About Rachel

Hey, I’m Rachel!

And I quit my job to travel. Yeah, another one of those…

Welcome to the blog! Here you can read my posts about travel, life on the road, and food (yeah, mostly food). You might also enjoy watching me figure out how to sustain a life of budget travel while working from a laptop. Honesty, snark, and sarcasm included totally free!

Check back often to see the places I go, what I’m doing, and what I’m eating. It should be interesting because two years of travel later, I STILL have no idea when I’ll be going home!

And of course, I love to cook and eat… Naturally, I take a lot of food pics.

This blog is for you if you need some inspiration for your travels or just wanna hear my totally honest thoughts about life in transit, budgeting, being cheap, and generally uprooting your whole life voluntarily. And I’ll be real with you about how things change once you leave home for a while!

Some background info on me if you’re still reading:

I was working as a lawyer in Raleigh, North Carolina before deciding to hell with it, I’m young and I want to travel, so dammit let’s do it (you can read more about that here). I’m from a small town in Eastern North Carolina, but I’ve been constantly trying to see more of the world one way or another.

I decided to make that happen, like, now.

How am I paying for this? What is my job?

So I saved up A LOT before I quit my lawyer life. I also travel to cheaper countries, and nowadays, I’m moving a lot slower. The idea was always to budget about $50 per day, including accommodation.

About those countries: I left for South America in October 2015 and spent about three months there before flying to Southeast Asia where I traveled for half of 2016. As per the original travel plan, I headed to Europe and then went home… for a brief visit. The plan took a bit of a detour here. Not wanting to stay home – hey, I had money left! – I flew to Nepal and India for a couple months. After spending more time in Thailand and Malaysia for the holidays, it was on to New Zealand in 2017 for five months of traveling in a station wagon with a tent and housesitting gigs, making it shockingly affordable.

Then, oh, you know, Thailand, Portugal, England, home to North Carolina for a hot minute, and back out to Europe… where I am now. What’s next? Mexico, South America, maybe back to Southeast Asia – who knows?!

So to answer your question, I budget, I’m cheap, I save, and I slowed down a lot. Before I ran my savings dry, I also started working (gasp! I know!) as a copywriter and blogger for other businesses.

A few other things worth noting about me (now you’re definitely not reading anymore):

I love spicy food, day drinking, small plates, warm weather, and meeting new people from far away places. I’m always down for steak tartare, Thai food, and fancy hot dogs (you know, the kind with lots of fun toppings). I prefer to wear jean shorts and eat street food… simultaneously if that’s an option. I love the beach and I’m really into markets and all the snacks you can find in them.

About Me - Trailing Rachel

During undergrad, I studied abroad in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and it got me hooked on the idea of international travel, not to mention international cuisine. Then I did the whole law school thing (was it a mistake? maybe). After taking the bar exam, I headed to Thailand for a short trip and it sparked in me this idea of long-term travel. I had this unshakable desire to see new places around the world, and after two years of lawyering and an unhealthy amount of travel blog reading, I decided I should just go.

I have zero regrets.