Passport Full, Heart Fuller: My Life on the Road

I caught the travel bug when I was a little girl. I was the kid pleading and bargaining to tag along on my parents’ business trips, happy to sit in a hotel lobby with a coloring book if it meant waking up somewhere new. When I was about ten, I finally got my first big international trip: Italy, my homeland. I’m a proud Italian-American girl, part Italian and part Scandinavian, and those roots run deep. I still remember my grandmother’s stories suddenly coming to life around every cobblestone corner, and the feeling that I belonged to something much bigger than my hometown. That trip planted a seed that has never stopped growing.

At fifteen, I took my first international trip on my own, a journey across Southeast Asia that genuinely changed my entire world. I wandered through Bangkok’s night markets, watched the sun rise over the temples of Angkor in Cambodia, and drifted past golden pagodas in Myanmar, all while learning how to navigate a place where I didn’t speak the language and had to trust strangers and my own instincts. I came home a different person: more curious, more open, and completely hooked. Since that summer, I’ve traveled to multiple countries every single year. As early as high school, I waited tables and put every dime toward my next trip, and as I got older, picked up work trades in exchange for a bed, and signed up for service trips that let me give back while I explored.

College opened even more doors. I studied abroad in multiple locations, spending a semester soaking up art and history in Florence and another living in Barcelona, where I learned to eat dinner at 10 p.m. like a local. I also joined service trips abroad, helping build classrooms in rural Cambodia and supporting reforestation projects in the cloud forests of Costa Rica. Alongside my studies, I landed internships with think tanks and research groups focused on humanitarian and environmental issues, and that work took me into communities and landscapes I never would have reached as a tourist. Those experiences taught me that the best way to see a place is to show up ready to listen, learn, and lend a hand.

After graduation, I took a gap year before starting grad school, and it was the adventure of a lifetime. In twelve months, I added twelve new countries to my list. I went on safari in Kenya and Tanzania, swam in the impossibly turquoise water off Zanzibar, met lemurs in the forests of Madagascar, and island-hopped through Mauritius and the Seychelles. I hiked Table Mountain in South Africa, got lost in the souks of Marrakech, floated over Cappadocia in a hot-air balloon, and wandered the Greek islands and the golden streets of Malta. I closed out the year in South America, dancing through Rio and standing in awe on the salt flats of Bolivia, where the sky and the ground blur into one endless mirror.

Once I became a yoga teacher, Southeast Asia called me back. I spent significant time in Bali teaching yoga and deepening my own studies, practicing in open-air shalas surrounded by rice terraces, learning from local teachers, and slowing down in a way that reshaped how I teach and how I live. Indonesia still feels like a second home to me.

What I love most about travel is that it fills every part of me. I love immersing myself in new cultures, offering a helping hand in places that need it, and chasing adventure, whether that’s scuba diving, hiking volcanoes, surfing, or ziplining through the jungle. Most of all, I love simply exploring our beautiful planet and being reminded how big, diverse, and generous it is. Italy will always hold a special place in my heart because of my roots, but I’m equally in love with Indonesia and Southeast Asia, and with the color, music, and warmth of South and Central America. Honestly, there’s no place I don’t enjoy exploring. And I’m nowhere near done.

Where I’ve Been (So Far)

Europe: Italy (including Sardinia, Sicily, Ischia, and more, ), Vatican City, France, Monaco, Switzerland, Spain (including Mallorca and Ibiza), Gibraltar, Malta, Greece, Germany, Ukraine, Norway, Finland, Portugal, Hungary, Austria, Croatia Africa & the Indian Ocean: Morocco, Kenya, Tanzania, Zanzibar, South Africa, Madagascar, Mauritius, Seychelles Asia: Thailand, Cambodia, Myanmar, Indonesia, Singapore, Turkey, Laos The Americas & Caribbean: USA, Mexico, Costa Rica, Cuba, Belize, Guatemala, Grand Cayman, Aruba, Brazil, Bolivia