My solo female travel blog journey
I remember the exact moment when I knew travelling was for me. I was with my brother and mother in Bali for the first time at the age of sixteen and we needed to cross the road but the road was chaotic. Watching as a man just walked out and watched as all the cars/ bikes made room for him to cross.
With my confidence up, I started walking… My mum was freaking out behind me, yelling at me to stop. My brother followed after, and then Mum finally joined. We crossed the road with no issues; I knew at that moment that my calling was to travel. I know you might be thinking, why this moment, But it made me feel alive. Feeling untouchable and that I could do anything, I planned the whole trip and didn’t give a rest day to my family. I wanted to see and do everything the island had to offer in our short time there. Lucky and unlucky for us, we got stuck there for an extra week because of a volcano eruption. It stopped flights. Mum was relieved to have a week to relax in the end. I also got to enjoy the day spa during this time.
Becoming Independent – My Solo Female Travel Blog Journey
Studying photography after high school, I wanted to learn how they created the smokey look of waterfalls. The photography course I did taught me a lot of things, but that. I wasn’t really into portrait photography at that time and even had a teacher tell me that I would never be a good portrait photographer. This created the feeling of never being good enough for a long time.
I have always had a love for nature and wildlife; this shone through my images. I loved the idea of creating a blog in my early twenties. Back then, Pinterest and blogs started taking off. But It took me a few years later to start a solo female travel blog and know that this was where I wanted to go.
From a young age, I had always told myself that I wanted to see Australia before any other country. I saw my friends and other people always going to Europe or America but never had seen their own country. Australia is an expensive place to travel, even for a local. But when the chance came up to travel from Brisbane to Perth with a carload of randoms… of course, I said yes.
The only person I knew before we started the trip was a friend of mine that I had just been working with. I sold my iMac and with $2500 in my account, I said goodbye to my family for 3 months in a Ford Falcon with a bunch of international backpackers. I think back to twenty-year-old me and being on the trip of a lifetime, this trip is probably still one of my favourite adventures to date. Being young, having no social media, spending $30 a week on food each and camping every night on the side of the road, was the most freeing experience of my life.
Seeing Australia was my dream, and I was living it. By the time we got to Perth, there were ten of us with one Ford Falcon and two vans. We all said goodbye to each other and Dad paid for my flight home as I ran out of money. My next adventure awaited.
Ready to take it internationally
It wasn’t for a few years later, after working full-time and studying film & television, that I felt like travelling overseas. I made friends with a girl in my class who had travelled all over the world and lived in London. I wanted what she had experienced, and hearing all her travel stories got me excited to explore again. When she asked me if I was interested in going to the Philippines with her, it was a no-brainer for me.
After finishing our course, we caught the first flight out after graduation. We wanted to film and photograph our whole trip because we wanted to put our diploma to good use. Soon, we realised that neither one of us felt comfortable in front of the camera, so vlogging was not going to work at this point. Still photographing and filming everything, we started sharing our trip on Instagram and social media. I loved editing these together and sharing our experiences. People loved seeing what we were getting up to and how amazing places like this existed.
It made me feel good to be able to share my experiences with others who don’t have the desire to travel or not be able to travel for different reasons. I started getting messages from people saying that they love my content and love being able to travel through me from their homes. This lit a fire in me to keep doing this!
My First Solo Adventure
After having a very rough start to the year in 2018, when I lost my grandfather who was my favourite person in the world. I was feeling down, my sister reminded me how, for so long I had been saying that I wanted to go to Africa. With minimal convincing from her, I booked my first solo trip! I was very worried about going alone. I booked a top-deck tour through five countries in East Africa. It was booked for the following year so I could slowly pay it off because I didn’t have the savings to pay for it all. It was expensive for my first big overseas trip!
2019 came around, and I was off to Africa! I was so nervous. When I got to my hotel, I didn’t leave it for a day and a half. I was so scared to venture out alone. Over the next four weeks, I created the most amazing memories with people that I barely even knew. People that I still call friends to this day. I loved documenting and photographing everything we did so I could remember every little detail. Family and friends were obsessed with seeing all my photos because not many people we knew would venture to Africa.
The last week in Africa I spent in Cape Town. We had finished the tour, and I flew from Keyna to Cape Town. I arrived at 9 pm and instantly made friends with 3 French ladies in my hostel room. Over the next 3 days, we spent driving around in their hire car, exploring all the amazing places. I met so many people on this trip and loved that I could do what I wanted when I wanted. I didn’t have to consult anyone else, it was freeing!
During this trip, I decided that I wanted to start writing stories about my travels.
The Start of My Solo Female Travel Blog
After many trips later and living in London for a while before COVID-19 hit. I was in lockdown and decided it was time to start writing about all my adventures. I wanted to tell stories and educate people about the places I had visited. How they could go on an incredible trip just like me and experience the best things. Many stories were written for a few years before I finally decided to create a website at the end of 2023.
I bought a WordPress website and had no idea how to use it, got instantly frustrated and ended up switching to Squarespace. Creating a Squarespace website, I loved how easy it was to use and customise to a certain point. The name My Camera Diaries was chosen because I want my photos to tell a story as much as the words with it. Photography will be first and foremost, followed by writing. So My Camera Diaries just worked perfectly and there has never been another name.
I quit my job in early 2024 and flew to Mexico to start a backpacking trip through Central America for three months. My goal for this trip was to work hard on my blog and get it up and running properly. I didn’t realise how busy I would be travelling around and not having much downtime to work on the blog that I didn’t achieve everything I intended on achieving. Life happens sometimes and I had to accept that that was okay and I still have plenty of time to work on it.
When I returned from travelling, life got busy. Even though I published a few and worked on it more than I ever had. I wasn’t receiving the results I had hoped. I thought I knew about SEO and keywords but it wasn’t reflected in the views of my page. With this, I decided that in 2025 I was either going to put everything I had into this blog and learn everything I could about blogging or if the end of 2025 came around and I wasn’t putting in the time I needed to, then I would close it down and focus my attention elsewhere.
So here I am, I have completed a blogging course, and changed to WordPress. Now putting in the hard work to make this everything that it could be! This is my solo female travel blog journey.
Julia x