When you are a freelancer, it’s all on yourself. No one tells you what to do, you need self-discipline, hard work and resilience to keep going, achieve your goals, find your dream clients and become successful, regardless of what success means to you. You have to get out of your comfort zone and fight for it, you are fully responsible for your successes and your failures.

This can feel extremely empowering but also overwhelming at times. I feel lost more often than I’d like to admit and I’m sure some other people can relate: when there’s no work coming in despite your efforts, when you see many paths in front of you and you don’t know which one to choose, when the life you’d want and the life you’re living are not quite aligned.

That’s when the need for a change of perspective comes into play. That’s when you need to look at your reality from a different point of view, with different eyes, from the outside, so that you can “get unstuck” and keep going. We all have our own way to do this.

Mine is travel. Living my life in wonder and with wonder is a promise I made to myself and the foundation of the person I want to be. Furthermore, my words of the year 2017 are MAGIC and ADVENTURE and I decided to trust them to guide me towards new clarity.

So I’m going on an adventure, to change my perspective, to learn more about people and cultures, to find new magic, to collect stories and images and words and valuable experiences.

My new adventure is a 35 days trip by myself across Canada: 10,000 km through 8 provinces by plane, coach, train, bus, ferry, car, bicycle, foot. From the precious heritage of the First Nations Haida population on the islands of Haida Gwaii to the magnificent mountain views of Jasper National Park, to the cosmopolitan city of Toronto, to the powerful Niagara Falls, to the majestic capital Ottawa, to the French vibes of Montréal and Québec City, to the bucolic views of the Gaspésie peninsula, to the multifaceted Halifax.

I will keep working on the road AND I’m looking forward to collect materials to share with you:

• a new series on the blog, where I present Canadian writers whose work has been inspired by each of the places I will be visiting. For now, I’m planning to write these posts in Italian, but let me know if you’d like them in English and I’ll see to it;
• a review (hopefully with good results) of an offline marketing campaign I’m working on;
• insights on Canadian endangered languages and cultures, with a particular focus on the Haida.

If you are interested in following my journey for the next 35 days, you can:

• follow me on Instagram @ikigaitranslations, for daily photos and updates
• like and follow my Facebook page @ikigaitranslationstudio, where I’ll try to post one update every day
• I don’t have a newsletter at the moment, but if you’re interested in weekly recaps and/or random thoughts on what I see and do, drop me a line in the comments 🙂

And now… let the adventure begin!