Name: Christina
Pronoun(s): she/her
Nationality: Canadian
Hometown: Vancouver, Canada
Current location: Munich, Germany
Occupation: Digital Media Specialist (More accurately: Serial Website Starter)
Meet Christina – Happy to Wander
Hey everyone, my name is Christina and I’m a 26 year old digital media specialist living in Munich, Germany.
The question of “what do you do for a living?” usually sends me into a spiralling existential crisis. My work is far from conventional, but long story short: I build and manage various digital publications/blogs.
I’ve been an avid Internet addict since the good old days of dial-up.
In elementary school, I started learning to code and build websites (on Neopets of all places!)
Although I always thought I’d grow up to be a lawyer, a classic European backpacking trip threw a wrench in that plan. When I came home, I started a travel blog. I know, a very stable career choice.
By the time I graduated from university, I was earning enough to run my travel blog full-time. I started applying the skills I learned to new projects and websites, too. Today, I run a network of websites in various topics, from travel and filming locations to gift ideas and local events. I like to keep busy, and am always working on something new. Ask me again in a year and I’m sure the answer will be even weirder!
On Education
Did you attend college? If so, where, and how did you choose that school/those schools?
I went to school at Simon Fraser University, a mountain top uni back home in Canada! I initially thought I’d go to law school (too much Legally Blonde and Law & Order will do that to you). So, I studied Criminology for the first year of my degree.
After a brief existential crisis and the realization that I wanted to do something more creative, I switched. Eventually, I completed a Bachelor of Arts with a Communication Major and a Business Minor.
Did you participate in study abroad while at school? For how long, and with what program?
If I could pick a single decision that completely changed my life (corny as it sounds), it would be my decision to study abroad.
For context: I applied to study abroad when I was already in my 4th year of university. I was literally one semester away from graduating, assumed it was too late to apply anyway, and didn’t even need the credits. Then one day, a friend in a class of mine told me how she studied abroad in her 4th year. She’d found that a lot of European schools actually had classes related to our degree, they were just named differently.
I went home that day, saw that I had one week left to apply, and I did it
In the end, I chose Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat in Munich, Germany. It was a brand-new partnership so I was the first student from my school to go there. To say the stars aligned is an understatement. Not only did I manage to acquire scholarships to fund most of my six month semester abroad, I got SO many perks. This was due to the newness of the partnership and included a free 400 euro German course and housing in the coolest dorm ever.
Of course, it’s worth mentioning I met my boyfriend here two months in. That’s why I’m still in Munich today. So, I’m definitely not exaggerating when I say that study abroad completely changed my life.
If you studied abroad, would you recommend the experience? (The country, the program, the amount of time, etc)
If anybody is on the fence about doing a Study Abroad in Munich, I cannot recommend it enough, especially the Fall/Winter semester.
Here are a few reasons why: The semesters in Munich (at LMU at least) start in October, just after Oktoberfest. This means if you come here in September when regular semesters in North America start, you have a full month to enjoy yourself. You could also maybe take a German course, and travel!
Of course, the ability to go to Oktoberfest while living here is indescribable and truly once in a lifetime – that alone should to sell you.
Besides that though, Autumn in Southern Germany is glorious
You can visit turquoise lakes, fairytale castles (like THE Disney castle – Neuschwanstein) all as day trips, and then soon enough, Christmas markets begin. Munich is an amazing base to visit some of the most epic ones in Europe. It has been five years since I did my semester abroad, and as I’m sure you can tell, I’m still utterly obsessed!
Professional Background
How long have you been in your current position?
In a way, I’ve been doing the work I do now ever since I was (I think) 10 years old!
My obsession with websites, graphic design, and writing started at an early age. I used to be addicted to Neopets and learned coding so I could build sites for my Neopets. Eventually, I even built a website that had Neopets templates/graphics that I designed myself. (All this was when other kids would be doing normal things like playing outside.) I definitely was a mega-nerd growing up.
Fast forward to late 2014 – that’s when I started my first travel blog. Through that blog, I landed an internship doing blogging/photography/social media for a French cruise company the summer after that. Later that year is when I moved to Munich for my Study Abroad. The rest is history – I started to blog full time with Happy to Wander, created new sites along the way, and here I am now,
It’s a lot of plates to spin, but I love it because everyday is different, I’m my own boss, and I’m free to do work in my pyjamas. What more could a girl want?
Did you ever feel unsure of your career path?
Like any classic Millennial, I have an existential crisis about my life and my work about once a week.
Of course, being a (primarily) travel-themed blogger with Happy to Wander in 2020 did not help!
What I learned this year in particular though, and what I truly value about the career path I’ve chosen, is the breadth of transferable skills I’ve acquired over the years
When travel as an industry shut down earlier this year, I was able to take all my expertise in digital publishing to create new websites that achieved the same success in months that had taken my first site years. Knowing this is possible has made me more sure of my career path than ever before.
I think Millennials like myself who juggle multiple passions and interests have the unique advantage that they’re able to pivot in so many different ways, especially when online work is involved. Because of that, I always carry this optimistic attitude that everything will always work itself out.
On Lifestyle
Do you speak a second language? More than one other language?
I’ve dipped my toes in SO many languages over the years. I love learning languages, but I am terrified of practicing and saying things out loud. So, I’m a lot more fluent on paper than I am with speaking.
My parents are from Southern China, so I grew up speaking Cantonese, and can still understand it perfectly even though speaking it is a true struggle!
I also grew up going to a French immersion school in Canada, so I actually speak French quite fluently (although it’s tremendously rusty now). I took Spanish as well in high school since structurally, it was similar enough to French that I could get an Easy A. And, of course, I now live in Germany so I’m working my way up with that too, but it’s a daily struggle for sure.
If you could go back in time and participate in a travel experience you didn’t know was available to you at the time (for example – you’d au pair, teach in another country, volunteer in a certain nonprofit, etc) what would it be?
There are so many experiences I wish I could have taken advantage of when I was younger! There’s still time, but looking back, I would have loved to teach English abroad – most likely in Japan.
Some incredible friends of mine did this and it seemed like the most incredible experience
I also wish I had time to backpack around South America and Southeast Asia as a young backpacker because I’m now a ‘26 going on 80’ grandma who wouldn’t be able to handle it.
One last question
What advice would you give to a young person who knows they want to travel but aren’t sure where that fits in with the rest of their lives?
If you feel overwhelmed by the options and obstacles ahead of you, write them down. I promise it’ll help. Once you see your fears on paper, you’ll start to realize that many of them are things you can figure out… especially when you realize how many options you actually have out there available to you.
Life isn’t designed to go according to plan
There will be curveballs no matter what (hello, 2020!!). So, you might as well make the curveballs something exciting that YOU choose. This is going to sound cheesy and made up, but over the years, I’ve learned that things always have a strange way of working themselves out.
In the grand scheme of things, taking six months off to do something you’ve always wanted to do is not going to delay your goals or ruin your plan. You owe it to yourself to just go for it.
I mean who knows, you might even find a better plan in the process.
Editor’s note: This interview with Christina from Happy to Wander has been lightly edited for concision and clarity.
***
Thank you for reading Fearless Friday No. 14 Christina from Happy to Wander!
If you connected with Christina’s story, she invites you to connect with her and Happy to Wander on the following platforms:
happytowander.com
IG: @happytowander
TikTok: @happytowander
Fearless Friday Features are posted every Friday evening, France time. If you enjoyed reading Christina – Happy to Wander and want to keep up-to-date with the latest posts, please subscribe and follow @themillennialabroad to support and be the first to receive weekly blog posts and a monthly newsletter recapping the best and weirdest of the last thirty days.
