Shannon Ullman

Shannon exploring Phu Quoc Island, Vietnam

Shannon exploring Phu Quoc Island, Vietnam

I started to travel because I didn’t believe. I didn’t believe the images of the places and the people that I saw on the screen and in the pages of books. Did kangaroos really run wild in Australia? Do millions of people actually eat with chopsticks in Asia? My mother told me to question everything and I needed to see it for myself. 

I discovered that the stories were both right and wrong but what bothered me the most is that they were severely holding out on me. To uncover everything that I wasn’t told, this is why I keep traveling. To meet my brothers and sisters on the other side of the planet, and to meet myself. I keep traveling because every day there is a fresh opportunity to learn, to help and to grow. I travel because it’s a challenge and it’s frustrating and it’s scary as hell but it has shown me that I am capable of things that had previously never crossed my mind. Most of all, I keep travelling because my birth country is not my world. The world is my world and it’s wondering what took me so long to be in it.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA | 25 | Currently Exploring Chiang Mai, Thailand | http://thoughtcatalog.com/shannon-ullman/ | https://instagram.com/livesabroad/ |