I’m Katherine. Also Kath, also KP, formerly Nini (which is what I called myself at age two before my vocal cords had developed the range for “th” sounds).
I’m a traveler, a writer, and a big believer in finding the beauty in the everyday. I’m actively creating a life where my days are regularly full of things that inspire me, namely nature, carrot cake, good friends, good books, and chances to learn something new.
I didn’t always do any of that. I didn’t travel more than once a year, I’d stopped writing after college, and while I loved my life in New York, I worked a lot, rarely spent time outside, and had to squeeze in reading time on my long commute.
I realized three years after starting my job in finance that I needed a change. While I worked with people I loved and learned from, and I appreciated the opportunity to develop myself as a leader, a goal-oriented problem-solver, and a good communicator, I realized I wasn’t fulfilling an important part of me. I wasn’t meeting new people, I wasn’t trying new things, and I wasn’t uncomfortable. And I wanted to be.
I wanted to get out of my comfort zone and into a new everything. A new language, a new country, a new continent. New foods, new traditions, new music. I wanted to put myself in situations where I could get to know who I was, figure out who I wanted to be, and actively work to close the gap between those two selves.
So I made a plan, set my goals, and left New York in January 2018 to start traveling. I spent six months backpacking around South America, and they were incredible, rife with learning, laughing, and tribulations that taught me how to let go and find the joy in all that I can’t control. Some highlights:
Finding lifelong friends in Colombia | Getting bedbugs in Patagonia | Hidden gem: Uruguay | A month in the Galapagos
And some of the most valuable lessons:
It’s okay to not have one guiding passion | You don’t have to be friends with everyone | Pack only what’s on this list
Along the way, I fell in love. I moved to Argentina, where I learned tango, found best friends, figured out who I was in a relationship, and embarked on projects with other creatives I met up with in the city. It’s where I first introduced myself as a professional writer. It’s also where I learned that no one in Buenos Aires picks up their dog shit.
I also took a trip to New Zealand to backpack the North Island with my sister and the South Island by myself; it was an adventure, y’all, and the first time I really didn’t like a place I had traveled to.
I thought it was just farms that sucked | Then I realized it was the whole country | (Hitchhiking there rocks, though)
I realized I had something good going on in Latin America—the culture, the warmth, the chance to really learn a language—and I went back and planned my next big move: a U.S. road trip and several months traveling around Mexico, Cuba, Belize, and Guatemala. That taught me:
How the warmth of the American West is in the land | The kind of home I want | The best way to process death | That Mexico City isn’t for me | About the relative cost of freedom
I was in Antigua, Guatemala when the pandemic hit and went through a break up. I went back to the States a few months later.
I spent a few months in upstate Washington, Austin, Texas, and Ann Arbor, Michigan before heading back to New York—my U.S. home. I also:
Set new goals | Laughed at the dark times | And watched a whole lot of reality TV
I set out to explore Europe, found my next home in Valencia, and moved here in March 2022. I’m excited to be based here and to write about things like:
Learning to love again in Lisbon | Slipping on borrowed lives in Ireland | Staying open-minded in Spain
Follow along here (and/or on my Instagram) for updates, photos, feminist musings, book recommendations, ice cream recommendations, reflections, personal accountability, and further tales of insect infestations, since I can’t seem to get away from them. To work with me, check out my offerings and send me a message.
As always, stay curious & stay grateful.
xx