Jay Donnell became a traveller at 24. Embarking on a post-graduate jaunt through Western Europe at 26, he has now travelled through 55 countries in six continents, capturing many of his experiences on film and at justheletterj. Here in our travel blogger series, he tells us more about his travels that have taken him outside his home of the United States, and where he has left on his journey of discovery.
http://www.bbmlive.com/the-diary-of-a-travel-blogger-from-laos-to-new-zealand
The best place you’ve been to this year: This winter I tore off back to Asia, this time for a 90-day adventure with no plans but for a one-way ticket to Bangkok and a loose deadline for returning home. The highlight absolutely had to be Nepal. In the winter of 2014, I met a new friend at a hostel bar in Kuala Lumpur, and proceeded to develop one of those intense connections that only traveling can bring. After spending a month or so roving around Thailand and Vietnam together, we stayed in touch over long distance, and when I was back in Asia this year he invited me to join him and his girlfriend on a trek to Nepal. Considering my gear for the trip I had planned consisted of primarily board shorts and flip flops, I was a bit hesitant at first. After some convincing, which frankly for me never takes too long, I acquiesced and began a whirlwind of discount gear shopping in KL’s Chinatown. In the first minutes of being on the ground in Kathmandu, I knew I had absolutely made the right call. We spent some days in my new favourite city in the world, then flew to Pokhara to begin our four-day trek into the Annapurna range of the Himalayas. I left after my ten days in Nepal with nothing but the absolute best of impressions of the people and the landscape, and proceeded to urge everyone I knew to visit the mythical land I had always dreamed of seeing. Then, less than two weeks after I left, disaster struck. The tragedy of the Nepalese earthquakes felt so much more real to me than the foreign disasters that happen around the world but never seem close to home. I have tried to stay active in donating and supporting relief efforts, and my experience in Nepal will forever be that much further engraved on my brain.
