UPDATE: Jetlag in China + my next month of adventure

I’m currently sat amongst the clouds on a flight to Bangkok where I will be hopping on another flight through to Denpasar – the Airport connecting Bali to the world.

Oh my.

As I just typed out Bali, a million memories from my last visit there flashed back through my mind. 
I’M SO EXCITED TO BE GOING BACK.

Do you remember my blog post from 2013?

I honestly never thought I’d be lucky enough to return a second time round, so actually being en route right now is reminding me just how lucky I am, and how far I’ve come to be sat in this position.

It was 3 years ago in April, when I was 19, that I set off on my first backpacking trip through South East Asia journeying through: Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Bali + The Gili Islands.

As you may have already heard me say before,  that trip was a turning point in my life. 

A time where I discovered freedom, happiness and a passion for not only travel but for living life exactly how I dreamed it.
It was, too, on the Gili Islands that I wrote my first track ‘These are the days’ 
{Watch my music video here}

During that trip I began my blog and used it as a place to document everything I experienced, purely because I just loved keeping memories. 

From there, I went on to backpack Australia and New Zealand at the end of 2014, before this time last year deciding to focus my blog on Travel. 

Since then it’s been pretty non stop and i’ve been on more adventures than i could have possibly dreamed of.

 Whilst I have had the time of my entire life, travelling does come with downsides and when you travel frequently (as a job and not a series of holidays) it can be extremely overwhelming in terms of keeping on top of content, sleep, exercise, emails, eating, friends, any part time jobs to support yourself and actually finding down time to relax after all of that.

Read more about what travel bloggers actually do in my post here.

I’ve always managed to just about keep on top of it all, until this past week when I realised i’d taken on TOO much.

A couple of weeks ago the opportunity came up to go on a 4 day trip to Guangzhou, China (where i’ve been this week). Of course, I jumped at the opportunity, knowing that I probably wouldn’t ever have planned a trip there myself despite my love for Asia.

What I hadn’t taken into account when agreeing to the trip however, was that despite promoting the launch of Finnairs new route to Guangzhou (the focus of the trip) the flight itself doesn’t actually launch until May and so our journey was a rather long alternative one. 

Particularly long with my addition of a layover in Helsinki for the day.

Combine the 25 hour journey to our hotel with the +8 hour time difference and I was truly cream crackered upon arrival, not even coffee was going to get me out of this one.

The combination threw me like never before. 

I am usually the first one up in the morning on a trip – so excited to explore and make the most of the time I have in a new place. The adrenalin running through me usually pushes through ANY tiredness (which isn’t healthy but it works a treat).

But my body was seriously struggling this time and as much as my body was screaming at me to rest – I didn’t. 
We had a jam packed itinerary (7am – 10pm) that I didn’t want to miss any of because we only had 48hours total here in China before we began the return journey home. 

So on minimal energy, I some how continued on.

And by continuing on I was dealing with feeling physically sick, headaches, feverish and really weak, napping in the car at any given opportunity.

I had zero energy to even begin to pick myself up and be happy (sad sad times!). 

As you can imagine, the last thing I then wanted to then do was video myself and bounce around the place exploring as I usually would.

This limited the footage (mainly video) that I went ahead to create and hence why you may have noticed my social posts weren’t up to my usual frequency.

All in all, it’s not the end of the world, it was merely a big learning curve.

It has made me realise just how much energy running my blog and business usually requires and how much I really need to look after myself and my work schedule in order to not burn out again.

The trip was still amazing (blog posts are already on their way!), I just wanted to update you guys on where i am at.

↠

Which leads me perfectly on to why i’m currently sat up in the clouds.

I’m heading to Bali to kick off a 4 week adventure in Asia…

WOOHOOOOO!

For my first 6 days in Bali I will be joining and reviewing a gorgeous fitness retreat (Bali Fit Paradise) with some of my even more gorgeous fitness blogger friends from back home.

Then, on the 26th, one of my BFF’s flys out from the UK to catch me up and together we will be hitting up hostel life in Bali, Cambodia and Vietnam for a total of 3.5 weeks!

THE BACKPACK IS BACK..

Now over to you…

Even though i’m going to try to relax (a bit), I will still be documenting and sharing everything we get up to on our adventure and I’m super excited to create some awesome new content for you all.

{P.s. My backpacking New Zealand footage just hit 100,000 views on YouTube!! Thank you to anyone who has watched it! Watch it here}

Is there something you would like me to expose whilst I’m backpacking?

What blanks do you have in your mind when you think about backpacking?

Any questions you’d like answered?

Leave me a comment below if you have any requests or recommendations!

Make sure you come and join the adventure:

Snapchat / Instagram – molliebylett

Twitter @molliebylett

Facebook.com/molliebylett