About Vivian

Since my first trip abroad in kindergarten, I’ve developed an oversized appetite for adventure, collecting stories, and a lot of fruit.

Hunger turned into addiction. I see travel as the best way to use my limited time and energy in this one life that I have. I simply need to be off in the corners of the world. Trying new things. My list of places to go is forever growing, never shrinking.

 

 

How can I keep living my life when I haven’t finished seeing how others live theirs?

I was lucky enough to have parents that cared about educating their children through raw experiences. It was important to them that my sister and I were exposed to travel from a young age.

Still, you grow up.

It was time to go solo.

No more waiting for someone to help me plan, to keep me safe. I can watch out for myself. In fact staying put would be the bring more harm to my well-being.

In 2015, I booked a flight to Nairobi, Kenya. After a great month spent stretching my comfort zone and learning about myself, I started taking cheap flights to Central and South America on any university holiday that I could get my hands on. Two days in El Salvador. Four days in Nicaragua. Guatemala. Three days hitchhiking Costa Rica.

I had become well aware that serious backpacking wasn’t a hobby, it was a lifestyle. I tried this out for 108 days the summer after my sophomore year, taking myself from coast to coast on the South American continent. After my junior year I spent 111 days eating my way through Southeast Asia. I was hooked.

Today, I am 25 years old. I am full-time nomading or hobo-ing or whatever.

Full-time everythinging.

More importantly, on the inside, I am full-time still the little girl who cares too much about her daily scoop(s) of ice cream. That shit is sacred.

I worked hard during school in order to hold on tight to some merit-based scholarships. Renting a small room in a flat with complimentary rats and roaches during my student days was a trivial sacrifice.

I always wanted nothing more than to stay true to myself and my dreams.

So I left.

I left to walk the earth.

I saw the opportunity in February 2018. Strapping on my 36L Osprey pack, I threw myself into the unknown. At the time I was a full-time university student enrolled in online classes for my last semester, just a few assignments away from receiving my not-apparently-useful degree (which I now possess, but have never seen nor held, and is dutifully collecting dust in my parents’ home).

I have no itinerary or commitments, just my scholarship savings. I am aiming for six years, but the time frame of my wanders is truly open-ended.

Welcome to my personal experiment to discover how my dream trip will impact who I am and what I do with my life.

Around the world. No pauses to catch my breath at home. With no more time constraints and a bachelor’s in nutritional sciences from a graduation that I didn’t attend, I finally feel free.

I figured I should start with trekking Patagonia before it gets too cold this season. A career in the world of medicine will simply have to be patient—glaciers are melting, Spanish needs practicing. When my wallet is empty and my heart is full, I will return to the United States, complete my medical education, and some day leave again, hopefully as a physician for Doctors Without Borders.

My travels are far from glamorous. They are naked and real. I live on a shoestring budget. Day or night, I am orienting myself to some foreign transportation system or watching for scams.

There is nothing to envy about hand-washing the same three shirts for months on end, or itching fresh bug bites for months on end as I melt into my own sweat on crammed public transportation.

And with the all challenges and uncertainties faced by solo female travelers, I wouldn’t have it any other way. This is me throwing away my fears so that I may see for myself. Think for myself.

This is me searching for the immense amounts of love that exist in all eight billion of us. This is me learning as much about Vivian as I do about what it means to be alive.