Sometimes we really need a break, we need to stop, look around, enjoy what we are living at the moment. Sometimes we need to remember the why.

I felt this soon after I left Peru. I really loved Peru and I really felt inspired by it. I wanted to photograph everything and write about everything I was seeing and living. The vibe in Cusco and around it is just something that can’t be explained, only felt. Then we went to San Pedro de Atacama in Chile, where I was expecting a quite similar vibe. Well, the thing with expectations is that, when not met, it may drag you down a bit. San Pedro is beautiful, the landscape is just stunning but it ended there for me. I didn’t feel any vibe there, everything had to be done in a tour if you didn’t have a car because there was no public transportation to the sights people visit, we spent more time in vans than in actual grounds…I felt like something was missing there and it was the vibe, the ability of doing more things on your own, the culture. This made me feel a bit off.

We were also about halfway through this trip so we were starting to feel the travel fatigue that comes with always being on the move. Yes, we are travelling for 7 months but it’s a huge continent so we don’t get to spend that much time in each place. So I left San Pedro to Santiago with mixed feelings. I liked it but not as much as I was expecting, but still I was happy to spend a few days there.

Both these things together made me feel a bit uninspired. For the first time, I did a long bus trip and I didn’t write one single travel diary because I just couldn’t come up with anything. I went to some places and took photos and all but I didn’t feel creative to make nice videos and take awesome photos for Instagram like the months before.

Then another thing hit: I was living one of the best things of my life and I wasn’t even making any content to share on Instagram. I was thinking “oh I’m gonna regret not having content from these places”, “what am I gonna post?” and bla bla bla. This was dragging me down even further. I mean I would love to grow my account and this trip was the perfect opportunity, right? Well, no. Growing your Instagram account or anything of the sort takes effort, more than most people realize and, since we were always on the move, it would not be feasible right now. Still, I was feeling the pressure to post and be active on socials, which was draining me even more.

Then I arrived in Patagonia and I found myself not even thinking about that and then I started saying to myself “content, socials or anything of that sort is not the purpose of this trip and I have less than half of it to go now”. This was a turning point. I kept posting stories at night, it was not something I had to think about a lot and I just focus on just enjoying this one-in-a-lifetime experience I got to live. Funny how I’m slowly getting my creativity back and I now feel like writing these diaries again.

I stopped writing, I stopped posting, I stopped thinking about socials at all and here I am. Enjoying everything without feeling any pressure to capture it perfectly to showcase online. The purpose is to feel, to live, to learn, to grow. Not to show. So I’ll share as I feel like it because is something I enjoy doing and maybe someone gets inspired by what I post, but it won’t be my main goal.

This being said, I’ve been quite active on stories (delayed but active) but I didn’t post since Peru probably and I can’t say when I’ll post again. Maybe during this trip, maybe just after it, maybe never. Who knows? The only thing I can promise is that I’ll focus on living and I’ll do my best to inspire and help. If anything, you can always ask ;)

I hope this is a good example of how the best thing we can do sometimes is to stop. In the end, I’ll remember this trip, not the followers I got from it.

XOXO,

Barbara.