Some places always feel like coming home. But for me, home has never been a box with rooms, a yard, and white picket fences. For me, home is when I’m on top of a mountain, wandering down a dirt path, or swimming in the boundless ocean. Places where the world’s distractions and expectations quietly fade into the distant background and I’m able to remind myself of who I was before the world told me who I should be.
MY story starts here….
If I could speak to my teenage self, I would tell her that she was wrong about a lot of things. She was weighed down by the American dream which she mistakenly understood to mean that if you worked hard enough, you would have the life you wanted. Studying hard and getting that masters degree would guarantee a good job. And a successful life comes from a successful career, because in a country where work hours are long and vacation days are non-existent, your career becomes your life, no? It wasn’t that she lacked passion, but she kept a scary amount of it bubbled up inside of her and was too afraid to fully embrace it. I mean, how could she break her parent’s hearts? Two Vietnamese speaking immigrants who were able to raise a daughter in a new, strange place with limited resources and no American education.
Teenage me was taught to think that life would be scary without a plan. Now, the thought of sticking to one scares me. The world is too big, too complex, and too alluring to settle down into one corner of it. The version of me today has learned that pursuing a passion is a matter of making your passion your world, traveling and widening your horizons. Those prestigious jobs are better left for someone trying to achieve their dream career rather than a girl who’s going to spend half her work day dreaming about deserts and mountains, cobbled streets and crowded cities anyway.
The teenage me would be horrified at the life I’m living now but I hope the middle-aged me wouldn’t mind it too much.
My Mission…
If you open yourself up to the world, it opens itself up to you.
The goal of this non-profit project is to allow you to see the world through the eyes of the local people and to support all the amazing guides around the globe, all that I have had the pleasure of meeting first hand.
Currently, I am putting my career in wildlife rehabilitation on hold to explore every landscape on planet earth, learning about the beauty of each country and it’s people along the way.
If you are open to changing your normal way of travel. to go off the grid. to be willing to be uncomfortable. to not be afraid to eat what the locals do. to not be afraid to get dirty. to chase sleepless nights. to get hurt. to be sick. to explore places that so little people know about. to be wrong. to grow. to change. To bring the world closer together than any man made border. Then let me curate something for you.
This project holds such a special place in my heart and I am so humbled to help make these local’s dreams a reality.
Join me as I see the world through the eyes of the local people, with our hearts wide open and wherever our stomachs take us.
