About
Welcome!
My name is Ryan Gargiulo. I’m a full-time travel blogger and self proclaimed wanderer of the world. I specialize in budget travel but enjoy living the life of luxury from time to time.
My mission is to inspire people to break out of their comfort zone and join me in exploring this wonderful world of ours.
I embarked on my first solo backpacking trip back in 2008 and over the course of the last four years I have been fortunate enough to visit more than 24 countries across the globe. Check out my Travel Map to find out where I’ve been!
If you’re interested in finding out how I caught the travel bug and when it all began then be sure to continue to read my story below.
The Story…
Traveling the world has always been one of my life long dreams. At first I thought my dreams of one day being able to travel the world wasn’t just borderline insane, it was more like outrageously irrational. I mean, how many people walk into work, give them their two weeks notice and take off on an international flight without any real repercussions?
Thankfully I had a family (and savings) that supported my dreams otherwise my plans would have been an epic failure right from the start. It was my father that was constantly reminding me that if I really wanted something then all I had to do was follow these three simple steps:
- Work hard
- Save money
- Stay out of trouble!
Sounds easy right? Not so much…
The repetition of those three extremely important pieces of advice from my father turned out to be everything I needed to motivate me to follow my dreams and one day travel the world.
The Plane Ticket that Changed My Life
It was September of 2007 and I had Dublin on my mind yet again. (My mother was born in Dublin, so my family and I would make the trip over to Ireland once or twice per year during my younger years.)
I stumbled upon a great deal through Aer Lingus for a flight from Boston to Dublin and ended up quite spontaneously booking a one-way ticket to Dublin with no set plans of how long I would stay or where I would end up. Little did I know that this one-way ticket I had just purchased would turn into a trip that would change my life.
Sampling my first Guinness...
Side Note: To this day, I still have trouble recalling how many times I’ve actually been to Ireland in my life (possibly due to the Guinness – see photo: right). Considering the amount of times I’ve visited Ireland you’d think I’d be sick of it by now, but that’s far from the truth.
Dublin remains to be one of my favorite cities on earth. Plus, there’s just so many great things to do in Dublin!
My European Adventure
My friend Juliana & I - Mountain Biking in Austria
In April of 2008 I hit the road and embarked on what I had hoped to be a trip of a lifetime. A trip of a lifetime, it was! I spent three months traveling through 12 countries across Europe. Was it a whirlwind? Absolutely! But, it was this three months of traveling that really changed me as a person. When I arrived back home to the U.S., I had returned with an entirely different outlook on life and with some more somewhat irrational plans sketched out for my future.
Back to the Drawing Board!
Over the course of the next year and a half, I spent my days at work, my nights and weekends on-call and I even had some side jobs along the way which helped me achieve some massive savings goals. I worked and worked, and worked!
All the while, I was busy trying to talk my girlfriend Liz into joining me on my next big adventure. At first, she thought I was out of my mind. She kept giving me reasons on why she couldn’t go. Each time she would give me a reason to why she couldn’t join me, I would follow up with a counter reason for how she could achieve her goals of saving, how she could leave her job with the possibility of getting her job back once she returned and why her decision to travel the world would be something that she would never be able to regret.
Liz and I in the Sahara Desert
Our Around the World Trip
Once I had the plans all laid out it didn’t take much for Liz to jump on board. She was ready for something new, something exciting and something foreign!
Fast forward to June 2010 and we’re off! First stop: Egypt!
We were harassed by children touts trying to sell us toys, visited the Pyramids of Giza on a budget, toured the first mosque built on the continent of Africa, experienced the true definiton of Egyptian hospitality, had a near death experience in the Sahara Desert, snorkeled with the colorful fish of the Red Sea, and so much more!
Egypt was not only our first country on our around the world trip but it was a place that created some of the most incredible memories from our entire trip.
Over the course of the next six months, we zig-zagged our way through 10 countries across 3 continents!
Post Trip:
Liz: Since returning from our trip, I have returned to work at my previous employer (yes, they took me back!). It’s definitely a nice feeling to get a paycheck every two weeks that’s for sure! My priority at this point now that I’m home is to continue to saving my money and become completely debt free by 2011 (completed!). As for future travel plans, I already want to get back out on the road and I certainly wouldn’t count out doing some extended travel in the near future.
Ryan: Since returning from my trip I’ve been working and maintaining Pause The Moment, RyanGargiulo.com, and several other websites. I also provide a wide variety of high quality freelance services including; WordPress Web Design, Travel Writing, SEO, Social Media, Photography, Travel Consulting, and more. For more information on my freelance services, feel free to Contact Me!
Are we done traveling yet? Hell no! We’re just getting started…
