profiles : The Art of Non-Conformity

Profiles

All-Female Film Crew Hikes 338 Miles of the California Aqueduct

This is a quest case study. (Read others or nominate yourself.)

Drought is on the minds of every Californian these days, but Samantha Bode took the water shortage a step further. First, she began to think about the water of Los Angeles itself—where it comes from, and why. This thinking led her on an exciting journey.

My name is Samantha. This summer, I'm backpacking all 338 miles of the Los Angeles aqueduct, from Owens Valley in Inyo County to Upper Van Norman Lake in Granada Hills.
The city of LA gets most of its water from hundreds of miles away, often leaving ecological destruction in its wake. On top of that, California is experiencing its worst drought on record, and people are not conserving water at the rate they need to in order to preserve this resource they need to live.
We’re taking the journey and making a documentary, The Longest Straw, to raise awareness of water importation and management. We hope to encourage people to form a personal connection with their water by seeing where it comes from.

Profiles

“We Don’t Know What it’s Like Not to Travel”: On the Road with Sarah Glashegal and Scott Haywood

Sarah and Scott are at an exciting time in their lives: after incorporating regular travel into their routing, they're now transitioning from a rooted life in America to a more nomadic lifestyle. Here's their story.

I’m Sarah, and my partner is Scott. We met several years ago and fell in love - not just with each other, but also with the realization that we could fulfill lifetime dreams of traveling the world with the one we love.

We've lived mostly in the Midwestern U.S., but Scott recently took a job teaching at a middle school on the island of Eleuthera in The Bahamas, where I’ll soon move full-time.

One of our passions has been learning about the work of artisans we meet in our travels. This turned into an online business called From Around the Globe to help these artisans reach a wider audience. In doing this, we’re actually aligning with our core values: to be respectful, caring, and helpful members of the world community.

Profiles

Going Back to Kindergarten at Age 28: Melia Dicker’s Quest

This is a quest case study. (Read others or nominate yourself.)

Have you ever wanted to go back to part of your school days knowing what you know now? In her part-Billy Madison style, part-personal development quest, Melia Dicker did just that.

I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. As a kid, I loved to write stories and draw, but as I got older, I began to focus on school at the expense of everything else. I put immense pressure on myself to get perfect grades and test scores.
I operated under the assumption that doing well in school would lead to a life as a happy, self-assured, and financially stable adult. But six years out of college, I realized that I was none of those things. The habits that had made me an excellent student were the very habits that made me terrible at being an autonomous adult.

Profiles

A Traveler Who Loves Coming Home: On the Road with Megan Cain

This is a traveler case study. (Read others or nominate yourself.)

I love finding people who are able to incorporate travel into their lives without making it their whole life. Here's how Megan Cain has done just that.

After college, I lived in San Francisco before packing up and moving to a rural, 100-person town in Missouri to live at an eco-village and learn how to garden. I felt a pull towards growing my own food. My move was a leap of faith that changed my life forever. I lived in a 90-square-foot cabin, met my future husband, and started the basis of a career in sustainable living. Mark and I are now have jobs, enjoy owning a home and being rooted in Madison, Wisconsin, while incorporating longer travel adventures into our lives.

Profiles

“I am capable of more than I imagined”: On the Road with Elizabeth Glanzer

After experiencing many travel misadventures around the world, I love hearing other people's "silver linings" stories. This one (and other stories, too) comes from Elizabeth Glanzer in Los Angeles.

I'm a therapist and work with teens and young adults who feel misunderstood and out of place. I study psychoanalysis and neuroscience every chance I get.
Traveling is one of my favorite things to do. For me, it pulls everything together and shatters blind spots. People, culture, art, and "normal" is all relative when I go abroad, and I appreciate the ability to see how someone else lives and thinks.

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Profiles

“I’m not running away, I’m running toward”: On the Road with Luke Armstrong

When we talked to Luke, he told us, “At the age of sixteen I wrote in my journal: 'Tonight, when I was driving home, I had the desire to point The Bronco in one direction and just keep going and going and going.'”

Many travelers will relate to his stories.

After I ditched my return ticket in Chile and took out a student loan to finance hitchhiking from South America to Alaska, people said, “You’re crazy!” I replied, “So was Columbus!” They insisted, “This is so financially unsound!” I cried, “So were The Pyramids!”
I joke sometimes that eight years ago I went to South America and I never came back. Really, it means I performed some paperwork magic to graduate early and created a path that was there for me to take or not.

Profiles

Exploring Global Subcultures from New Orleans to Tokyo: On the Road with La Carmina

This is a traveler case study. (Read others or nominate yourself.)

A law student turned global storyteller, La Carmina has put her love of seeing the world through a subculture lens into books, articles, and television. Her stories just might inspire you to see your travels a little differently.

I'm La Carmina, a Goth girl from Vancouver, Canada. I started my travel and fashion blog in 2007 while studying at Yale Law. I loved connecting with people online, and sharing my passion for subcultures and alternative beauty around the world.
Over time, my site grew from a hobby into full-time opportunities I never imagined: publishing books, writing for CNN Travel, and hosting TV shows on networks like Travel Channel, Discovery and National Geographic.
Recently, I've put my focus on travel-related projects. My film team and I visit about one destination each month, and tell stories that appeal to millennial travelers—such as Korean cat cafes, Budapest music festivals, Cape Town drag queens, and Israel indie designers.

Profiles

Around the World on a Yellow Motorcycle: Leon Logothetis’ Quest

This is a quest case study. (Read others or nominate yourself.)

Some people like a challenge. Some like a really big challenge.

Leon Logothetis went for big when he decided to travel around the world, fueled only by the kindness of people he'd never met.

I was born in London, where I worked as a broker. But I felt disconnected and uninspired with my pursuit of a traditional life. So I quit my job and moved to America.
My quest was to travel from Los Angeles all the way around the world, returning to LA, on my vintage yellow motorbike named Kindness One. There was a twist: I had to make it around the globe without money. I had to ask for help from people I met along the way.
The journey was not just about my traveling the world on the kindness of strangers. I also wanted to show that by truly committing to living our dreams, anything is possible.

Profiles

The Art of Unplanned Travel: On the Road with Carole Rosenblat

This is a traveler case study. (Read others or nominate yourself.)

A quester and traveler, Carole Rosenblat decided to take a deep dive into rarely explored territory: the art of unplanned travel. She runs a blog and lets her readers choose where she travels, giving herself only a few days to get from one place to another.

I write as I travel so readers - who I call my Virtual Travel Buddies - get to be on the road with me. I include readers in on my quirky observations and my challenges and mistakes along the way (I get lost a lot).
While traveling, I find organizations or projects with which to volunteer and I profile them on my philanthropic site, Rebel With a Cause, to give them exposure to a wider audience.

Profiles

Writing a Three-Line Poem Every Day for a Year: Yvonne Whitelaw’s Quest

As I wrote in The Happiness of Pursuit, a quest need not be an athletic struggle or travel adventure. I loved this story of how this former medical resident wrote a haiku every day for a year.

I'm Yvonne Whitelaw. I was born in Britain, but raised in Nigeria and the United States. I’m a stay at home mom and former physician. I decided to tweet a haiku a day for 365 days, even though I barely knew what a haiku was and had never actually written one.

Interestingly, the practice of daily haiku writing has helped my ADD. Haikus have trained me to focus and express myself succinctly.

Profiles

“Happiness Depends on You”: On the Road with Scott Bold and Michelle Eshleman

This is a traveler case study. (Read others or nominate yourself.)

Dreams can change, as was the case of Scott Bold's childhood dream. The younger Scott wanted a good job and decent salary, but his adult self wanted something else. So along with his girlfriend Michelle Eshleman, they set out on a different course.

"After I achieved everything I had dreamed of as a child - a nice car, high-paying job, good friends, fancy meals, and gadgets - I still wasn’t happy. I looked at everyone higher up than me at my job and didn’t see my happiness reflected there (not to mention they didn’t seem happy, either).
So I questioned what made me happy, and realized what I wanted was freedom, new experiences, and exploration."

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Profiles

30 Peaks Before Age 30: Ashley Gossen’s Quest

This is a quest case study. (Read others or nominate yourself.)

In The Sound of Music, Mother Reverend sang "Climb every mountain." We're not suggesting that was Ashley Gossen's inspiration for tackling 30 peaks before her 30th birthday—but it came to mind when we heard her story.

I've been fascinated by mountains and the outdoors since I was a little girl growing up in rural Pennsylvania. As I got older, I dreamed about moving west and spending time in the beautiful places I only ever saw on television. When my dream became a reality, and my then-boyfriend (now husband) and I moved to Seattle, I became hooked on hiking. Spinning on that love, I decided to hike 30 peaks before I turned 30, the last peak being on my actual birthday.

Profiles

No Money, But a Rich Life: On the Road with Nate Maingard

This is a traveler case study. (Read others or nominate yourself.)

What's it like to live and work as a nomadic, traveling musician who relies on crowd-sourced support? We found a guy doing exactly that. Here are his stories from three continents and counting.

I was raised barefoot and wild on the tip of South Africa, in a little village called Scarborough. My early days were spent in my father’s guitar making workshop as he crafted some of the world's top custom guitars.
My boundaries were the ocean and the mountain, and my whole life has been shaped by those first years of raw nature and unfettered adventure.

Profiles

The Amazing Marriage Adventure: Liz and Ryan Bower’s Quest

Liz and Ryan Bower are wedding photographers who believe in the marriages they document—and not just that first special day. They noticed that champions who might share the realities of life-long partnerships seemed to be few and far between.

They decided to hop in an RV and find true stories of loving marriages to share from every state of America.

We are millennials, story-tellers, wedding photographers, and dream believers. Most of all, we believe in helping to create amazing marriages that stand the test of time.
Our love of love dates back to our teenage years. We were high school sweethearts with an entrepreneurial spirit and a passion to live a more meaningful life. So we started a photography business, Liz and Ryan. Six years later, and after 100 weddings captured, we realized there is a lot of hype surrounding weddings, but not a lot of hype surrounding marriages.
This eventually led to our quest: The Amazing Marriage Adventure. For 2015, we are living in an RV and traveling the U.S. to document at least one married couple’s story in all 50 states. Along the way, we’ll host couples' coffee-shop meetups to encourage community and truly open the lines of communication in celebration of marriage.

Profiles

Travels With a Hospitality Career Consultant: On the Road with Kimberly Ramsawak

This is a traveler case study. (Read others or nominate yourself.)

Tell us about yourself.

I’m a career consultant specializing in the tourism and hospitality, and I'm a passionate advocate for people of color in this industry. A common misconception is that industry jobs are only available at hotels, airlines or agencies—with really low pay.

As a result I started Tourism Exposed, an online career development community that shows students and professionals how to break into the travel industry. While doing this since I was 23, I have traveled to over eighty cities across five continents.

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