It has been nearly twelve years since I started “blogging” online. 

In fact, it was when I moved to Chambéry and Lyon, France, for fourteen months (2013–2014), during my undergraduate studies that I started my very first “blog” and began journaling about my experiences abroad.

Then, after returning home for two semesters and graduating from UNC Greensboro, North Carolina, in May 2015, I began looking at how to go abroad again. 

Little did I know then that those last two semesters in the USA in 2014–2015 would be the last time I’d live in the States. 

Apart from sporadic trips home and a 2-3 month stint to treat Yoda’s cancer, I have been outside of the United States and have stayed abroad—traveling slowly and living in different countries—ever since. 

But, of course, I didn’t know that at the time.

As a young graduate fresh out of college waitressing tables, all I knew then was that I was moving my life to Kathmandu, Nepal, that bright summer of 2015. 

At the time, I had never even been to Asia, but there I was, along with Yoda—my then one-year-old adventure kitten—about to pick up my life and move there. 

Within weeks, I found myself embarking on a grand adventure that would change my life, my path, and my very person. 

On July 23, 2015, I touched down in Kathmandu, with my one-year-old cat in tow. I had accepted a position as a graduate assistant at a somewhat new institute, to pursue an MA in Crisis Management.

Just a few months before this move, Paul and I started our first “niche” blog, The Fluffy Kitty, which Yoda inspired.

Paul, having left his job in France to join me stateside and then in Nepal, was learning about affiliate marketing (which was, at the time, some new-to-us way to make money online). (PS — The Fluffy Kitty is a cat blog inspired by Yoda, our adopted adventure cat, and we still keep it running in honor of Yoda’s memory.)

While living in Kathmandu, I worked as a grad assistant during the day and attended night classes as a student in crisis management and humanitarian aid.

Meanwhile, our cat blog grew to over 70,000 page views per month, reaching an international audience. On the side, I began learning more about Search Engine Optimization (SEO), website monetization, brand partnerships (we worked with Royal Canin, The Litter Robot, and other household pet brands!), and all the terms and tools one could ever need to know in the “professional blogging” industry (which I wouldn’t wake up to for several more years).

Life in Kathmandu opened my heart and mind to the world, and for that, I’m deeply grateful.

However, after one year, my alignment with my role at the institute where I was working and studying began to crack, and I ended up in a crisis of my own creation. As I became more aware of the mismanagement at the institution, I began to pull away, until I left without completing the program.

Even though our Nepal chapter closed, I still deeply believed I had more to learn in the field. So, I turned my eyes to an accredited joint-European Master’s program that would allow me to graduate with a humanitarian aid degree. 

After Nepal, Paul, Yoda, and I moved to the Netherlands in late 2016, where I began my studies in humanitarian aid, in large part thanks to a writing scholarship that afforded me the necessary funds to make my next big project a reality.

I studied for six months at the beautiful Rijksuniversiteit University in Groningen—a historic, charming, and bicycle-saturated town in the north of the country—and thus continued our “living abroad and slow traveling with our cat” story that was unfolding in real time.

After the Netherlands, I studied international humanitarian law in Aix-en-Provence in the sultry south of France before spending the summer months of 2017 traveling and doing “thesis research” (aka, traveling) at the Universidad La Javeriana in Bogotá, Colombia. I began to publish itineraries and guides on how to visit Cartagena or reach the remote Wayuu communities on Colombia’s northern coast.

In late 2017/early 2018, I finally completed my degree by interning at the Directorate-General for the European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations in Brussels, Belgium.

It was there, during that miserable, sunless winter, that Paul, Yoda, and I, gathered around our cozy fireplace, began to talk about where to go next. 

As we chatted, I searched for countries where a cat, a Frenchman, and an American could go visa-free for up to six months. Google yielded three results: Panama, Canada, and Mexico.

“Mexico?” I thought, and as I began to think about it, a magnetism began to surround the very word itself. 

As we discussed, I just happened to look inside the hole of Paul’s baby Taylor guitar and saw, inscribed there in tiny letters, “Made in Mexico.” I blurted out, “It’s a sign!” and for some reason, it really felt like one.

Well, do I need to say what happened next?

We hauled out of Belgium, driving Paul’s old electric blue Clio back down to France to drop off our things at his parents—along with our sweet boy, Yoda—before going on a whirlwind trip to attend our friend’s 3-day fairytale Indian wedding and a 2-week broke backpacker’s pilgrimage through India’s colorful cities dotted across its desert state of Rajasthan. 

During that trip, the budding blogger and photographer in me emerged more and more. 

I was taking copious notes, mostly blurry phone pics—of signs, menus, roadside holy cows, and anything interesting or detailed (so, pretty much everything in India), for including in blog guides later. 

On April 22nd, 2018, which was Earth Day, we touched down in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. 

As we pulled up to our rented home for the next 5-6 months, located in a little beachside pueblo on Nayarit’s coast, Yoda put his front paws up on the back window and peered outside, mewing eagerly. He always knew when we were arriving somewhere special. 

And somewhere special was where we were arriving indeed. 

It was there, in our new home, a beach town called San Pancho, where I did a lot of soul-healing from my time as a student. 

It was where we began to put down roots and felt the power of community for the first time, and where I transformed my existing travel blog into the blog you read today, Bucketlist Bri.

It’s also where I thought I was going to further my humanitarian aid career, where I applied—and then declined—an opportunity to spend two years with Peace Corps Panama, and where I decided to stop running from what I loved most: writing and photography.

It was a revelation—as you can imagine—when I dropped all desire of chasing a wild, chaotic life in humanitarian aid and instead embraced the wild, chaotic life I was already living with my boys. 

A life of choice, love, and adventure. 

A life where I could cultivate peace of mind, enjoy artistic expression, instill meaning into my work, and allow my work to infuse meaning into my life, and feel and give love to the two loves of my life: Paul and our Yoda, my sweet Nuggynoo. 

And we did.

We enjoyed our years together, the three of us living off and on for years in Mexico.

We also enjoyed adventurous stints of consecutive months traveling and living out of our 1990 Roadtrek, driving over 10,000 miles from Mexico up to Newfoundland and Labrador island in Canada, then across Canada, down the PNW, and beyond. 

In between, we got to know local life in:

• Lake Atitlán and Antigua in Guatemala;
• Mexico for multiple-month stints (moving states each time; from Nayarit to the highlands of Chiapas, the coast of Quintana Roo and the colorful capitals of Oaxaca and the Baja California Sur)—eventually totaling over 3+ years living in the country;
• Long stays in Guadeloupe (Caribbean), Lisbon (Portugal), and, to tie it all together, a trip home to Tennessee or France somewhere in the mix.

During those years, we saw a lot, covered a lot of ground, and went deep into local communities.

We built our businesses during this time, too, of course. The work has always been as important as the travel.

I remember, for example, consecutive weeks of going to the nearest Starbucks or Tim Horton’s at 7AM, where we’d stay for hours to work, with frequent breaks to walk Yoda on leash so he could scratch a tree or two between his naps in the van.

(Bucketlist Bri, the blog, was only made possible thanks to copious amounts of English breakfast tea and cream cheese bagels.) 

While I worked to grow my blog and socials in 2019-2020, Paul spent hours growing his remote eyewear company, Horus X.

We always leaned on each other for guidance and support. So even though our original business endeavors—which we had started years earlier in 2014 after Yoda’s adoption—forked in the road, we grew in our own unique paths steadily but always side-by-side. 

Then, there’s this moment in my memory where everything changes. 

And no I’m not talking about COVID of 2020 (during which we were “stuck” in Mexico). But rather the before vs after. 

The “before,” is that hustle period predating our discovery of Yoda’s FISS cancer in 2021, and the treatment period—the “after” discovering Yoda’s cancer—which we first spotted at the tail-end of our stay in Guatemala.

I remember it as clear as the blue sky was that day, when I saw Yoda’s quarter-size lump growing on his left hindleg. 

The next three months of summer 2021 were a whirlwind of vet tests and the horrific decision—and experience—of amputating Yoda’s leg in a desperate effort to save and prolong his life. 

And, it did.

There was a 50-50% chance that the cancer would return, even after the amputation, which left me heartbroken but hopeful, even after the 19/20 radiation sessions he endured in an attempt to burn the cancer cells away.

And, it did.

It kept the cancer away.

For two wonderful, precious years. 

But it came back. 

And with it, Death’s note attached: It’s time. 

January 4th, 2024, is the day that concludes the ten-year chapter of my life living and traveling abroad with my boys, building our businesses while broke, wearing our hearts on our sleeves for the world to tattoo its love in, and yearning for more of what we were already doing—living life fully and joyfully and with fear and courage recklessly intertwined.

That day is the day Yoda died in my embrace, as he leaned into me while tucked snug in his bed, as his heartbeat slowed and then stopped. 

In the days and years since, I’ve not walked globetrotted the same through this world. 

There aren’t words that describe close enough the complexity of what I mean by that, or what’s next for me or Paul or this blog, or even what’s now, so if it weren’t for my loss of words—or, rather, my skill to use words to express all of this better—I’d probably tell you that we trudge on, as we must.

What I can tell you, though, is that this travel blog is a testament to my twenties. 

To the growth and constant changes of living abroad and traveling full-time. To the pursuit of the unknown. To the embracing of discomfort, the overcoming of uncertainty, and the meaning of sacrifice. 

To the learnings and yearnings to live more, to experience life deeper, beyond—ironically—a bucket list. 

To the life, the very story, that we created out of—and for—love and adventure. 

For each other.

“I’m glad you’re here with me. Here at the end of all things.” — Frodo to Sam on Mount Doom