Hi and welcome to my blog! I’m Kathleen, and I’m a solo female traveler and digital nomad. I’ve visited 31 countries and counting so far – and made far more memories than I could ever count. I travel mostly solo and seek out great food, ancient history, local experiences, and the best books wherever I go with my little backpack.
Who I am and what I do
- I’m originally from Boston, but I’ve been traveling and living abroad since 2018 with no plans to go back!
- I work online as a freelance writer – I don’t love the term digital nomad, but I haven’t found anything better to describe what I do.
- I traveled the world solo for a year in 2018-2019!
- Now I live in Athens, Greece full time after getting the new Greek digital nomad visa in 2022.
- When I do travel these days I still mostly go solo, and tend to explore Europe.
My solo travel story
I’ve always been interested in traveling – my grandparents went to every continent, and I’d dream about doing the same when I grew up. And I did a bit of traveling after college to Ireland and France – but then it got harder.
My friends and family were always either too broke or too busy to go with me, so I decided to start traveling alone. I spent a weekend in Iceland by myself, and then a week in Denmark alone, and found it was scary at first but then so, so freeing. (I practiced getting braver at traveling alone!)
Finally, I decided to put a date on this dream I had of quitting my job to travel someday – and that someday became September 2018.
I quit my corporate job to give me time to explore the world without the pressure of working. I went to 24 countries on 3 continents, all by myself, and my life was completely changed. Some of my favorite experiences in that year were falling in love with Greece for the first time, celebrating the unusual holiday of Nyepi Day in Bali, exploring Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, and walking all the way across England in my final week on the road.
This blog began during that trip as a way to write about the experiences I was having so my friends and family could follow along with me – and it became another new love I found on the road.
Becoming a digital nomad
After that year of travel, I knew I couldn’t go back to my corporate job in Boston or my settled life there. I decided I would become a freelance writer and move to Greece, and in the fall of 2019 I did just that.
I’ve always loved reading and writing – obsessively, in fact. (I read more than 100 books in my year of traveling!) And all of my jobs since college have been based primarily around writing, so I had a good base to build my freelance writing business from. It wasn’t easy, but I’ve managed to make it into a successful and sustainable business doing what I love.
Of course, my digital nomad life got put on pause when 2020…occurred (lol), but I headed to Split, Croatia in the summer and ended up getting temporary residency and staying there for a year. It’s a year I’m grateful for, as I became even more determined to make living abroad my life for the foreseeable future (and I made many friends for life too).
Where I live now
Since I don’t have an EU passport, living in Europe full-time involves some very fun short-term residency applications (thanks, Greece and Croatia, for making that as painful as possible!).
I am happily settled in Athens full-time as of 2022 after giving up the digital nomad life. While it was a wonderful 3 years of living and working on the go, it’s also lovely to buy full-sized shampoo bottles and have friends I see all year round too.
Fortunately, Athens is a great base for exploring all of Europe, so I’m not done traveling! Now I just have a home to back to when my trip is over.
And my hope for this blog is it enables you to find what you love as well and encourages you to pursue the life you’ve dreamed of. What will you do with your one wild and precious life? I hope it’s exploring whatever brings you joy – a new country, a new book, a new friend, an ancient ruin, or just a really delicious meal.
Thanks for reading!