If you’re visiting this page, you’re probably wondering what I’m all about and how I came to live an alternative lifestyle.
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. 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, 21 national parks, and over 30 countries on a budget, often traveling solo. I’ve gone across the US and back a handful of times starting with $300 or less.
