Airtreks #TrekTheWorld2020 Submission

Hi friends! This blog post is my submission for Airtreks Trek The World 2020 Giveaway πŸ™‚

If you don’t want to read all this, you can just scroll down and watch the YouTube video I made all the way at the bottom. Tsk tsk for being lazy and not reading.

My name is Diana Lee and I’m an artist (yes I know, every parent’s worst nightmare). Like most artist’s story, I was discouraged from doing art for a living because “artists don’t make money” but I took that chance anyway. I had one person believe in me and that was my dad, which was all I needed to keep chasing my dream. I figured it’s better to be a failure at something you love than be a success at something you hate.

Another dream of mine was to travel the world, and of course, I brought my sketchbook. My first around the world trip was actually booked with Airtreks! I was really scared to travel by myself, but with some words of encouragement during my phone call with one of Airtrek’s Travel Planners, I took that leap of faith and went on an adventure of a lifetime.

From traveling, I learned that art is an important part of culture and history, but I began to notice all of the artists I admired were men, so stories and history are mostly told from a man’s perspective… even to this day.

…and I want to change that!

I documented my travels to inspire others (I’ve gotten really good at taking pictures of myself), but for my next trip, I want to solely focus on writing and illustrating my journey because not enough of our stories are told. As travelers, we embrace the diversity in our world and I hope to see that same diversity in our artists and storytellers.

Below is the adventure I would love to take:

I would loveΒ to go to London this year because there is an Artemisia Gentilechi exhibition at the National Gallery. She is my favorite artist and I had accidentally discovered her while I was exiting the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. The museum was closing and I was rushing to leave. As I turned around a corner to exit, a painting caught my eye. I did a double take and had to go back and look at it. I didn’t know who the artist was but I justΒ knew that had to have been painted by a woman. I still thought about that painting when I got home so with some googling, I was able to find the name of the painting and artist and was right about the artist being a woman. Artemisia’s story resonated with me so much because we’re both results of having a #GirlDad

For the other destinations, long story short, they were all suggestions from all the wonderful people I met during my journeys. I would love to get to know some of these places that are a part of their life stories.

Thanks for getting this far in my post! Even if I don’t win, I hope my story has still inspired you just a little bit πŸ™‚

If you didn’t want to read all that, you can just watch the Youtube video I made below:

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