Healing on the Highway: How Life on the Road Helped Me Find Myself

I’ve lived in five countries, wandered through over 75, and danced with cultures all over the globe and I now live in a RV full-time and travel the US.

See, I didn’t grow up with a silver spoon or a picket fence dream. I grew up in foster care. I was emancipated at 17. And from the start, I had to figure out how to build a life with my own two hands and a heart full of grit. I chased education, earned a PhD, and held professional titles that made people nod with approval. But something was always missing.

Enter: the open road.

Trading boardrooms for backroads wasn’t a step down it was a rise up. A reclamation. It was me saying, I choose joy, freedom, and connection over expectations I never agreed to in the first place.

And let me tell you...this life? It’s raw. It’s real. It’s healing.

When you’re constantly in motion, you lose the luxury of distractions. There’s no perfectly curated apartment to hide in, no predictable routine to numb you out. There’s just you, your thoughts, and whatever patch of earth you land on that night. It’s confronting. And it’s beautiful.

The road stripped away the noise and helped me hear myself again.

I remembered the girl who thrived on adventure, who found peace in the quiet corners of Japan, who twirled through the streets of Italy with nothing but a backpack and a bold heart. I remembered how much I love people the real, messy, beautiful stories behind their smiles. And I realized I was building something deeper than a travel resume, I was building a life that fit me like a glove.

Living in an RV full-time is not about running away, it’s about coming home to yourself. Every sunset, every dirt road, every unexpected friendship is a piece of the puzzle I didn’t know I was missing.

The road gave me permission to be fully, unapologetically me.

And if you’re out there feeling stuck, disconnected, or lost in the grind of life—just know this: healing doesn’t always happen in silence or stillness. Sometimes, it happens at 70mph, with music blasting and a dog in the passenger seat, while you chase the horizon.

You don’t have to have it all figured out. Just go!