My YouTube channel consisted of just three videos.
By late 2022 I was completely burned out on my current career and I knew it was time for a change. For the first time in my life I felt the grip of anxiety and depression starting to set in and I owed it to myself to figure out a long term solution.
I had two options at that point.
I could look for another corporate job that would allow me more remote work flexibility so I could travel more freely, or I could take the leap and focus my time and energy on turning Work Remotely Live Remotely from a hobby into a full time business.
The former seemed like the more logical choice, but I knew that path would only satisfy my new outlook on life for so long.
So in early 2023 I decided to pursue my passion instead of settling back into another corporate role. I cut ties with my employer of 13+ years, where I had started as an intern back while attending the University of Cincinnati college of business to pursue travel blogging as a full time endeavor.
Sure this journey won’t be easy, but it also won’t be as difficult as trying to be happy in a circumstance that no longer aligned with my passions in life.
There a billion quotes out there about following your dreams, but they all pretty much boil down to the idea that the only way you can really fail yourself is to never give those dreams a shot.
And that’s just what I intend to do!