I’ve been travelling since the age of 1. My first trip was to the Philippines; however, my mum and I had a stopover in Brunei which makes it the first country I’ve ever visited. As a child, my travel was limited and it was only between Lebanon and Philippines. Since being born and raised in Dubai, my parents did not want me to forget my roots.

My first diverse route was to Syria where I visited historical places. Syria was only a 2 hour drive from where we stayed in Lebanon. Then in 2010 I’ve travelled to a new destination outside my comfort zone and that’s where I caught the travel bug. That destination was India, later I couldn’t stop travelling; I visited Oman, Brunei again, Spain, Germany and Malaysia. So from family travels, I diverted to visiting new destinations outside my culture to witness the other countries touristic attractions.

Years later in 2014, I booked a last minute ticket to Singapore and ended up meeting my husband. Our trip included fun activities such as visiting Singapore Zoo and Universal Studios. In my blog ‘How We Met’ (https://belliontravels.com/2016/06/17/singapore/) , I’ve mentioned that we met every month in a new country to sustain our long distance relationship. Since they were short trips, we became travellers who squeezed a lot of touristic attractions and fun activities in a short period of time.

Once we got married, our travel habit has changed. Since we both have full time jobs and have limited annual leave, we decided to visit as many places as we can and the trip ends up to be rapido rapido rapido……

After taking 2 weeks off of work, we managed to visit Japan, Philippines, Macau and Hong Kong. I was beyond content and especially that Japan affected me a lot. I thought I took really awesome pictures for the blog and social media accounts until 5 of my friends who visited Japan a week after me took similar pictures and that’s when I realised that Tim and I need to change our travel style.

When I was having lunch with Tim and my brother ‘Mohammad’, I was telling them that something was missing in my travels. I want something different and unique. At this stage, I’ve decided to travel to new places and learn as much as I can until I find the right style. Where myself and others can benefit from.

So for now and hopefully not for long, we will be the kind of travellers who cram as much knowledge as we can but someday we will find what I’m searching for.