Today we’d like to introduce you to Adeisia Vaughan
Adeisia, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I was originally born in Massachusetts and grew up there until freshman year in Highschool. In my sophomore year of Highschool, I was relocated to Georgia and went on to graduate from Morrow High Schoolin Clayton County. I graduated in the top 10% of my senior class, and decided to attend Georgia State University on the HOPE scholarship. I went on to study my Bachelor’s degree at the Robinson College of Business where I majored in Marketing and minored in Hospitality.
After graduating from College, I accepted a position with Marriott Hotels and participated in a management training problem where I was cross trained to manage Rooms Division as a manager in Front Office, Housekeeping, and Concierge Services at the Atlanta Marriott Marquis located in Downtown Atlanta.
During my time at Marriott, I took advantage of my company travel benefits and pursued my dreams of traveling the world. This was the start of my addiction to traveling and exploring to see new places and learn about different cultures around the world. After 15 months working for Marriott, the pandemic hit and I was furloughed for 10 months, and later laid off from the company due to major cuts in the employment infrastructure. This layoff was a blessing in disguise, and pushed me to pursue social media marketing and I started creating content full time.
About a year after the pandemic, I finally felt safe enough to travel again, and started back traveling the world. Within. A 2 year timeframe, I went on to visit 35 of the 50 US states, and various countries which included, Italy, United Kingdom, Thailand, Turkey, Belize, Mexico, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Panama, Japan, and Indonesia. I fell in love with Bali, Indonesia and decided to give up my apartment in Atlanta, GA, put my entire household of belongings into storage, and move abroad in under 30 days.
After living in Bali for 5 months, I took a trip to Jamaica with my father for a month to visit family. During this month long trip, I was able to reconnect with my roots and explore where my father and grandparents were born and grew up. I quickly fell in love with Jamaica, and decided I wanted to move back to the Western Hemisphere so I could dive deeper into the culture of Jamaica.
After this trip to Jamaica with my father, I flew back to Bali, Indonesia, packed my belongings and moved to Ocho Rios, Jamaica. Since then I have spent the last year and a half living on the beautiful island of Jamaica, exploring the different parishes and adjusting to the new diverse culture with my father’s side of the family is from.
I continued to post about my adventures moving abroad on my social media accounts, and quickly grew a following after a video went viral on Tik Tok with over 1 million views. This video quickly spread via Jamaican blogs and was reposted on other social media accounts like Instagram and YouTube. Since then, I have continued to document my journey living broad and my socials have continued to grow in numbers.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Making the decision to move abroad is the easy part, but the hard part is the transition period of adapting to a whole new culture, language, and country infrastructure. It is not until you move abroad that you realize you have to be open to a huge change in culture that is much different than the American standard of living. Having an open mindset that is ready to learn a different lifestyle is necessary, especially when you are being mindful of how you respect the citizens of the country. As a foreigner, you must show your respects to this new country you have chosen to reside in so your actions do not come off as arrogant or rude. Educating yourself properly on the country rules and regulations is necessary so you can honor their laws.
Studying the language of the country and learning what you can to navigate amongst the locals is highly recommended. This is another way you may show your respect to the local people and culture of the country as a foreigner from an outside nation.
Sometimes as foreigners we don’t realize that moving abroad is more in depth, and if you do not do proper research, or be mindful of your actions and be open to change, this can make the transition period harder. It took me almost a year to finally feel at ease navigating Jamaica without the help of friends and family members by my side. I encountered many unintentional violations of laws because I was unaware of the differences between American laws and Jamaican laws. I learned from these actions and took note so I can readjust and do better in the future. I documented these on my social media, and took advice from my followers. This helped me grow and also connect with my following over my mistakes.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about TT/YT @LifeLivingAbroad IG @TheLifeLivingAbroad?
Currently I am a social media content creator that specializes in documenting my lifestyle living abroad. I love to highlight my international & domestic travel, food and daily life experiences.
I am most known for my sense of humor with various funny skits I perform with my husband via Tik Tok and Instagram as well as my lifestyle vlogs where I document my daily activities living abroad in Jamaica.
My outgoing free spirited personalty allows me to be transparent with my social media audience while I educate them about the pros and cons of living abroad in new country. I enjoy documenting the good, the bad, and the ugly experiences I encounter in an attempt to be transparent and real with my audience.
My future intention is to continue to teach my viewers about the pros/cons of traveling, how to move abroad, and document my journey of my daily adventures with my family/friends in Jamaica.
Are there any books, apps, podcasts or blogs that help you do your best?
I love to watch other content creators like myself who have moved from their country of origin to a foreign country.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @TheLifeLivingAbroad
- Youtube: @LifeLivingAbroad
- Other: Tik tok @LifeLivingAbroad
