Several years ago, I spent a week on an archipelago off the coast of Thailand known as the Surin Islands. I was there to write about a village of Moken sea gypsies, a remarkable group of people who were traditionally nomadic — their homes dugout wooden boats called kabangs.

During my time on the Surin Islands, I just so happened to meet a Japanese professor and researcher named Yuki. He told me that he had spent the past ten years studying the Moken, even living with them for a year, and that he had recently finished his Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology. Our nightly conversations fascinated me, to the point that one night I opened my notebook and wrote:

“I wonder — am I, too, an anthropologist disguised as a travel writer?”

Originally from the state of Virginia, I’ve spent more than a decade traveling and living abroad, in cultures as diverse as India, New Zealand, and Uruguay — where I’m now based in Montevideo, with my husband José and our nine-month-old daughter, Elena Rose.

From the beginning, I’ve pursued my passion for world cultures through writing. I earned my Master’s in Travel Writing with distinction from London’s Kingston University. I regularly write travel-inspired Sleep Stories for the popular meditation app Calm, and I was also the writer on two episodes for Calm’s 2020 TV series with HBO Max, A World of Calm. Most recently, I took a deep dive into the culture and history of coffee and tea for my first two books, published by Quirk Books.

Then, ten years ago, I made a decision that would forever change my path: I started traveling with a sketchbook and a single set of watercolors. Travel sketching soon led me into illustration and other forms of visual storytelling. I’ve sketched Machu Picchu on assignment for National Geographic, I’ve created large-scale murals for global brands such as Google in Thailand and Uber in Singapore, and I’ve been featured as a sketch artist in the New York Times.