Vanessa Salvi

My name is Vanessa and I'm Italian. When I was 18, I decided to go study in Lyon, France. At that time, I had been studying French for a few years and I believed that going to study in a country where the language is spoken would enable me to acquire new skills, broaden my mind and give me the possibility of personal and cultural enrichment. In other words, it would be a substantive experience that I would never have had should I had stayed in Italy.
For this very same reasons, at the age of 21, I decided to experience a University exchange program in Bogotá, Colombia. Thanks to that opportunity, I learned about a different culture, a different history and a completely different reality. It allowed me to master the Spanish language, while having a wonderful life experience that I will never forget.
After this amazing mind-changing experience, I spent a few months in Leicester, UK for a one-semester exchange program at the University of Leicester and then in Spain, not that far from Tarragona, on the Costa Brava.
After that multi-country year, I moved to Sofia, Bulgaria for work where I discovered a new culture, a new language and especially new habits.
But that's not it, because I then decided to spend two years in Berlin, Germany while working as a multilingual web-content Translator.
And here I am, temporarily back to Italy, telling my story with the aim of inspiring you to take a breath and go.
My whole personal and professional development is related to my love of travel. I travel to evolve, to grow, to learn. Each country I lived in and each travel I did enabled me to experience things, places and people with wonder and admiration. Every place, every country changed me. Every experience fed my desire of exploring, feeling free, exceeding my own limits. I never tried to just visit places, because I lived those places, the peoples and cultures.
I experienced the French "bouchon" culinary arts, the amazing street artists and musicians in Lyon and Berlin. I experienced and celebrated the Baba Marta Day in Sofia. I stayed warm during the Bonfire Night in Leicester and I got sunburned in Spain. I lived the indigenous peoples in Colombia, their culture and lifestyle. Insofar as I could in my small way, I helped them. Those families became my family and my greatest satisfaction was to see smiles on their faces.
I found the best in those places where not many people were interested in and I also had the chance to bring my own culture. All this enabled me to live many different lives and that was and still is what influences my life. Travelling is a daily battle with myself as I build myself thanks to the strength of travel.

Always On The Go is a travel and inspirational blog for freedom souls, for people who are determined to pursuit their goals while travelling, for those who decided to change their lives, for the braver ones who decided not to be homesick but to be happy, for those willing to find their way abroad.