I Sold Everything, Left on a One-Way Ticket, Here’s What Happened
In November 2024, I made the decision to move out of my condo in Toronto, sell almost everything I owned, and leave Canada on a one-way ticket. I was done playing it safe.
Now, reading this, you may be thinking, “Well, damn, that’s a hasty decision.”
But the truth is, this decision is one I had been ruminating on for a long time.
It was in the making for years, ever since my father passed away unexpectedly in May 2022. Losing a parent in your twenties shatters every illusion you’ve held about stability.
I remember that day very vividly. That morning, I went for my usual morning walk, came home to check my emails, and then my world flipped upside down.
That day, everything changed. I realized time isn’t guaranteed. Life doesn’t wait. And I decided I wanted to live differently.
My Backstory…The Hustle Years
^ Inserting the quintessential “eating noodles” pic to capture the hustle part of the story (I am cringing).
Up until then, I’d been hustling, trying to establish myself in the interior design world. Hello, if you are new here, interior design is what I do and what I have been doing since 2017, at the tender age of 21.
At the same time, I travelled. A lot. I became known for travelling.
I’ve always been curious, adventurous, and creative. Travel gave me perspective, and design gave me purpose.
The tragedy that struck my life changed my lifestyle and reshaped my desires.
I started dreaming of a new life—leaving everything behind. I imagined running my interior design business remotely, building something that could travel with me. That’s when I started a blog—the very same one you might be reading this story on.
Although I had big dreams, the circumstances in life forced me to stay put for the time being. But that didn’t stop me from planning for my future escape.
I moved alone to downtown Toronto, launched my virtual design services and started to blog weekly.
My strategy was to blog for Google SEO purposes, so I’d be noticed, and therefore people would book my online interior design services.
So I wrote.
And wrote.
And wrote.
And wrote some more.
For two years, nothing happened.
Two Years of Crickets
After 2 years of nothingness. My blog eventually gained minuscule traction and hovered around 2,000 monthly views. My online design services still did not get traction. To make ends meet, I worked different 9-to-5s.
Meanwhile, I went on a deep spiritual journey, questioning God, life, and my path.
Eventually, I reached a place of “stability”.
I landed a 6-figure job. Things were consistent. And, I told myself maybe this was enough.
I thought, maybe the dream of building something of my own wasn’t meant to happen. After all, I had been turning my wheels for a long time and seeing nothing substantial come out of it.
And slowly, that comfortable life began to dull the voice inside me that once visualized a very different life.
November 2024: Rock Bottom Again
Then everything changed. I lost my six-figure 9-5 job.
Suddenly, my safety net disappeared. That comfort I’d been clinging to was gone.
And that’s when I decided: it was now or never.
Without a real plan, I gave my landlord my 60-day move-out notice and listed my belongings on Facebook Marketplace. I was ready for the adventure I had been dreaming about.
The First Stop: Rock Bottom (Yet Again)
Ironically, my journey didn’t start somewhere glamorous. I landed in my friend’s spare room, 15 kilometres from my old condo. One suitcase. A laptop. A head full of doubts.
I applied for remote jobs constantly. No calls came. At night, I vented on Reddit to strangers who somehow felt safer than anyone in my real life. I went to church almost every day, asking God for strength and direction.
I kept blogging. Out of discipline and habit at this point.
Montreal: The Turning Point
A couple of months later, I booked my first one-way flight out of Toronto to Montreal.
It wasn’t far, but the energy shifted immediately. People started finding my blog. People started booking my virtual interior design services. For the first time, my years of quiet work paid off. I was shocked and excited.
I doubled down on content—two blog posts a week, website tweaks, nonstop experimentation. Then, one of my articles about AI in interior design went viral. In the blog world, going viral means landing on the first page of Google without paying.
Traffic jumped from 2,000 to 6,000+ monthly views. It did not stop there:
AI interior design companies started reaching out to collaborate.
Interior design brands wanted to be featured on my site, and were willing to pay for it.
For the first time in years, it felt like maybe the work I had been doing quietly in the background actually got me somewhere.
Croatia: The Dream
Soon after, I boarded my one-way flight to Croatia.
I started on my mother’s couch. As a Croatian-Canadian, it only felt natural to start my adventure in the motherland and to visit my mother, who moved back home after my father passed.
My online business had momentum, and suddenly I was working with some of the biggest names in interior design technology. My blog climbed to 10,000+ monthly readers. Several articles landed on the first page of Google.
The juggle between work and play began.
I eventually made my way to Zadar, a coastal city, living a surreal life: Mornings swimming in the Adriatic, espresso martinis in the sun and spending the evenings working.
For the first time in years, the pendulum swung my way. Life felt magical.
Plot Twist (Numero Uno)
Ten days into my solo adventure, I joined a walking tour at Plitvice Lakes. That’s where I met someone who would change the course of my adventure.
It was one of those instant connections that felt cinematic, like fate.
We spent five days together before he returned to his home in Lithuania. But that wasn’t the end of it.
A few weeks later, we met up in Sarajevo, Bosnia. At this point, I guess we can say things were going well. Considering I then found myself in a Lithuanian village I still can’t pronounce—meeting someone’s parents after leaving Canada with a one-way ticket months prior.
Even writing that now makes me laugh.
After a tour of the country, I was staying in short term rental in Vilnius, Lithuania, testing the waters to see if this would be a good place to move to.
Yes, this might sound like another hasty decision on my end. However, keep in mind I did leave Canada with a suitcase, an EU passport, and the intentions of settling somewhere.
So, I thought things were aligned.
Another Collapse In an Ex-Soviet State
Just as the summer faded, so did my fairytale love story. And while I won’t get into the specifics—this isn’t a post about the drama of a failed relationship—here’s the picture: I was heartbroken, alone in a foreign country, and once again questioning everything I thought I knew about my path.
What had once felt magical suddenly made me feel foolish. I started doubting everything, not just my judgment on character.
I found myself questioning whether my business was about to crumble as well. I needed my next big break, and I was paranoid that everything was about to burst—just like the fragile connection I had clung to. I was catastrophizing.
I guess things were too good to be true, I thought, as I slowly began to lose hope that my life would ever make sense.
And then… another unexpected turn came my way.
Another Business Breakthrough
One of the largest companies in interior design technology reached out to offer me a contract I had once only dreamed about.
Before I crumbled yet again, the light returned.
Ten Months Without a Home
In November 2025, I left Lithuania—leaving behind the delicious meat dumplings and the broken connections—and returned to Croatia. This time it was winter, so I chose to stay in Zagreb, the capital city and a part of Croatia I had never experienced before.
Christmas lights filled the streets of Zagreb, and I felt a sense of comfort again, being somewhere I understood the language.
At the same time, November became the biggest month my business had ever seen. My website traffic exploded to over 15,000K+ monthly views, and brand partnerships began rolling in. People from around the world were discovering my work, and I started designing homes virtually in places like San Francisco and London.
I had done it. I had successfully pivoted my business to be location-independent and expanded far beyond Toronto.
I guess my dreams weren’t so crazy after all.
After Zagreb, I found myself in Lisbon, Portugal, where I soaked up the glimmers of sun before heading to Toronto for Christmas.
The Return To The West
I went back to Toronto for Christmas—because, well, it seemed like the thing to do. At the same time, I kept asking myself whether I actually intended to move back. This question had been lingering as I hopped from place to place, hoping to find somewhere that felt more certain than Toronto—but that feeling never came.
Returning to the city, I ended up staying in a home right next to a Balkan café, one which I was never aware of before. There was something deeply satisfying about being able to get burek in Toronto and feeling like I never left the Balkans. Chatting in Croatian amongst other ex-Yugoslav diaspora is truly a Toronto–Croatian experience. It made me smirk to myself. Toronto is a very unique place, I could not deny it.
After my Christmas stop in Toronto, the adventure continued, and I found myself in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, escaping the Canadian winter.
‘Merica
While in Florida, I started to feel tired.
Working 9-to-12-hour days while trying to keep up with my routines didn’t leave much time to actually explore. Instead, it pushed me toward exhaustion. The novelty of new places, new people, and constant movement slowly began to wear off. After visiting 36 countries in my lifetime, I finally caught myself thinking, there is nothing new under the sun.
I was tired of last-minute Airbnb bookings, spontaneous flights, and not knowing where I would be six days out. Before my business took off, this uncertainty felt manageable and exciting. But as my work began to grow, the instability started to feel like a source of stress.
Eventually, I realized I needed to make a decision.
And in many ways, it felt like life had already made it for me.
I was going to move back to Toronto.
Did I Fail The Mission?
At first, moving back to Toronto felt like defeat. Like the adventure had somehow failed. I even felt a little embarrassed.
After all, returning to the place I had left didn’t feel very exciting. It wasn’t the dramatic or interesting ending I imagined when I boarded a one-way flight.
But with some reflection, my perspective changed.
I realized the adventure was never really about escaping Canada. At one point, I framed the journey as a way of escaping what I felt was the shrinking reality of life there, and while there is some truth to that feeling, I was leaving out my own issues from the equation.
Leaving on a one-way ticket wasn’t actually about escaping Toronto, Canada.
It was about escaping myself.
Not to get all spiritual or whatever. But..
As you’ve probably gathered from this story, my life in Canada wasn’t exactly sugar-sweet, especially in particular years.
And, I didn’t even share everything I experienced growing up.
For a long time, the version of myself that came out of those experiences wasn’t someone I felt proud of.
Toronto reminds me of my past. It reminds me of the things I’ve lived through—things I desperately wanted to forget. And somewhere along the way, I convinced myself that starting over in another country might allow me to leave those parts of my life behind.
But that wasn’t the case. Instead, I was faced with situations that forced me to confront myself—the person I had been in the past and the person I had become. Through it all, I learned countless lessons, grew in ways I never expected, and, of course, created unreplicable memories.
What I Learned
- Joy is self-created.
- Novelty is addictive.
- Intensity doesn’t beat consistency.
- The foundational work will pay off one day.
- You need to move first for miracles to happen.
- You are allowed to reinvent yourself at any time.
- You are allowed to change your mind.
- Sometimes the right thing to do is not what’s most exciting.
- God’s plan is better than your own plan.
Where I Am Now
I’m back in Toronto, in a new condo, slowly rebuilding the life I packed into a suitcase. I’m decorating my space, growing my platform, and embracing entrepreneurship.
The dream has shifted. I’m creating a life where I can spend time between the East and West, stay connected to my roots, and remain grounded.
I’ve stopped chasing intense connections. I’m more comfortable with the unknown. My spiritual life has deepened. I’ve learned to be kinder to myself and to romanticize life, enjoying the small moments.
This year-long circular journey changed me. I’m still curious, still ambitious, and still exploring. But now, I move with a different mindset.
Thank you for reading.
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