Voices on the Path: Taking Inspiration from Adventurous Travelers
Meet Raina, snowbird and solo world traveler
Adventure involves a willingness to say yes to the unknown and try new things. And few things challenge us to step into both big and small uncertainties more than travel. Whether near or far, long term or short, travel pushes us outside of our normal routines and our normal comfort zones. This week and next, we are going to hear from two travelers and learn how they designed their time to allow for more exploration!
Our adventurer today, Raina, has leaned into uncertainty in several different arenas in pursuit of creating a fulfilling and travel-filled life. She declined the security net of full-time W-2 work, instead saying yes to the flexibility of contract work, allowing for a remote position. In doing so, she crafted her work life to allow for more travel time.
She also embraces solo travel, which carries its own set of challenges and rewards, as we heard from previous adventurer, Zandy. Raina has tested her boundaries, questioned her “enough” point and learned she can do hard things. Hers is a story of faith, of experimentation and of being bold when it matters. Let’s meet this amazing woman!
Welcome, Raina! Tell us a bit about yourself and your recent travels.
My name is Raina and I am based in Atlanta, Georgia. I am 37 years old and although I love traveling and being outdoors, especially on or near the water, I recently learned to sew and am also working to improve my Spanish.
In the past three years, I have traveled south to escape winter. This was pretty easy for me, since I can work from anywhere.
This year I went to South America, namely, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil and Peru. Not only was I able to escape winter, but I was also able to reconnect with some other friends I’d met while traveling in 2019, 2023, and 2024.
What inspired you to embark on this journey?
The short answer is winter!
But I really enjoy traveling and wanted to see some new places and visit some friends I had not seen in a while. Currently, I am single with no kids, so I try to take full advantage of the freedoms I have now.
Speak to the ways in which you have intentionally designed your life to allow travel like this to happen.
After studying abroad in Cape Town, I would often say I want to live in the U.S. when it’s warm and live in South Africa when it's cold in the U.S.
I spoke it out loud to other people, and believed that it could and would happen with God’s help. When COVID started, I figured this was my opportunity to become and remain a remote worker. My dream came true, and I am still working remotely.
Although I have been given the option to work full-time as an employee with benefits and make more money if I adapted a hybrid schedule, I found more value in having freedom, flexibility and more control over my time and schedule. Family and friends are very important to me, and with the extra time I have, not only am I able to travel pretty freely, but I can also help my family and friends when they need it!
During this process of deciding whether to transition back to full-time work, I had to get clear on what my enough point was. Would it be great to make more money? Of course it would! But I had to ask myself what I would be giving up for the additional money I’d be earning?
Currently, I live well below my means and am fortunate to make more than enough money. And although I have enough money invested to reach Coast FI by age 65, I am still contributing to my retirement accounts to reach FI sooner.
Will I ever go back to working full-time, in an office, or both? I am not sure, but this life design works for me now, and I am enjoying it while it lasts!
Every adventure has its hardships. What was the hardest part of your journey?
While I enjoy traveling, it does require a certain amount of mental gymnastics when traveling for longer periods of time as a solo traveler. For example, when I travel, one of the things that tends to be hardest for me to deal with is food. I have a particular diet I stick to when I am back home, and I enjoy cooking my own meals. When I traveled to Argentina and Peru, it was really hard to stick to my diet because most of the food contained gluten or dairy. However, I did the best I could to adhere to my diet.
When I am going out to eat with other people, it can be particularly challenging because there are so few restaurant options when taking into account my dietary restrictions. I coped with this by acknowledging that I would probably go off my diet a bit, especially when going out with others, but tried to focus on the time together instead of the food. This also gave me another thing to look forward to when I got back home: making my own food with ingredients that I love and enjoy.
Speak to the importance of mindset, especially in dealing with setbacks or failures.
Mindset is still something I am working on. But one thing that was particularly helpful to me on this trip was making sure I continued my morning routine, which consists of bible reading, prayer, devotional, Q&A journaling, and a meditation practice. It was also extremely helpful for me to practice gratitude. After all, I have so many things to be grateful for. Several times on this trip, I had to remind myself that it was a privilege to live and travel abroad. This very experience was a dream of 22 year-old me, and it had actually come true.
What have you learned about yourself through travel? How has it changed you?
1. I can do things that seem hard at first; the more I travel the easier it has gotten for me to check new countries off of my list.
2. I am more observant and very aware of my surroundings. When I travel, I try my best to blend in. I observe people. How do they walk, talk, eat, dress and interact? Do they conceal their valuables? If so, maybe I should too.
3. Traveling abroad has given me more empathy for people who immigrate to the U.S. It’s not easy being in a place where everything is foreign. During my travels, small acts of kindness and compassion from locals were impactful, making some of my tougher days abroad a lot brighter.
4. I typically get homesick after traveling for 6-8 weeks, and used to wonder why I couldn’t last as long as other travelers, but I have learned to accept this about myself.
5. I love being from the United States. I am grateful for the privileges, opportunities, and freedoms I have as an American and after traveling to so many countries, I do not take these gifts for granted.
Finances can often be an inhibitor for those seeking new experiences. How did you financially prepare?
Since I typically travel for 4-8 weeks at a time, my expenses when I travel are usually the same as my expenses in the U.S.; sometimes it is cheaper.
I do, however, have a travel fund that I add a set amount to every paycheck. I also learned about travel hacking from some people I met at CampFI. I mainly use an app called TravelFreely and occasionally use the 10xTravel website. Travel hacking usually pays for all of my flights, which leaves more money in my travel fund for other things, like accommodations and experiences. I also don’t mind staying in hostels, co-living hotels and Airbnbs, which also helps cut down on costs.
What is one of the most memorable moments or events from this trip?
This was my first time traveling to Brazil and I fell in love with it! Rio was my favorite of the two cities I visited (the other was Sao Paulo).
In Sao Paulo, I reconnected with an old friend of mine who I initially met in Croatia 6 years ago. He took me around to so many amazing restaurants and landmarks in the city and also taught me about beautiful Brazilian culture and yummy cuisine. We are also very similar; we had so many laughs and great conversations.
Rio was simply AMAZING! It has such marvelous energy, the people are so nice and vibrant, the beach and lake were beautiful and the food was delicious! I also met so many fascinating and sweet travelers while there. I also reconnected with other travelers I’d met in other cities while in Rio.
First time in Peru too, and I fell in love with Lima and also! I also reconnected with friends I’d met in other cities here too!
This was a more fun-filled trip than in my prior snowbird escapes in 2023 and 2024. One of the major things that I learned in prior years was that it was not a good idea to work remotely and take Spanish lessons abroad. This trip, I spent way more time enjoying the cities and surrounding areas with friends. In prior years most of my down time was spent on Spanish lessons with little time to enjoy my new surroundings. This was a fun-filled and very social trip. I was also able to practice my Spanish, but it was not nearly as much pressure as I had put on myself in prior years.
In your travels, has there been an event or person that has altered your worldview in some way?
Yes, there have been three specific encounters that helped to shape my perspective and land me where I am now.
One was from 2018, when I traveled to Swaziland (now Eswatini). I stayed at a bed & breakfast/ hostel there. There was a girl from the Norwegian region in her twenties staying in my room. I told her I was thinking about quitting my job. She told me she had quit her job as a nurse and now was traveling. She didn’t know what she would do next, but was now traveling and volunteering with kids in Swaziland. She told me I should quit, if that is what I wanted to do. I realized that I wasn’t quite ready to quit, but this started to shift my perspective and the way I saw life, work, and the world. I had never come into contact with people like this in my day-to-day life in America.
On the same trip in 2018, I met a young lady in her mid-late 30s in Johannesburg who was originally from India. She was staying in my hostel room and said she had retired from tech in the U.S. and was a full-time traveler, but would pick up temporary tech gigs if she felt like it. I was baffled and in complete shock. I thought, wow, if only I was in tech maybe I could do something like this. This was my first official introduction to FIRE. Although I didn’t ask her any more questions and she didn’t offer any more information, she made me realize that young people can retire and travel the world too!
In 2019, I quit my job and traveled to Europe for a month before starting my new position. In a hostel in Lisbon, Portugal I roomed with a girl who I believe was from Germany. She told me that she had just finished working for a tour company doing tours in the Amazon. Now she was going to travel until all the money she made ran out. Then she would find another job and repeat the process. This sounded very interesting, but way too risky for my type A, Taurus brain. It did shift my perspective a bit more, though.
Today, I feel like I have “enough” and can choose to make less money and travel the world. I don’t think I would be where I am today had I not encountered these three bold and courageous women. They challenged me to rethink what was possible and what limits I put on myself. I would have never met these women if I had not taken the first tiny baby step to solo travel and stayed in hostels.
When I tell people I travel solo, sometimes stay in hostels, and travel to numerous new countries each year, people think I am adventurous, but these women are actually the adventurous ones. Although I have not spoken to any of these women since we crossed paths in those shared rooms, they all made an imprint that helped mold me into the “adventurous woman” I am today. So to each of them, I say thank you.
What advice do you have for another woman wanting to embrace travel?
Do it! If you feel like there is something holding you back, ask yourself what it is? Then, when you get your answer, see if there is something you can do to move that road block out of the way (solve the problem or issue).
Also, join meetups, facebook groups, or other groups with women who travel. You can also find some pretty inspiring women who travel on YouTube.
Sometimes we need to see someone like us, doing what we want to do, so we can feel like it’s possible for us too.
In one word, what do you hope your legacy will be?
Willingness.
Is there anything else you’d like to share?
Follow your heart! If you desire to do something new, try it. After all, nothing beats a failure but a try.
Try not to compare yourself or your journey to anyone else's. Instead compare yourself today to yourself a year or two ago. I am sure you have made some progress since then. If you haven’t, what can you do today to change it?
What additional adventures are coming up next on the horizon for you?
I am part of a year long FIRE course and will be traveling to Portugal this summer to meet up with my cohort. After the meetup, I will stay in Europe for a few more weeks and will see some friends along the way.
Thanks, Raina! You can find and connect with Raina at her blog, hergranddaughter.com. You can also read more about the financial aspects of her journey in this interview: Working as a Part-Time Contractor Before Coast FI.
As Raina points out, seeing ways in which others are challenging the status quo and aligning their lives with their dreams can be incredibly inspiring. When we see others living differently and embracing adventure, it encourages us to do the same.
So, if you have an adventure to share, please respond to this email or message me on Substack. I’d love to connect! You never know who needs to hear your story and how it might help someone make the move she’s been waiting to take.
My parting query for you today is: can you think of a time in your life when meeting someone or hearing their story changed your perspective or inspired you to take action?