I grew up in Austin, Texas but currently live in Richmond, Virginia. I went to the University of Nebraska (Go Big Red!) where I studied journalism and urban planning. I have worked in all different sectors, but currently I work in commercial real estate, with a side job as a drone pilot and video editor.
My first taste of travel came at a young age, when my family would take road trips all across the country. We’d load up in the van and drive out to the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee, or out west to visit family in Nevada and California.
I took my first international trip when I was 15. My Spanish teacher took several of us on a three-week trip to Costa Rica for language immersion. We lived with Tico families in handbuilt houses, enjoyed beaches made entirely of crushed seashells, and got to witness a volcano erupt. While the language barrier could get tiring, the mosquitos were heinous even by Texas standards, and I just plain got homesick, I knew this was something I wanted to do more of.
Fast forward to today and I’ve been to four different continents, all out of one bag. I find that keeping my belongings down to one backpack keeps me light and saves me money. Hence my motto: “Lighten your load, free your mind.”
I actually started blogging under a different name in 2019, though I switched gears in 2023 to focus on one bag travel. And so One Bag Nomad was born!
While OneBagNomad.net focuses on one bag travel, I touch on other topics as well. See, in many ways, I’m the most unlikely traveler ever: I have social anxiety, ADD, I’m introverted, and I do not work a particularly well-paying job. All of this runs counter to what I have observed in my fellow travelers when I’m abroad. Particularly here in the US, rising costs and limited vacation time can keep a traveler at heart stuck at home.
The goal of this blog is to inspire and instruct those who want to see the world, but feel they can’t. I want to show that even if your budget and time are tight, you can still leave on adventures, both foreign and domestic.
