About the Traveling Twenty-Something

I guess you could say my story really started as the pandemic died down. At this point in my life, I was a junior in college, and I had traveled to approximately… zero countries. I had only flown somewhere a couple of times in my life. My bucket-list was endless, and it had no check marks on it.

When vaccines began rolling out, there was a very opportune window in which travel was once again becoming accessible, but it was still affordable (this was key for a college student). In those few months, I took what I now see as my traveler’s baby steps… a family trip to St. Augustine, a girls trip to the USVI, and a few excursions to Universal Studios Orlando with my newfound coworker and soon to be travel bestie, or my travel and work wife, as I sometimes call her.

It was the following year where things really started to snowball for me. The wheels were set in motion, and there was no going back. Now that I was beginning to understand that I could travel, travel affordably, and travel without an adult (or, more to the point, I realized I was the adult), I was not to be stopped. I had been working since I was fifteen—seven years at that point—and the combination of those years of hard work, periods of time in which I had multiple jobs, and waitressing my way through college, it all allowed me the financial stability to afford taking trips if they were done right. So when my friends reached out to me with a proposition—a girls trip to Paris over winter break, and my first trip out of the country—I summed up all my courage and just said yes.

That was January of 2022, and in the couple of years since, my country count has jumped from 1 (the United States, duh) to 27. I have seen North and South America, Europe, and Africa. I have done leisure trips and vacations, volunteered and worked abroad. I have gone on relaxing getaways (cruise, all-inclusive, etc.), taken language classes and done animal care projects. I have country-hopped with my best friends and family, and country-hopped alone. I have gone hiking, and zip-lining, and cliff-jumping, and skydiving. And I’m not done yet.

Today, in 2024, I am still very much the same girl from all those years ago, working multiple jobs—primarily bartending, where I meet the most wonderful people who both eagerly ask for the details of my travels and share their recommendations with me—and putting all of my energy into the next trip. There is a lot of the world still out there for me to experience, and I’m excited to see how my story continues to unfold… which is where this blog comes in. Writing, like traveling, has always been a passion of mine, ever since I can remember. So I thought there would be no better thing for me to do than to combine my two great loves by writing about the incredible adventures I have had. This blog will serve as a creative outlet, time capsule, and method of communication to my friends and family (sometimes people be asking me for recommendations and I feel scattered, but I’m planning on this blog being a nice and organized archive of all the places I’ve been). If you resonate with my stories and get as much enjoyment out of reading along as I do out of writing, that’s just one more plus in a long list of them. I’m happy you’re here, and thanks for reading!