It's about time I revamped my old online portfolio. Since I last touched my website, I had life turn upside down on me. A year and a half into getting my digital-nomad legs under me, life delivered me a nice roundhouse kick of a reminder that it is not always going to go my way. In 2022 my boyfriend of 4 years cheated on me with a close friend I made while we were working and living in employee housing at a remote lodge in Alaska for the summer. It was a week before my birthd

Just because of how the timing worked out, we needed to stay at a hostel for a couple days after the rooftop campsite and before our next stay (which I’ll tell you about shortly). So we found a cheap place in Chinatown and spent some time exploring. Our biggest money and time savers we’ve used during our travels have been #1 Google Maps: an obviously amazing tool, but made even more amazing by their seemingly unlimited knowledge of local bus routes, subway fares, and activity

(This is part 1 of a 2-part series) After three months in Hawaii, we decided it was time for a change of scenery. And with a goal to work our way back to Maine for Christmas, we knew exactly which way to point our compass. Looking for the cheapest flights to the mainland, we chose LA for our first stop. Talk about culture shock. Coming from a small paradise that runs on island time and coconuts, to the hustle culture capital of the world was like bringing a caveman to Times S

It’s no secret that Hawai’i is a beautiful and enchanting place. The ocean is rarely out of earshot. We’ve seen sea turtles on our beach trips more times than not. The beaches are pristine, and the palm trees sway in rhythm. They lull you to sleep on the song of an island breeze. As we were riding the bus yesterday, one side of the road was lined by a white sand beach and the other was a breathtaking view of the mountains, all dressed up in their Sunday green. Pictures never

The Aloha Life - Working on the North Shore of Oahu (Aug. 1st to Sept. 30, two months) (Disclaimer: this blog was written a couple weeks prior to uploading. I’ve since left Hawaii, which I'll discuss in a later post. For now, enjoy!) We’ve been working at Backpackers Hawaii, a hostel on the north shore of Oahu, since the beginning of August. We don’t quite feel like locals, yet we aren’t exactly tourists either. We’re working at a local business, buying groceries from a local

Where to begin? So much has happened in such a short amount of time, so many beautiful and powerful moments - to try to compile them all in a single blog post would be an insult. I suppose I’ll start by first giving a rundown and a quick update as to where we’re at now. We arrived on Oahu on June 23rd, spent a week living the tourist life, then worked on a farm on the west side of the island. We stayed for the month of July, making amazing friends, seeing new ones come and o

(Disclaimer: sorry it's been a while since I've posted a blog. Living on the farm has had me a lot busier than I was expecting. I wrote this a couple days after arriving, but didnt have time to finish/edit/post it. Thanks for being patient!) We rolled up to the dirt road of an arts and cultural village and farm in Waianae, Oahu. As we passed broken down cars and ramshackle chicken coops, our Uber driver nervously asked us if we were sure this was the right place. Jasper poi

Now that everyone is re-emerging bleary-eyed into the world again, a lot of people have wondered what will happen as we move into the post-pandemic era, specifically to the travel industry. Since most of us have been stuck in our screen riddled caves for a year and a half, we’re getting restless with cabin fever and want to get out there when we can. That was a big reason why Jasper and I chose to live nomadically. But the question always comes: how is COVID affecting our abi

Finally. We made it. After 14 hours of ass-numbing plane seats, we pulled onto the palm tree lined tarmac. Honolulu smelled humid and sweet, like Coppertone. As we made our way through the airport, all the anxiety of traveling faded into excitement. We were finally here. Our plan was to pick up our rented camper van at a self storage place. We talked to an uber driver for about 30 minutes about the insanity of Hawaii traffic. 6-7 lane highways, navigating weird exits and over

As many people my age have probably said at one point or another, I kind of like the idea of living in a van. A symbol of the hippie movement of the 60s and 70s, van life has reemerged into the mainstream as a preferable alternative to the more traditional ways of dwelling. Many consider van living as a more sustainable, slow pace lifestyle that values being closer to nature and minimizing consumption; things that drew me to it as well. I got my first taste of van living this

Packing, I suppose, is the first signal of transition. At least to me. Between all of the moving I've done in the past few years, from one apartment to another, never before have I taken packing so seriously. Due to the extreme downsizing I'm doing, from a 600 square foot apartment to a suitcase, the economy of my possessions has been weighing greatly on my mind. Each item has a new price tag to me - of either sentimental, useful, or financial value - and if something doesn't

Last year at this time I was grieving the loss of my memere (my grandmother). She had a huge hand in raising me and she is present in many of my childhood memories, most of the pleasant ones anyway. Now I'm leaving everything behind to travel the world. The decision wasn't necessarily sparked by her passing, though the notion of our brief mortality perhaps kept my motivation stoked within the embers. Instead, there were many reasons that influenced me a year ago, when I start