About Steph

Hi, I’m Steph. I grew up in a town of about 350 people in rural southern Utah. Before graduate school, I had flown exactly one round trip in my entire life.

Now? I work in a demanding corporate leadership role in a high-pressure industry, I’m a single mom to a hilarious, strong-willed little girl, and somewhere along the way I stopped waiting to become “the kind of person who travels” and started building travel into the life I already had.

That life has included making it to Asia five times in two years, walking solo across Spain on the Camino Portugués Coastal, and learning how to make adventure work even when life refuses to cooperate.

The excuses are real. I go anyway.

This blog exists because there are always reasons not to go. A demanding career. Kids. Budget concerns. Anxiety. Not knowing how. Feeling like “travel people” are somehow different than you. I know what it feels like to think travel belongs to “other people.”

I didn’t grow up traveling. I’m not independently wealthy. I’m not taking six weeks off to disappear into Europe and reinvent myself in linen pants. I have deadlines, logistics, school pickup schedules, conference calls, and a calendar that occasionally feels personally offensive.

And yet — I go anyway. Travel stopped feeling like something reserved for richer, freer, more adventurous people — and started feeling like something I could build into a real life. That doesn’t mean reckless spontaneity. It means resourceful adaptability.

How I travel

I’ve become very good at building extraordinary experiences inside ordinary constraints: limited PTO, complicated schedules, budgets, school calendars, flight chaos, and plans that don’t always cooperate.

I’m a high-low traveler: lie-flat seat when the strategy works, private hostel room when it doesn’t. Luxury where it matters, budget where it doesn’t. I optimize for experience, not status.

I travel to experience places, not escape life. You’ll rarely find me at resorts. I care about local food, neighborhood cafés, walking tours with actual humans, weird museums, train rides, bookstores, pilgrimage routes, and figuring out what everyday life feels like somewhere else.

What you’ll find here

• Honest trip costs (not influencer math)
• Solo female travel advice without fearmongering
• AI-powered trip planning strategies
• Standby, points, budget, and “travel access” angles for real people
• High-low travel frameworks that make expensive trips more realistic
• Guides for ambitious, busy people who still want adventure

If you’ve ever thought: “I want to travel, but…” — you’re in the right place. Because there are always reasons not to go. And maybe the biggest lie is believing adventure belongs to people with more money, more freedom, more time, or fewer responsibilities. It doesn’t.

Sometimes, it belongs to people who are tired, busy, anxious, overbooked — and willing to go anyway.