Our trip to Peru coincided with Inti Raymi or Sun Festival, a weeklong celebration during the Winter Solstice that dates back to the Inca. Because of this, crowds in Cusco were at their peak and many streets were shut down for the near-constant parades. The city was alive— full of noise and color and the…
I’ve been working really hard to find a sustainable way to make money working from my laptop, and one of my favorite projects so far has been self-publishing smut stories on Amazon. This is something I talked about doing for years, but I just never sat down to write. Let alone, learn how to design…
A few days ago I realized that I am literally living my dream. I had a really rough week where I wasn’t finding any gigs to even apply for, my Fiverr account got permanently disabled (don’t ask), I had my first day without any page reads on Amazon, and the substitute teaching jobs were all…
At the end of September, I quit my day job at a restaurant in New Zealand and committed to working online as a freelancer. I had a buffer, some savings, and 7 months left on my work visa if it all went badly, as well a substitute teaching gig where I could pick up shifts…
Hi, my name is Mandy and I’m a quitter. I quit jobs, relationships, books, subscriptions, hobbies, habits, and anything else. If something is not serving me, I will, eventually, see myself out. This is not to say that I give up at the first sign of trouble or that I can’t see the long-game. I…
Remember the time I almost got arrested hitchhiking in Egypt? 😬😬 I feel like it’s so hard to get friends to commit to plans. So many grand ideas never make it out of the chat. One of my favorite parts of travel is how many people are up for absolutely anything! A group of 5…
How do you break up with a town? I had ached to return to Gainesville– the swamp– my home for the last 12 years. I had missed my favorite haunts, meals I had dreamt of for months, pub quiz glory I had longed to relive, and yet… I felt my heart break a little when…
Hi, I’m Mandy! Last summer I packed up my classroom and headed out on my one year sabbatical to travel the world. I’ve started referring to it as my Grown Up Gap Year. I had been saving and planning this trip for 3 years, and it has been every bit as wonderful as I always…
“Aren’t you scared?” The number one question I get as a solo female traveler. First of all, yes. So scared. But I know I can do it because I’ve done it before. And like many people, it wasn’t my first choice. In 2019, after months and years of waiting for someone to have enough PTO,…
Free champagne from a bar in the sky? Yes, please. It’ll take a few days for everything to clear but very soon I should have enough credit card points for 2 business class tickets to Italy for only $206 cash. I’ve heard about travel hacking and credit card points for years but I, like many…