Organizing our gap year: the first time someone told us ‘no’

A year ago, we were starting to plan our gap year. We didn’t know exactly what we would do then, but we spent our days reading about how we could travel on a low budget and still visit many different cities.

After lots of research, we came up with a plan and chose our destination!

What was our first step? Get new passports since ours were about to expire. Normally, that’s something easy to do, right? Well… just to add to our list of “with extra doses of adrenaline”, there was a strike in Brazil and they weren’t renewing passports during a period of time.

We checked the dates and we sent our good vibes… Phew! Our passports arrived on time! Our first task was done! Then, we started executing our plan, but little we knew how our initial idea was about to change completely.

A NO that changed everything

With our new passports in hand, we tried to apply for a New Zealand work visa. Every year, New Zealand offers 300 Working Holiday Visa for Brazilians (there’s a long list of countries included in the program), and the lucky ones who get one can stay up to one year in the country. But how can you apply for one? On a day determined by their official website, you must connect and fill out a form on the website. The first 300 people to do that are granted a visa. Simple like that —or not!

Since we knew there would be lots of people applying we were sitting in front of our computers two hours before the scheduled time. We were ready to complete that form!

We opened the link, typed the first answers, and…. the website crashed! That’s it! After 30 seconds, all our planning was sent to the trash.

We must admit we were sad… But for 15 minutes! After that time, we look at each other, opened our notebooks, and ask ourselves:

What do we do now?

The first name we wrote on the paper was New York. Since we were going to come up with a new plan, it should start with The City!

Why New York City?

The photo above has a lot to do with our decision. In December 2016, we had the opportunity to visit NYC. It was Christmas time. Despite the wintertime, we were able to “live” the city that doesn’t sleep to its fullest.

And on our last day there… it snowed!

It was the first time that we saw such a white scenario. The snow falling through the window was certainly one of the most beautiful things we had ever seen.

New York is magical and has the power to make dreams come true. It makes you feel alive. New York is a different city every day. And we knew we needed that energy for everything that was to come on our journey with 30 on the road. As much as we fell in love with many destinations on this trip, New York is always the city we want to go back to.

What happened after you girls changed your plan?

We’ve been talking quite a lot about it, but we can easily say that hearing our first ‘no’ was the closed-door we needed to start our project 30 on the road. And judging by everything that has been happening to us, we are thankful for that ‘no’. This is the thing about trusting the universe, a ‘no’ can easily become your biggest ‘yes’. Just give it time and you’ll see!