Good Bye Thailand, Hello New Life

Good Day, World!

 
I know, it's been quiet around this account but I was not gone, I was just preparing. The last couple of years have been quite crazy for most of us and life took many unexpected turns. In this post I want to talk about the last couple of years and also share a few of the pictures which I took here Thailand.
 
Back in 2017 I got the offer to move from Europe to Thailand working for a German Textile company which I accepted and where I've been a part of to this day. My life was quite good at that time - I had fun at work, was traveling around Asia for multiple weeks a year, trained for 5-6x in the local Muay Thai Gym and even competed in official fights.
 

 
Also around this time I found my love for photography and got myself a Nikon D750 with a couple of nice lenses. That was also the time when I discovered Steem where I started to share photo- and travel blogs pretty frequently for a couple of years. Beside taking photos I also found an interested in curating photography and about 3 years ago I managed to take over the @photofeed account where I still work on to this day.
 
Working on PhotoFeed has introduced me to an amazing community of photographers around our globe and it's been an honor working and connecting with so many talented artists for the last couple of years.
 

 
After 3 incredible productive and also happy years in Thailand, Covid19 came to change all of our lives in 2020. As I only can talk about myself in this post, I want to share how it effected my life and how my experience during this time was.
 
Life changed, my Muay Thai Gym was closed for almost 2 years, flights were canceled, there was no more traveling and the isolation started. From 2020 on I did not have any solical life anymore and I basically was just working, sleeping and thinking about my future life. There was not a lot of happiness left being locked up in a small city where I really couldn't do anything at all.
 
Also photography, In 2021 and 2022 I took close to non new images which made me even struggle harder in my thoughts and doubts about the future. But I never stopped using the time I now had to spend in my apartment to continue educating myself in a lot of theoretical knowledge about photography and also always tried to develop the PhotoFeed project further. No matter how limited we are, we always have to do something to not stand still.
 

 
Having that much time to think about life I felled the decision to save up all of my money, work as hard as I could and start planing resigning my office job to do what I love most - travel around the world and take photos. And now, 3 years after making that decision, I'm only 3 weeks away from reaching that goal and starting my New Life.
 
I have been working in my current company for almost 14 years now and I'm about to make the biggest change in my 32 years of existence. Saying bye to a secured job with a monthly income, all social securities covered and everything you need to be a part of the average society. I'm taking the risk to do what I love, as I'm very aware that life is to short to waste it.
 

 
I will again have to say good bye to friends and people that I've given a place in my heart here in Thailand. But if I don't keep moving I will not live the life I want and so I will go again on my own journey discovering this planet. There are just to many things I want to see and experience while I can.
 
It's sometimes hard to think rational instead of emotional but it's often just necessary. We only have that one life!
 

 
As I always lived very minimalistic I fortunately don't have much troubles moving away from Asia to start my Journey. I will now work 2 more weeks, stay until mid Feb in Thailand, fly back home to Germany visiting my Parents and Friends until the beginning of April and I will say good bye once again to all of them to start this new chapter of my life.
 
My main goal will be to travel around as much as possible to create a decent photography portfolio to maybe make one day a living out of my passion. I have saved up enough money to be secured for a couple of years but of course I will try to generate some income with different potential sources.
 

 
One part of my preparation was getting some new gear to be as ready as possible for this journey. So I've got myself just recently the new Sony A7r V with the 24-70mm f2.8 gm II. I think this camera will be ideal for my trips as it's light, compact and extremely high performing. Also the lens is probably one of the best if it comes to travel photography.
 

 
But yes, it did hurt spending that amount of money on a camera, ha! Beside that I will only have my MacBook, a few filters, a tripod and some clothes. So all of my possessions will fit in a carry on backpack which will make traveling as comfortable as possible for me.
 
As soon as I'm back in Germany I will finally be able to start taking pictures again and also post on this account frequently again. After April when I start my world trip I will share tons of content (photoblogs, travelblogs) on this account exclusively and who ever is interested can be a part of my journey (at least visually).
 

 
For my last words I want to say thank you, thank you to Thailand for being the country with its amazing people that you are. I have met incredible people here, I have experienced nothing but love and kindness around me. I will never forget that and I will be forever grateful how everyone has treated me here. It's even crazy to say but I did not have a single bad experience with a Thai person living here for almost 6 years. Thank you, Thailand! <3

Chris