Beyond The Bluegrass by Logan Puckett
From owning a small business in Kentucky to selling everything and traveling the world.
When my mother was young my grandmother packed up what little they owned in Northern Louisiana and moved to central Kentucky to start a new life, growing up we were constantly making the 12 hour drive to Louisiana to see the family they left behind. These trips were often just for the weekend, we would leave Friday after school and be back by Sunday night. Sometimes when my parents had saved a little money up we would go on a trip to the beach in Alabama or to see Niagara Falls in New York, just little weekend trips for we could never afford to be gone for long. This made me very comfortable with traveling from a young age and this comfort would later grow into the passion for travel that I have today.
I grew up in a town of 2000 people, in a relatively poor area of Kentucky. Watching my family struggle with money growing up due to having kids very young made me not want kids from a young age, and gave me the drive to make as much money as I could so id never have to deal with the problems we faced growing up. I went on the graduate high school at 16, Graduating from WKU at 19 with a degree in International Business, and I had bought into my first business by 18 1/2. In this business we Opened Pretzel Food Trucks Around Kentucky. Everything I had told myself I wanted as a kid was coming true, I was driving my dream cars, investing in stocks, about to close on a house as a rental property, but with all this work and moving around opening trucks I had no time to travel, no time to see the world, no time to find out what I really wanted.
One day I was driving home from work thinking back on my day and everything I had going on and I realized, I am 19 years old. I have done all of this by 19 and I’m not happy. I spent the next two weeks thinking about that moment and what I could change to be happier with my life. Then one night a story came up on the news of a girl who had quit her job in San Francisco to Backpack the world. I started doing my research on back packing and within two weeks I was starting the process to sell out of the company, within 4 weeks from that moment I was sold out, sold my car, half my belongings, backed out of the rental property deal and one month later I landed in Madrid, Spain 🇪🇸 Now to start my new life as a backpacker. my only goal is to see as much as I can, meet as many people as I can along the way, and to see if there’s somewhere else I want to live besides the US. At this point no one in my immediate family had ever left the country, they didn’t even have passports.
I Have been gone for a little over 6 months now. Starting in Madrid, Spain then traveling through the north west of Spain, Down Through Portugal, doing a full loop in Morocco seeing every major city and many many small villages, Tenerife in the Canary Islands, up through the South of Spain into France, up to London, returning home for my aunts wedding for 9 days, before returning to London the day after the Passing of the Queen, now Landing in Poland. I no longer make plans very far in advance and I have fallen in love with the backpacker life style. A New destination with new Friends every week or month, trying foods I could’ve never dreamed of, learning about cultures and beliefs I never knew existed. I don’t see my travels ending anytime soon for I still have a lot to see, my next stop is Albania in November and I’ve never been happier. though Solo Backpacking can be rather challenging and often very lonely, sometimes finding yourself in small villages where you don’t see anyone that speaks your language for days or even weeks, these challenges and occasional loneliness are often met with great rewards, new friends, and memories that ill keep with me for the rest of my life, regardless of where I end up or what I am doing there.
