Short Story
I’m Lauren and I’m a freelancer, digital nomad, artist and travel lover. 👋🏼 My passion for travel started when I was very young and grew from there. I got my degree in tourism, started a freelance career and have travelled many places since whether it be solo travel, with friends and family, or with my husband, who I happened to meet at the beach. I started the Inspired Backpacker travel blog to inspire others to travel more often for personal growth, peace, education and of course, because it’s so much fun. Enjoy!
Long Story
I’ve always had dreams of exploring as much of the world as I can. My favorite books growing up were the Magic Treehouse books, Harry Potter and the Fodor’s travel books lol. I would go to the library, browse through all the travel books, and then always end up finding the latest Fodor’s book about Disney World. After I brought a new one home, for some reason I would then rewrite them in my own notebooks as little guides. Clearly I’ve been interested in being a travel writer for a long time now!
My family travelled to the Outer Banks about once a year, which became my happy place, and each time that week at the beach came to an end I was so sad. I was lucky enough to get to travel to Disney World many times while I growing up, and my friend’s families would bring me with them on trips to places like Lake Anna in VA, Fort Lauderdale, Myrtle Beach, Vegas and Grand Cayman, where we swam with stingrays and my love of boats began. To supplement my travels I would decorate my room with a bunch of beachy and travel inspired stuff.
Watching a few of my friends travel internationally often made me super envious. I love how challenging and rewarding it is to acclimate to a new culture, and that even sounded great to me back then. I used to look up Penpal programs without success after hearing about a penpal my mom had when she was younger.
I started to want to do group trips at an age before it was normal and natural to do them. There was a tradition at the high school I went to where all of the seniors would head down to Myrtle Beach for beach week, and that was wild. There were more beach trips that year when we could find hotels that would allow bookings by people under 21, but also a few trips that consisted partially of sleeping in the car (lol).
Once college came around I was thinking of doing the Disney college program, but it didn’t end up panning out because I was worried about leaving too many things behind. I think that was a good choice. There’s only so many times you can go to Disney before it gets old (intense Disney fans don’t hate me!).
I decided to go with a Business degree at college to make sure I could earn a good enough living to fuel my future travel. I was close to graduating with my accounting degree when I decided to take on a second degree of Tourism and Parks / Recreation, which took an extra year to complete. That was a great decision and it’s led a big part of my life ever since! For my capstone project I created a mountain biking video to promote the local tourism office.
Once I had the time, experience and money (kinda) to travel outside the US, I would go on cruises as often as possible, since it was the easiest way to travel internationally without overspending. I was so incredibly happy on every one of them and felt like they were big adventures. I couldn’t understand why some people don’t like cruises. I still love cruises so much to this day but I can imagine why some people don’t lol.
After I graduated with my Tourism degree, I had an internship at a local luxury resort and golf course which I absolutely loved. After that I took the traditional path of working for a corporation 9:00 to 5:00 as a meeting planner, also booking travel for the executives and taking on an executive assistant + lots of hats type of role. Eventually this turned into a marketing position, where I ran ads and performed analytics for multiple clients.
This job ended up being very intense, and to compensate I travelled as much as I could on the weekend. There were countless music festivals and road trips. I absolutely love music and always have, and this was one of the best times of my life for sure. Some places I checked off my bucket list were NYC, Las Vegas, Coachella and Palm Springs, Nashville, New Orleans, San Francisco and the Bahamas. I also went to the one and only TomorrowWorld festival that happened in Georgia, which got flooded out.
After a few fast paced years at this company, the intensity of the nonstop schedule and the desire to travel more frequently outweighed the unknown and my fear of instability. I decided to try freelancing, using my skills I learned at the marketing agency job, and started trying to find odd jobs on Upwork. It ended up working and even being slightly easier than I thought.
I quit my job in 2018 and started Inspired Assistance, which is my freelance business, and I’ve been location independent ever since. (P.S. if you want to learn how to start a freelance business yourself, check out my freelance site inspiredassistance.com or reach out!)
It was the best decision I ever made, as a few of my values are creativity, novelty and freedom. I also have some long term autoimmune issues and anxiety, that aren’t super serious but do take up a lot of time and energy. Freelancing has allowed me to take care of my health while finding new projects whenever I want, and to be creative both in my work and by directing my life the way I want it to be. My life is not dictated by my employer, politics and relationships at the office, who I work with and what the company is wants me to do.
After I knew my freelancing business was solid and wouldn’t fall through, I started to plan some travel and look at tips on how to be a digital nomad. I didn’t know where to start and for a while I planned on doing Remote Year, which would have eliminated a lot of the planning. Remote Year would’ve been amazing, but it wasn’t the right choice financially as someone who had recently dove into a freelance career. Instead I decided to travel on my own and I landed on Bali as the best place to go first!
While I was on a trip with my friends to Hawaii, which was the trip of a lifetime, I decided it would be a good time to try a hostel before I stayed at one internationally. Instead of going home with them I extended my trip and booked the The Beach Waikiki Hostel. I vividly remember checking in, settling into the bunk and before I had even met anyone or doing anything I was thinking how great of a decision this was. I felt at home right from the moment I checked in! Over the ten days I was there I bonded with my bunkmates, spent every night up on the rooftop lounge area playing Jenga with strangers that felt more like friends, explored the island, learned how to travel solo and on the 9th day I realized everyone I had met was already gone and I was ready to go home. I was also so excited for my upcoming solo travel trip to Bali and the possibility of starting a travel blog.
After months of planning I set off for the two day journey to Indonesia! My flight in itself was an adventure because I had never flown through the LA airport lol or on an intercontinental flight, but I found my 8-hour journey was much much easier than I had been anticipating.
I distinctly remember the ride to the first hostel when I got in around 10:00pm. The trees wizzing by made it look like I was in the jungle and another world. When I pulled up to the hostel, I noticed a fun group of people and after not too long we all ended up being travel buddies for the first half of my trip.
Bali was the best adventure where I experienced tons of connection with fellow travelers around the world and saw beautiful places, while continuing to maintain my freelance clients and also start my travel blog, obtaining a more open mind, a wordly view and happy heart. I also learned so much about myself and about manifesting / the power of intentional and positive thinking. I wouldn’t change it for the world and I never want the magic of it to fade. I wish everyone could have the experience I did!
When my time in Bali was up, I was very ready to go home because I had my body needed to heal and mentally I was a little exhausted from the nonstop tasks of finding accommodations and 24/7 socializing. My initial idea was going to be to head to South America after I felt ready but plans changed.
Before leaving for Bali I had met a guy named Greg while I was on my best friend’s bachelorette and he was on a group trip to Dewey Beach. We went on a few dates and had a great time, and then continued to text and Snapchat throughout the summer while I was away sporadically. The day I got back I went to spend time with him, and everything went so well that I stayed home to give it a shot. Now Greg is my husband! Since he also loves to travel and experience new things, I knew we could adventure together and we did right away.
Greg and I went on our first trip together a few months into our relationship and since then we’ve done too many trips to count, where we explored underground cave rivers alongside bats in Mexico, zip-lined through the forests of the Dominican Republic, swam in sparkling cenotes in Tulum, explored U.S. cities together like Charleston and Nashville, climbed the Sedona mountains, landed on the screensaver-worthy Soana Island and much much more. Greg is a doer and loves being out in nature, especially in the mountains, and I’m a beach person, so our preferences get each other out of our comfort zones and makes it so we’re always going to a great mix of places.
Greg and I got married in 2023 and had our honeymoon in the amazing Greek islands. After our honeymoon we put our stuff into storage so we could travel around the U.S. for a year while working remote. We stayed at Airbnbs in the cities we’ve wanted to see most. Having the chance to full time travel has been such a great adventure!
I started the Inspired Backpacker travel blog so that I can share information and stories from my travels and, more importantly, to inspire others to follow their dreams of traveling the world. I’m a firm believer in not waiting to travel until you’re retired and possibly too old or set in your ways to fully enjoy it. Get out there and explore all the beautiful places our earth has to offer and let it teach and guide you.
Follow my travel & digital nomad blog for travel guides and inspiration catered for passionate travelers, digital nomads, solo female travelers and anyone who likes to have fun and fully experience life. When I travel some of my favorite things to do are to get outdoors, experience the culture, join in events and festivities, live life as a local, see live music and dance, and try great food and cocktails.
I’d love to chat. If you’d like to reach out head to my contact page!
Inspired Backpacker In the Media
For more of my writing, you’ll find media I’ve been quoted in and more blogs I have written below!
– Lauren Kessel
Media Coverage:
I was named an expert in a Rent. article. Check out the featured article: Summer Things to Do in Charlotte | Rent.
Other Blogs:
I created and published all articles posted to the Inspired Self Discovery blog.
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