The Key

It's already in your hands

I am a traveler, and I am a writer. But I am not a travel writer.

This clarity rose up in me yesterday while I tried to figure out where I fit within Substack’s ever-expanding landscape. My work refuses to tuck itself neatly into any of the travel categories offered up as “explorations.” Not adventure travel. Not budget travel. Not even the general travel category, which is largely void of 70-something grandmothers who have embraced nomadic life, learned to make juicy meatloaf on a gas grill, and can navigate a house on wheels through cities and towns, up mountains, down canyons, and once—through a wildfire with an escort.

Most travel writers here offer excellent guidance on foreign travel, packing hacks, scoring flight deals, and where to find the best eats overseas. That’s not my lane.

I travel the domestic U.S. and Canada for months at a time with my partner, Todd, in a 27-foot Airstream travel trailer affectionately known as Rosie. Together, we’ve created a life we don’t need a vacation from.

And before you assume I needed someone else to make that life possible, let me say this plainly: I had my financial house in order and my wings spread long before Todd arrived, and I can help you do the same.

(If my words kept you company today and you’d like to support this work in a small way, you can leave a cup of coffee below. No obligation, just gratitude.)

So if I’m not a travel writer, then what am I here to offer you, one of my 460 readers?

Here’s what I won’t do: I won’t lure you into a free “master class” only to sell you a $297 mini course at the end. Could I? Yes. Would it be worth it? Absolutely. But that’s not my path.

What I will do every Wednesday is show up and inspire you to stop making excuses, to stop side-stepping joy, to stop waiting for someone, someday, something to flip the switch on your wildly creative life.

The Wednesday column will never sit behind a paywall. It will always be there, whether you invest $5.63/month (about the cost of one latte) or not.

But here’s what I’ve learned: sometimes we step more fully into our lives when we put a little skin in the game.

And I’ll make you this promise:
If, at the end of a year, I haven’t delivered inspiration and ignition; if I haven’t nudged your creative life forward; I will refund 100% of your subscription. No questions asked.

As we round the corner into 2026, whether I’m writing from Rosie’s dinette, my studio chair, or my couch with Carla purring in my lap, my message will be the same:

It’s your life.
Stop waiting for someone else to show up with the key.