I quit my dream UX design job and traveled the world for 6 months

I used to think my life's purpose was to climb the corporate ladder to achieve enlightenment. After realizing I was wrong, I went and did whatever I felt like around the world for 6 months.

I finally felt free from all the expectations I've set on myself - to get the best grades and best job. I trapped myself inside studying and working for years. After leaving that life behind, I've made the most money and friends I've ever had.

I’ve written this recap post about 2024 on my way home to SF from Antarctica, and realized I’ve never gotten around to publishing my 2024 wrap until now. 2024 certainly set the stage for 2025. (2025 has been crazy busy, but in a very good way)

I started the year feeling kind of bored and ended the year in Antarctica

This was certainly the most exciting year of my life (so far). All because I made a decision to do something that is outside of my comfort zone every day. Some highlights:

• New fashion, new kawaii style, new confidence, and owning it

• Quit my big tech UX design job

• Spent 6 months traveling, across 21 countries and 5 continents. Mostly no clear plans, going with the vibes and having a great time

• Hosted 36 in-person events/parties across 7 different countries, 3 different states, and 3 different continents

• Hosted my first conference with Design Buddies !!

• Spoke at 14 in-person events

• Moved out of my parent's house to San Francisco

• Surpassed my big tech UX design job income with my side hustle that has now became my main hustle

• Was able to work much less hours and make more money

• Started Bunny House in San Francisco and Bunny Villa in Bali with Justin

• Made a big decision for a merger with Design Buddies and UXGO, offering more design educational

• Grew my audience by about 2 million

I thought 2023 was the best year ever but 2024 passed it by far. I saved up years of PTO to use it all in 2023. I had so much fun traveling around the world. But I started to feel unmotivated at work. Being 26, living at home, cushy tech job, side hustles, and chilling. I was too comfortable and felt like I should take more risks to grow.

Here’s how it all went down...

January 2024 - breaking out of my shell

I came off a fun Caribbean cruise and went to many parties. I was in a pink flamingo at. A Spice King pool party on new years. I felt like a sheltered child, coming out of my shell, going to many parties (+ hosting) this year.

AI was so hot in San Francisco, so I also gave talks at many “AI in design” events. Also hosting many designer/founder/investor meetups with Design Buddies and friends. I noticed that if I added “founders and investors” to the event, so many new people would suddenly come. I was commuting to San Francisco from Cupertino a lot

February 2024 - moving to SF

I moved to San Francisco! I love it here. It feels like college - an experience I missed out on because I was too sad and study studying. There are so many house parties, clubs, and meetups every day here.

Everywhere I go, I also get recognized from Design Buddies/LinkedIn. It really stroked my ego because I had such low self confidence as a kid.

I’ve started to hang around many founders, and feeling less motivated at my corporate job. I’m more motivated to build Design Buddies because it makes more impact on society.

I went super viral for the first time for yelling AIII in San Francisco. I'm proud because this is the first post I've gotten the most hate comments in!

March 2024 - Starting a hacker house

I started Bunny House, our founder/creator house in San Francisco. I was so excited to have a space, decorate it with bunnies, and host parties. All the hacker houses and parties so inspired me in SF. Shoutout to our first Bunny House cohort: Liyen, Henry, Anthony, and Curtis!

This month I’ve also hosted the most in-person events ever - 8. I hardly felt motivated at my corporate job. I could barely open Jira tickets and reply to Figma comments about 10 px vs 12 px. Something needed to change….

April 2024 - Quitting my job and speaking at conferences

April 1 was my last day in corporate America! Yes, it’s real. It’s a funny date, and I wanted another month of healthcare. My parents found out that I quit my job through LinkedIn.

I hosted my I quit my job party on 4/20 and even invited my parents. They gave a speech and was proud of me. I was so shocked because growing up, the Cupertino asian immigrant parent society was like “doctor, engineer, lawyer, or failure”

I went to Summit at Sea - a conference on a cruise ship in the Bahamas! I’ve made some lifelong friends there and it was the most fun conference ever. Everyone here is so accomplished and so humble - inspiring

I spoke at Creative South in Georgia - my first conference sponsored my whole way to go and speak at! I talked about designing for the creator economy. I also hosted our first Design Buddies meetup in Atlanta.

I also spoke at CMX, community manager summit, on crafting in-person experiences from online communities!

May 2024 - Hosting my first conference

I locked in preparing to host my first conference, Design The Future, on May 20! A conference is such an operation requiring so many moving pieces. That event costed almost $40,000 USD to run, but we still made a profit. Here’s how it went!

It went so well and we were so kawaii. This year, we're plotting our next conference happening on May 4 in SF!

June 2024 - Hosting many design events

I had a wonderful time at Config, and also hosting our Detach Instance after party and Get Configgy with it before Config. Config is one of my favorite conferences ever. Right after Config, I flew to London

I resumed my regular events hosting but was starting to feel burnt out. Halfway through the year, and I’ve already hosted 25 events. I left for a month+ vacation at the end of the month!

July 2024 - Vibing around Europe

I spent the month touring Europe and leveling up my fashion! The first half was spent on a baltic cruise with my parents. We started in London and went to Copenhagen and Skagen in Denmark, Berlin, Stockholm, and Klaipedia in Lithuania. Some ports in Norway and Sweden were sadly canceled due to the weather

After the cruise, I went to Athens, Santorini, Istanbul, and Paris with Justin! We stayed a few days at each place, and also hosted a Design Buddies meetup in Istanbul!

Paris inspired me to start becoming more fashionable. I bought some nicer clothes in Europe and that began my clothing shopping spree and re-doing my whole wardrobe.

This is big for me because for so long, I wanted to dress more kawaii style but had negative body image. I decided to not feel that way any more and wear anything I want!

August 2024 - Fun launches

I started the month attending buildspace IRL (very fun) and climbing half dome and almost falling off! I went on an RV trip with friends and it was amazing.

I even had 2 birthday parties - Hop Bunny Summer in San Francisco and our exciting Design Buddies + UXGO launch party in Seattle! Both had amazing company.

I flew to Vancouver, BC to speak at the UXxUX conference and hang out with my buddies in Vancouver. They have an awesome design community. After, I went to Seattle to cowork and to throw our big launch party, that happened to be on my real birthday, August 28.

September 2024 - Going on my second long travels

I spoke about design at the Nas Summit before hopping on a 4 month world tour with Justin! It all started when we planned our creator villa in Bali and how there’s no direct flight there. We found a $300 flight from SF to Seoul.

Our first stop was Seoul. I love Seoul! We even hosted a founders and designers meetup here with my friend Hannah and EO.

Then went to Singapore. I caught up with many friends + business partners, attended events, saw some family, and also hosted our second event in Singapore with Singapore Product Design and my friends Natalie, QJ, and Toby!

October 2024 - Bali adventures

For the month, Justin and I hosted Bunny Villa in Bali! We rented a nice villa for a month and invited our content creator friends to join us.

It was a fun month of adventuring around Bali, jamming on content, and hosting parties in our Villa. We also hosted an epic halloween party with my friend Edward and UX Bali!

I also liked swimming in the ocean and at the beach clubs.

In between, I flew from Bali to Miami and then back to Bali. 60 hours on a plane in a week. Adobe flew me out to Adobe MAX and paid for everything. I made a lot of new friends. Most importantly, got some more business partnerships.

November 2024 - Bangkok and Saigon adventures

After Bali, we spent a month in Bangkok, renting a condo in one of the tallest buildings. There are so many exciting events, awesome people, 7 eleven, pretty sights to see, culture, local life, and more.

Bali and Bangkok both have a nice digital nomad scene with events. Bali has more indiehackers/creators and Bangkok has more tech. I had a nice time making local and international friends here.

We also hosted our design holiday party and 300 Design Buddies came! It’s our largest meetup I’ve hosted outside of San Francisco.

We made a short trip to Saigon, Vietnam! Explored the city and hung out with buddies.

December 2024 - Lisbon, South America, and Antarctica Adventures!

We spent 2 weeks in Lisbon, Portugal. We stayed in the Alfama neighborhood, the oldest neighborhood. We went from living like 50 years into the future in Bangkok to 1000 years ago in Lisbon. I love the character of this neighborhood.

We did some good work, explored Lisbon, and went to digital nomad events. The digital nomad community here is awesome - I had the best luck making friends here.

We also hosted a Design Buddies meetup in Lisbon with Friends of Figma Portugal and Ladies that UX Lisbon! I got to meet many of my long time online friends in-person!

After Lisbon, I flew to Buenos Aires to spend a few days there with Design Buddies buddies before heading to my Antarctica cruise with my parents.

Before heading down to Antarctica, we went to Patagonia (Punta Arenas and Ushuaia - the most Southern city in the world)

Antarctica and Patagonia was so lit. They have the best landscapes.

Antarctica is beautiful, there isn’t a place on earth like it. They have the biggest icebergs and glaciers. I saw many whales and penguins hanging out on the icebergs - truly Club Penguin in real life.

The last day of 2024 was spent in Falkland Islands. They have the best penguins. We went waddling along the King and Gentoo penguin.

I also made an effort to talk to strangers and attend meetups on the cruise. I ended up making some friends of all ages, and even lifelong friends!

My key takeaways: I only want to plan my life one month at a time. No more signing one year leases.

Quitting my corporate job was the best decision I’ve ever made in my life. But I wouldn’t be here today without that experience.

In 2025, I’m going to keep having fun, building, vibing, traveling, and bringing people together. I also plan to do art every day! I fell off the wagon since I’ve been traveling so much. But I love traveling. I also want to make a video each day and get really good at content creation and art.

Follow me on LinkedIn and Instagram for more fun adventures!!

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I was able to count how many events hosted, spoken at, and conferences attended through looking through my photos -

 In-person Design Buddies Events hosted

Jan 6 New Years Resolutions Coffee, San Francisco

Jan 18 Founders and Investors meetup, San Francisco

Jan 28 UX meet up in Mountain View

Feb 21 AI in design meetup with Gen AI collective and Ansh

Feb 27 AI in product meetup with Gen AI collective and Ansh

Mar 1 Hop into new friendships at Spice King

Mar 12 Creatives meetup at IDEO

Mar 14 Pi Day, Bunny Housewarming

Mar 21 Gaming and AI at GDC with Freepik

Mar 23 Hike

Mar 23 UX Researcher & Product Manager Meetup with Olvy

Mar 28 Designer and researcher meetup at Dovetail

Mar 30 Easter at Bunny House

Apr 8 Founders and creatives meetup at Freepik

Apr 9 Community builders and creatives meetup at Bunny House

Apr 15 Atlanta meetup

Apr 20 I quit my job party at Bunny House

Apr 28 Spilling the tea at Bunny House

May 20 CONFERENCE!

May 20 After party at Dovetail

Jun 2 Creators hang out at Bunny House

Jun 10 Designer & Founders meetup with ADPList

Jun 13 Midsummer AI’s dream at IDEO

Jun 21 Pre-Config Designer meetup

Jun 24 Get Configgy with it at Bunny House

Jun 27 Detatch Instance - Config After Party

Jul 19 Istanbul meetup

Aug 22 Vancouver meetup

Aug 28 Epic Launch Party (Design Buddies & UXGO)

Sep 10 Succeeding as a designer at a startup + Design meetup in San Francisco

Sep 17 Seoul meetup

Sep 26 Singapore meetup

Oct 7 Tropical party at Bunny Villa, Bali

Oct 26 Kawaii halloween party at Bunny Villa, Bali

Nov 20 Design holiday party in Bangkok

Dec 10 Designer and founders meetup in Lisbon

36 events total

Events spoke at, in person

Jan 10 AI for designers, San Francisco (Building your personal brand)

Jan 26, ADPList, online (Content creation and networking)

Jan 29 AI User Conference, San Francisco

Feb 2 Miller Middle school, my middle school!

Feb 7 Adobe Express All-Hands, San Francisco

Apr 13 Creative South - designing the the creator economy in Columbus, GA

Apr 22 UC Berkeley, Content creation and networking in Berkeley, CA

Apr 25 CMX community manager summit! Beyond the Chat Room, crafting in-person experiences for online communities in Redwood City, CA

May 2 Women in Tech leadership, owning your value in SF

May 20 Conference MC!!

Jun 1 AI in Media & Entertainment Summit, AI hacks for content creators

Aug 22 UXxUX conference

Sep 17 Seoul meetup

Nov 20 Design holiday party in Bangkok

Countries visited

Bahamas

United Kingdom (London)

Germany (Berlin)

France (Paris)

Greece (Athens and Santorini)

Sweden (Stockholm)

Turkey (Istanbul)

Lithuania (Klaipedia)

Denmark (Copenhagen and Skagen)

Canada (Vancouver)

USA (California, Washington, Florida, Georgia, Alabama)

South Korea (Seoul)

Singapore

Indonesia (Bali)

Thailand (Bangkok)

Vietnam (Saigon)

Portugal (Lisbon)

Argentina (Buenos Aires)

Uruguay (Monetevideo)

Antarctica

Chile (Punta Arenas)

Conferences attended

Feb Learners

Mar GDC

Apr Insight out

Apr Summit at Sea

Apr Creative South

Apr AI rabbit hole

Apr Startup grind

Apr Stripe sessions

Jun Gen AI summit

Jun Config

Aug Buildspace

Aug UXxUX conference

Oct AdobeMAX