G’day everyone and welcome to the my travel blog “Nerd Travels”. This blog will follow my story, on how a shy video game nerd who never steps out of his comfort zone went from hitting rock bottom to backpacking solo accross Latin America on a quest to find himself and level up.

But who are you?
My name is Brendon and I’m a 26 year old Aussie nerd. I like Photography,Video games and Travel (even though I havent done alot).  I currently live and work in Montreal in the Video games industry which I have worked in for over 6 years. Over that time I have had a lot of fun worked on many great titles and made a lot of great friends. But I also have worked a lot of crazy hours (Most recently doing over 500 hours overtime in the last year) can you say OUCH!!

I have always thought there has to be something more than the drudgery of 9-5, but being a shy guy who didn’t really step out of his comfort zone much I was just going along for the ride. but then it all changed.

Hitting rock bottom

Lets just say the last two months have been a bit of an emotional rollercoaster.  (Why is it all I can think of is that scene from Anchorman when I say this).

They say bad things always happen in 3’s right?
In the last two months the following things occurred

1.  Separated from my wife after an 8 year relationship.
2. Got made redundant and laid off at work.
3. Came to the realization that after 6 year career in video games industry plus 2 years of study that I was burnt out and wanted something more.

Turning something negative into something positive

I’m a strong believer that life is what you make of it and although it felt like my entire life had been torn down I wasn’t about to give up just yet. Although this series of events did look bad but if you view it from the other side these 3 events have allowed me to be free

• Free  to go and do whatever I pleased, now that I was single, which in my case is backpack.
• Free from a 9-5 job, I didnt have to immediately find another job (I got a pretty decent payout from all those overtime hours I accumulated, WIN!)
• Free from the stresses of of worrying about my career and what came next.

That was when it hit me

I’d always wanted to travel more, to experience the world more, step out of my comfort zone. A chance to make a new start to build myself back up, to do and see the things I always wanted and find myself.
That was when I decided that I wasnt going to get another job, I was going to sell all of my belongings and leave Montreal on a solo backpacking quest through Latin America for 6+ months (Until i’m out of money :P).
Also because I’m a giant nerd i’m going to be list all the things I want to do in my quest log and award myself XP as I complete them and anyother things that help me grow as a person to slowly gain levels.

So what now?

My last official day of work is 14th September 2012 after that I have a mini adventure planned where I am returning to Australia for a week for my brothers wedding then getting my first taste of backpacking when I backpack through Los Angeles and San Francisco  for a week. In MMORPG nerd terms this will be considered my starter zone. :D.
After that I return to Montreal for one last month where I will be selling all of my personal belongings and plan to leave with just a backpack with a one way ticket to somewhere in Central or South America.

So strap yourself in and grab your D20’s because its going to be an adventure, I don’t profess to be a great writer but hopefully this blog will be able to let my family and friends know what i’m up and inspires anyone else who is thinking about taking a leap of faith or interested in following along.