My name is Gabrielle, and I am a New Yorker who currently calls Colorado home.

I began my time in the professional world, post college graduation, teaching math in a high school on Long Island, New York. As all of these teachers who have been able to snag those coveted positions understand, it is not a job that you walk away from; but I couldn’t shake the feeling that it just wasn’t what I wanted. I would count down the days until summer break when I had the opportunity take off, travel, and just get away.

If I’m being honest though, this need for travel really started in 2010, when I was in high school applying for colleges. “If you stay home and go to a local college, I’ll pay for you to study aboard after your first year,” my Dad had literally promised me the world, or at least my first experience to explore it. So after my freshman year at a local college (because seriously, what would you have done?), my best friend and I traveled to Italy and Greece for the first time to study art and architecture. I can trace my wanderlust back to that very first trip, where we spent hours wandering the streets of Rome and eating way too much gelato – seriously our hotel in Rome was NEXT to a Gelateria. So. Much. Gelato.

Summer of 2012 was a month long trip through 10 European countries. Summer of 2013 was a cruise to Puerto Rico, St. Thomas, and Grand Turk. Summer of 2014 I found myself in Jamaica, and then I couldn’t resist the call back to Greece. To hold tight onto the memories of every place I’ve been fortunate enough to visit, I began my highly valued collection of postcards.

That very next month, my most favorite adventure began when I met the love my life. I stopped this cycle of working in a job that I hated to pay for trips that I loved. He moved across the country to Arizona, and I followed him, uprooting the only life I ever knew.  Here we indulged in the spontaneity of traveling whenever and wherever we could. We enjoyed day trips to different towns in Arizona, weekend hiking trips up north to Utah, camping trips in Flagstaff, Sedona, and Colorado, and road trips to California to spend 48 hours on the beach. We started to live a life that we loved living. We weren’t “waiting for the summer” anymore – because, hello, Arizona summer is THE WORST.

So, my story isn’t the typical, “I sold everything I own, and now travel the world 365 days a year!” I have a home base in a city that I love. I have two cats that drive me up a wall sometimes, but I truly could not picture my life without them. I have a job working with children that gives me a sense of purpose, and I still get to collect my postcards on my many adventures with the amazing people in my life.

To me, the opportunities are endless: new places to see, new people to meet, new culture to immerse myself in. It truly is endless.