June 7, 2016
ORLANDO, Fla. (UCFKnights.com) -- On Sept. 5, 2015, UCF alum Bianca Joswiak made her grand plan known to the world. A world she was about to become very familiar with.
"Time to start a new adventure! I am flying with a one-way ticket to Bangkok and have no idea when I will return to Berlin," she blogged for the first time underneath a snapshot of her German passport and a Norwegian airlines plane ticket.
For the last nine months, the former women's soccer defender has carried her life with her inside a 40-liter backpack.
Related: Joswiak's Travel Blog
She has watched the sunset on the dormant volcano Mauna Kea, the highest point in Hawaii. She swam with the dolphins and saw wild penguins cross a street in New Zealand. She snorkeled in the Great Barrier Reef and watched tennis at the Australian Open. She was counted among the record-breaking crowd for the Orlando Pride's first home match in April.
She has become the ultimate vagabonder.
"You definitely learn that you don't need as much stuff," she said. "And for me, I got a lot more relaxed. If you're going to go where you want to go, you just have to be relaxed and patient. It will work out at some point."
Joswiak was a four-year letterwinner for UCF from 2009-12. The all-region, all-conference and all-academic team honoree holds the school record for games played (94) and was a member of three conference championship teams and appeared in four-straight NCAA Tournaments, including the Elite Eight in 2011.
After graduating cum laude with a bachelor's of science in marketing in May 2013, Joswiak returned to her hometown of Berlin and enrolled in graduate school.
She said the international marketing management program she pursued featured a diverse group of 38 people from 16 nationalities.
"It was really nice seeing all these different cultures. During that program I knew I wanted to take a year to travel," she said. "For me, it was the best time to do it before I started a full-time job." She earned her master's degree and spent a summer working before she embarked on her globetrotting trip. Her first stop was Southeast Asia. For two and a half months, she hopped from Thailand to Laos to Vietnam, Cambodia and Malaysia.
She had plans to meet her parents in New Zealand for Christmas, so for one month she toured what has become her favorite country. Australia followed for two and a half months. She wasn't sure which way the wind would carry her next until she found a cheap airfare for Hawaii.
After three weeks there, she headed to the mainland and visited former teammates. Marleigh Howard in Phoenix.Nicolette Radovcic in New Jersey (on her 200th day of traveling, the pair visited the 9/11 Memorial in New York City). Then down to Florida to reunite with Tishia Jewell and Andrea Rodrigues in the Central Florida area before continuing on to south Florida and Kristen Poulton.
From there, she made her way to another continent: South America on a three-week stint in Colombia.
She has kept record of her trip with a blog that she tries to update regularly. While she is traveling on her own, she has shared experiences with others she has met along the way. Like sampling crickets, spiders, snakes and maggots at a street market in Cambodia.
"[The maggots] were actually not that great. The crickets were OK," she said. "They are fried so it's just crispy and salty."
She is currently spending her summer in Spain and Portugal.
"And then I'll go home. Probably," she said, effectively embodying the true spirit of a wanderluster.
Story by Jenna Marina; Video by Chip Fontanazza and footage courtesy of Bianca Joswiak