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This is the tale of the beginnings of my unruly love affair with travel.

My story is one for the books.

If you’re visiting this page, you’re probably wondering what I’m all about and why I fell in love with travel, through my own unruly lens.

When I Left The Country For The First Time, I Left For A Year

To dive into my travel beginnings and history, we’ll have to step back to 2014, when I spent a year abroad as an exchange student in Chile. For someone who had never left the country before (let alone had hardly left Ohio) it was a huge risk and adventure, and extremely challenging for me. I moved in with a Chilean family while their daughter went to Oregon for the year. Due to my lack of preparation (based in ignorance that is remedied with time & experience), I arrived in a country that was new to me speaking no Spanish, while my host family hardly spoke any English. We had different worldviews and ethics that sometimes clashed, but I can now look back and confidently say the we learned so much from each other. During this year abroad I learned how to budget backpack for the first time, and I was hooked.

When I Came Back, I Wanted To Travel But Had No Money. So This Is What I Did.

When I came back to the USA I wanted to continue traveling, but due to being young and broke I didn’t know how to make it happen. All I knew was that I couldn’t wait years before hitting the open road. So, I did what very few do: I decided to bike across the USA with only $300 to my name, working for food, cash, and accommodation as I went. (Spoiler alert: the $300 I set out with all went to repairing my bike after I crashed it head-first into a tree while uncontrollably flying down a hill on the Blue Ridge Parkway, so I was primarily moneyless on the trip.)

Despite all of the accidents, crying, bleeding, and physical exhaustion along the way, I ended up making it from Virginia to California, and then saved up enough money working for a catering company to fly to Hawaii (it’s a long story, I’ll tell you more about it below.)

And So, An Extremely Frugal Solo-Female Traveler Was Born

After realizing how much life-changing travel could be done on such a small budget, I felt inspired to create an online space where I could share what I was experiencing, while meeting incredible strangers that I would quickly turn into friends, on an extremely (like, extremely) small budget.

Fast forward and I’ve now been to 34 states in the US, 20 national parks, and over 20 countries on a budget, often traveling solo. I’ve gone across the US and back a handful of times starting with $300 or less.

Listen To My Story Through These 4 Podcast Episodes

This article contains four podcast episodes that tell the complete tale of my year as an exchange student and then the bike trip through hilariously epic and wild adventure stories. Each podcast episode can be found on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, SoundCloud, and wherever you listen to podcasts. Each episode is also accompanied by a YouTube video for those who need/prefer captions. If you’ve just stumbled upon the Unruly Travel blog for the first time and are ready to take in some exciting new information and perspectives, this is a great place to start. Get comfortable with being uncomfortable as you get to know me and my travel roots!

PART 1

In part 1 discuss my first real interaction with travel — and believe me — it was a dramatic one. After graduating high school, I decided to be an exchange student and live with a completely new family for a year. This was a very spur of the moment decision, and I had no hint of how my future would unravel. As you may have read at the beginning of this page, when I arrived to Chile I didn’t speak the language, had never been to the country before, and had to go back to high school even though I had already graduated. While I was there I took on new challenges, fell in love, learned a new language, broke the “Four D’s” (the exchange student rules set by the Rotary Club), embarrassed myself time and time again with my bowel problems, and even broke some of my own bones. I talk about what it was like being in a country foreign to me while suffering from health issues, depression, and anxiety.

We talk about the true reality of what being an exchange student can be like: partying, backpacking, break-downs, homesickness, really experiencing a lifetime in a year, and the roller coaster of experiences and emotions that come when you decide to say goodbye to everything that you know.

We also talk about how to plan for a budget trips, offer constructive tips for dumpster diving, and share our own experiences while taking food from dumpsters!

Listen to PART 1 now on SoundCloud, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube (for captions).

PART 2

In this episode we discuss how I the idea was planted in my head to travel with $0, how to begin and prepare for a budget trip, and how privilege plays into our travel experiences. We also dive into what life was like for me, biking/hitchhiking across the country, and working for food and other things that I needed.

Be sure to tune in to hear some epic adventures, and the benefits that you can experience when you decide to follow your heart, not your ego. (Mine included couch surfing with a someone I met on Tinder, going to a stranger’s wedding, and so much more!) In this episode I also talk about crashing down the Blue Ridge Parkway. This is the closest to death that I’ve ever been and is a wild ride for those listening.

Listen to PART 2 now on SoundCloud, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube (for captions).

PART 3

Welcome to part three of this weird, quirky, and raw series! In this episode, my partner and I record while driving back home across the USA after spending 9 weeks traveling in the van. We venture into normal territory for me, that may be not-so-normal for the average person or traveller. We talk about how while on the road I ended up relaxing in a private pool for free, what happens when you are forced off of they Greyhound bus due to unexpected delays, dumpster diving for Chipotle chips & guac before sleeping under the street light behind their restaurant, taking too many edibles in CO (OMG), and getting showed up on the TransAmerica biking trail by a group of loving retired folks.

This episode is a real and detailed look into the day-to-day life of a budget traveller. If you’ve always wondered exactly how I got around, how I made money, how I found jobs throughout my travels, and how I found such unusual adventures and adventure partners, this is your chance to find out!

Listen to PART 3 now on SoundCloud, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube (for captions).

PART 4

 

We’ve finally arrived to part 4 of my story of getting bit by the travel bug and traveling across the USA for the first time (on a $300 gift card)! In this episode, I spill the beans about what happened when I got to California and found myself alone, crying in the driveway of strangers. You’ll learn how I became incredibly close with those strangers, and because of them was able to work and buy t a ticket to Hawaii. In this episode I also met my adopted grandpa (who I still talk to today), almost drown, and oh so much more.

Listen to PART 4 now on SoundCloud, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube (for captions).