Travel changed her life and so now the former office worker absolutely wants to share it with her Japanese followers and soon, an international audience.

Meet Ayumi Amemiya, who calls herself a luxury backpacker and runs her own travel website to inspire others to travel.

Ayumi was an office worker and it was a solo trip to Thailand, Cambodia and Laos that changed the course of her life. “It felt so good and I became addicted to it.”

She started freelancing as a “model” for a magazine selling beauty and fashion products, and then got into travel writing. As her writing career took off, she quit her office job. “I just want to see the world and change myself – I knew I wasn’t going to do that in an office job.”

Right after the shootings in Sri Lanka in April, Ayumi paid her own way to travel to the country to see for herself the situation on the ground. “I saw that it was not dangerous at all and there was strong security everywhere. I wanted to tell Japanese people that it’s still safe to travel to Sri Lanka.”

Over her career, Ayumi has travelled to 50 countries. Her website is mostly followed by Japanese, aged in their 20s and 30s. “Young people are travelling less, and that’s a concern. That’s why I want to change that. I was an office worker and I changed my life by travelling. They don’t know how to change and I want them to see the world.”

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