Why is this blog bilingual? / Warum ist dieser Blog zweisprachig?

Easy answer: Because my life is bilingual. I am German but I live abroad, so I speak English in my daily life. My boyfriend and I speak English at home, therefore English is the language I mostly think in nowadays. However, sometimes I feel like writing in my mother tongue German – and then I just do. I do not translate all articles into both languages, because it would be too much work and I would like to encourage all of my readers to try and also read articles in other languages – learning a new language is easy when you do it by consuming foreign language media about topics that you actually enjoy. So why not try and learn some German? ;p 

Einfache Antwort: Weil mein Leben zweisprachig ist. Ich bin Deutsche, aber ich lebe im Ausland und spreche im Alltag und mit meinem Freund Englisch zuhause, daher denke ich inzwischen meist in Englisch. Aber manchmal habe ich einfach Bock in meiner Muttersprache zu schreiben – und dann mache ich das einfach. Ich übersetze nicht alle Artikel in beide Sprachen, weil mir das zuviel Arbeit wäre und ich meine Leser lieber dazu anregen möchte, auch Artikel in einer anderen Sprache zu lesen – Es ist viel einfacher neue Sprachen zu lernen, wenn man fremdsprachige Medien anschaut, die sich mit Themen beschäftigen, die einem Spaß machen. Also, hier gehts jetzt nur noch weiter in Englisch! ;p

Who am I?

I am Lisa Jarmina, an adventurous outdoor person from Germany.

in 2016, I finished my Master’s Degree in Japanese Studies and started to travel the world. – And never returned! I left with hardly any savings and started to work and live in different countries abroad and somehow this became my new lifestyle. Earning money while you travel instead of just spending it has some real perks! Soon, I realized this way of travel can make my journey last for basically as long as I want to (or at least as long as I can get a work visa in a certain country).

Aside from Germany, I have studied/worked/lived in Japan, Australia, Malaysia and Ireland while exploring also the surrounding countries (e.g. Vietnam, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, New Zealand, France, Greece, Portugal ) on little adventure trips on my off days. I just love change and discovering new places. Changing countries every two years or so is keeping my life interesting and challenging and I feel that the experience I gain working in many different environments is invaluable!

Working and staying in a country for longer periods allows me to see the world without having to be rich or being successful as a blogger – which I am not (yet). It also allows me to form a deeper connection with the countries I stay in and to forge meaningful relationships during the time I live there (not to say that friends one makes on a short trip are not meaningful, but you know what I mean). Sure, 1 or 2 years is not a lifetime, but it is enough to “get a feel” how life is like in a certain region and it certainly beats just spending a few days or weeks in one location to get an impression of a whole country.

So that’s how I live.

Luckily, it is also how my boyfriend Pierre lives, who I met while working in Malaysia. We are travelling together ever since. 

What Exploristic is all about

I always wanted to be a writer and a traveler, and writing a travel blog was combining both of my passions. This is how the idea of my travel blog Exploristic was born. I started writing it when I went on my journey around the world that ended up to be never ending.

Working in every country I went to never allowed me to be a fulltime blogger, which is why the chronology of my blog is by now completely messed up, as I write about the places I have been to whenever I have some spare time later on but usually not right when I am there. And sometimes I am itching to tell you about one adventure that was more recent while I did not finish all the other articles about the time before that, so it might seem I am wildly jumping around between countries all the time, but that is just my somewhat messy style of reporting.

The motto of this blog is “wild and free” for a reason. It is how I live my life and how I create. I don’t blog for money, I blog for the joy of it and thus I write about the things I feel like writing about in a given moment, rather than sticking to a strict schedule or order (like I would if it was for a job). This blog is to be my own free space, where I can write what ever I want – wild and free! Which I hope you guys can appreciate nevertheless! ;p

And this is what I want to show people with my blog:

• It is possible to travel, even with little money
• There is no need to be scared of traveling alone, even as a woman
• There are many different ways to live your life happily, do not listen to people who think there is only one right way
• Cultural differences are a good thing because this offers possibilities to learn from each other and see the world from very different perspectives
• Learning new languages will expand not only your mind but also your life
• Nature is awesome! Explore!

My journey so far…

I first caught the travel bug when I went to Japan to study Japanese at the APU University in Beppu. Meeting other exchange students made me curious to see a lot of other countries. I decided to go on a journey around the world after finishing my Masters degree – and actually ended up doing it.

I started in Asia where I did volunteer jobs in exchange for accommodation and food.

While waitressing in a rooftop bar in Malaysia I met a French-Malaysian bartender named Pierre who I fell madly in love with.

He listened to heavy metal, took me on rides on his motorbike, swam with me under waterfalls in the jungle, taught me how to shoot a bow and arrow and nursed me patiently back to health after I caught a bad case of food poisoning. He was (and still is) the perfect partner! 

We spend a year travelling and working in Australia together, where we had lots of awesome experiences and made many great friends. We crossed Queensland and NSW in a caravan, worked in outback pubs and learned many new skills on the way. It was an awesome journey!

After that we lived in Kuala Lumpur for about 2 years, where I worked in a multicultural office while Pierre started his own business as a mechanic fixing car mirrors. We explored Malaysia and the surrounding countries during that time and I really fell in love with Asia and its hot rainforests and its wild and free way of life.

Right now we are back in Europe. We spent some time in France and Germany and moved to Ireland now, where Pierre hopes to expand his business. We just arrived before Corona hit and are patiently waiting out the lockdown now, hoping that things will go back to normal at some point, so we can start our new jobs and endeavors! 

Yes, it is sometimes difficult to make a living while changing places all the time. But we tackle all obstacles together and have lots of happiness and never get bored.

I don’t regret anything! Starting to travel and live abroad was the best decision of my life! And I encourage anybody who wants to follow their dreams to do so as well. You probably only have one life, so make sure you use your time well: Do the things that make you happy! 

Do you want to be wild and free, too?

Follow me on my journey and find out which are the most interesting destinations to travel to this year; how to get there without spending money and how to plan your perfect trip using the amazing travel hacks and insider information that I share with you on this site. 

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Learn about the diverse wildlife of different countries, learn new survival hacks, or marvel at pictures of magical landscapes and hidden tropical beaches to get inspired for your next trip to somewhere you have never been before!