Hello and welcome to my travel blog, thelaststandby. My travel addiction started five years ago at the age of 23, when I learned that I could fly on standby through my parents job with United Airlines. For those who are not familiar with standby travel – it is an airline perk that allows employees (and select family/friends) to nab open seats on flights, usually at little to no cost, dependent on your place on the standby list. As lovely as this sounds, standby travel is a wild ride that presents constant risk – i.e. getting stranded in an airport or a foreign country! At the same time this perk affords those with ample time a lifestyle of endless adventure.
Through a combination of standby travel and cruise ship jobs I have now visited 37 countries on six continents. Looking back, I really should have started blogging years ago, but I suppose it’s never too late to start!
I’ve been ambivalent about starting a blog – mostly unsure how I would fit into the overwhelming sea of bloggers out there. That said, there’s something about blogging that feels right. I’ve also tried vlogging in the past, but for me there’s always been something intrusive about it. I don’t like waving a video camera around as if I were filming my own reality show (though I do love reality TV – The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and Salt Lake City anyone?) Journaling is something I have done everyday since my first day of high school, so it feels very natural to write about my travels for the public.
Taco break across from Casa Pepe hostel. Mexico City. 2020.
For a quick pandemic recap of my life: In March of 2020 I lost my first job out of college – a 120+ day cruise ship job around the world. I then moved back in with my parents for the first time in almost nine years. The cruise industry didn’t recover much at all through 2020 and I was itching to get back out there – so I flew on standby to visit Turkey, Mexico, and Colombia all before New Years 2021. This was the first period of consistent solo travel I had ever done, and it left me yearning for the sense of purpose that came with my career in classical music. I moved in with my parents yet again in the winter of 2021 – during which time I practiced my viola and played in a community orchestra. This past summer (2019) I was a viola fellow at the renowned Tanglewood Music Festival in Lenox, Massachusetts, a classical music performance internship. Exhausted from months of intensive musical work I jumped back into backpacking by visiting Greece and the Republic of Georgia. I intended to travel for the majority of the fall, but a combination of loneliness and the prospect of a cruise ship job audition lured me back to the states after a measly three weeks…
Since returning from Georgia I’ve lived in an existential fog that rivals that which I had in 2020. That cruise ship audition that I left Europe to prepare for? I wasn’t given an audition. Then the same thing happened with the Pittsburgh Symphony, and the next week I lost an audition for the Huntsville Symphony in Alabama. In the meantime I pondered working as a flight attendant but sadly there was no job openings on any U.S. airline. So with all that said, here begins my time as a travel blogger!
thelaststandby 