A bit more about me and why I started this blog

Hi, I’m Beth! I was born and raised here in NYC, which still remains my home base. I fell in love with traveling as a kid, but probably the biggest game changer for me was my first solo trip, going on a 6 week community service trip from South to North Vietnam, the summer before my senior year of high school.

My sobriety story is a very long blog post on it’s own, but 10 years ago I found myself deep in the throes of alcoholism. I found myself in jails and hospitals and even with stitches on my forehead from falling in the bathroom of a bar. Near the end of my drinking days, I hit a tree driving & flipped my car. It’s not a pretty or glamorous story and I am truly lucky to be alive. I’ll share more about my sober story, but most importantly, I want you to know that if you’re struggling with alcohol, newly sober or have been sober for a while, that you’re not alone!

A few years into my sobriety journey, I found myself missing my passion for travel. An opportunity fell in my lap (the beauty of sober life is that everything ALWAYS seems to just work out) to teach abroad in Bangkok, Thailand and about 3 weeks later I moved to Bangkok with no teaching experience and just 1 friend there. I hadn’t been to Bangkok since a layover on my way to Vietnam at 17 and as soon as I landed, I fell in love with Southeast Asia all over again. I made a ton of friends along the way, discovered an amazing community of sober friends in Bangkok and spent the next few years living my very best expat life and crossing a ton of bucket list places in Asia off my list.

Somtimes, I feel like my life should honestly be a book, because some of the things that have happened in my life are UNREAL, but I guess that’s what blogs are for. Here’s a cliffs note version of what happened next:

My first year living in Bangkok, the guy I had been dating on and off for the last 8 years flew from Louisville to Bangkok and proposed to me. This story also needs a blog post of it’s own, but long story short, I ended up moving back to the states after 2.5 years of Bangkok life. A few months after moving back to the states and moving in with my fiance, that relationship inevitably crumbled and I decided to move back home to NYC.

I only share this piece of my story, for 2 reasons. The first is simply because there is a part of me that thinks this part of my journey in life was important. It was a very unhealthy relationship and it has taken A LOT of work to recover from the damage done to both my confidence and self esteem during those years. I share this because I know there are other women out there who struggle with this, and I want you to know you’re not alone. I also found travel to be very therapeutic . Travel took me back to my roots and reminded me of who I was and what I’m passionate about.

The 2nd reason is because I although I got sober a few years into that relationship, my fiance never did. Sadly, my ex fiance passed away 2 years ago in 2022 from this disease. After years of watching him suffer, I never want to lose anyone else to this disease or see anyone else struggle with sobriety.

I promise to always share my experience, strength, and hope with you all and I mention this part, because whatever you are going through, I want you to know that you are STRONG and you can get through any obstacle through sobriety. There are so many times people have told me they’d drink over the things I have gone through in sobriety, but I am SO incredibly grateful that I know better than to pick up a drink to solve my problems.

Just as I settled into life back home in NYC, COVID hit, and all I could think about was how I wanted to be working remotely from Ubud in Bali (one of my favorite places EVER). COVID changed a lot of things, but in this new post COVID world, I am so incredibly grateful to be able to work remotely, most of the time. Since then, I have started to explore the world again - hitting several countries each year. Over the last several years, I visited Italy, Tunisia, France, Costa Rica, Morocco, Egypt, Turkey, Greece, Sint Maarten, Anguilla, St. Barthelemy, London, Norway, Amsterdam and Portugal. In total, I’ve made it to 30 official countries + several overseas “territories” so far and I truly hope to make it to every country in the world.

Since my job keeps me busy and I love being abroad so much, I truly prefer a slower travel/digital nomadic lifestyle where I can spend a few weeks at a time in a new place to fully immerse myself in the culture, meet the locals and even meet other digital nomads along the way.

I’ll fill this page with everything from mocktail recipes, sobriety tips, travel inspiration, trip itineraries, share all my accomodations, hidden gems and must visit locations. I hope to build a community of other sober, solo travelers.

Thank you for being here!