FAQs!
So…who are you?
My name is Shelly and I’m a 30 year old American lady who spent 2+ years in her twenties backpacking through Asia, Europe, and Central America. When I wasn’t traveling, I spent almost a decade in business / IT / private equity consulting. While that career brought me an incredible community and fascinating work, it didn’t bring me joy or peace so I decided to make a fundamental change in my life. In 2019, I decided to start setting myself up for a more nomadic life.
The plan for 2020/2021 was to spend 12-18 months traveling internationally through Southeast Asia, the US, India, and Mexico. Then COVID-19 happened and my life got turned upside down. My lease ended right as it hit. I had no plans to be living in the states for the remainder of 2020 and most of 2021. I cried, a lot. But I’m fortunate: I have great friends to socially support me, a nest egg to financially support myself, and a big enough sense of adventure to come up with a totally new plan for the coming months and years in light of our new reality.
So I bought a converted Dodge Sprinter campervan - and I have absolutely no idea what comes next. I’m stoked.
Where and when have you traveled?
I’ve had a few large ‘trips’ in my life that involved quitting my job, putting all my shit in a backpack, and setting out onto the open road to see what the universe had to offer.
In March of 2014 I left for Southeast Asia for what was supposed to be a 6-week trip through Thailand and Laos. Somewhere along the way I found a German boyfriend and ended up moving to Germany for the summer while also traveling around Europe (the Czech Republic, Spain, France, and Croatia), then we headed through Russia and Mongolia for a month in the Summer of 2014 on the Trans-Mongolian Railroad. After heading back to Southeast Asia in the Fall of 2014 to see more of Thailand and Vietnam, we split ways and I went back to the US for four months to work a short-term contract gig to save up more money. In January 2015, I moved to Koh Tao, Thailand to pursue becoming a professional SCUBA diver and lived and taught there for about 1.5 years with a 3-month break to travel through Myanmar (Burma), Malaysia, Nepal, and Indonesia. In May of 2016 I finally came back to the States (mostly because I ran out of money).
Since living back in the States I’ve been on a ton of smaller trips for both work and pleasure (Sweden, Belgium, Costa Rica, Bahamas, and about a million Mexico trips) and also took 2 months off of work to backpack through Central America in 2018 (Costa Rica, Honduras, Guatemala, and Honduras).
Where do you want to go next?
I’m really enjoying living in my Sprinter van and plan on traveling around the US this summer (Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana) but after that I’m not quite sure!
I applied for a Peace Corps Response role (12 month commitment) in Mexico that would start in January 2021.
I have a tentative offer to join an American family that I met in Honduras last year on their catamaran in the Caribbean - that could be fun.
I would like to build a business of some sort (writing? marketing? sponsored posts on social media?) so that I can have a location-independent career rather than going back to consulting.
I would like to get back to teaching SCUBA diving at some point.
I think I’d like to find a winter home in Mexico.
So honestly, I have no idea what comes after this summer, and that’s fine by me (for now).