CURRENT MISSION

I want to experience the world from the inside out.

ABOUT ME

I aim to quit my job and write full time while traveling wherever I can. I've traveled some, but not nearly enough to satisfy me. I've been to Western Europe three times as a teenager and I've traveled within the states and Canada at various times throughout my life. I'm looking to expand that significantly and surround myself with other cultures. I don't want to be a tourist--I want to experience the places I go to. I don't want to visit a place--I want to live there, even if only for a brief time.

PHILOSOPHY

If you are not living to experience, what is the point? I crave new experiences--even if they terrify me a little. I push my boundaries as much as I can to expand my comfort zone and learn new things.

People have been the number one gateway to experience in my life. I have never been as successful getting outside my routine on my own as I am when I have met someone who is encouraging me to do something with them.

I try to never say no to any opportunities--a missed opportunity is a life not led.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

I plan to travel beginning in late 2014, and I am always happy to meet with and show people around the place I live.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

I have never actually used this website to couchsurf before, but I've couchsurfed with people I've met on other sites and with friends and always had a great time with it. I enjoy being able to meet new people and experience the little nooks and crannies of a place, rather than just the flashiest tourist attractions.

Interests

writing, drawing, computers, travel, Amtgard, LARPing, Nintendo, road trips, train travel

• culture
• writing
• tv
• traveling
• drawing
• survival
• psychology
• sociology
• road trips

Music, Movies, and Books

Movies: Fifth Element, Raging Phoenix, Secretary, any 80s movie with Bill Murray

Music: I listen to a lot of indie and alternative music (Old 97s, Dispatch, Voltaire), classic rock (David Bowie, Alice Cooper), and random synthpop (Wolfsheim, Iris, Beborn Beton). I usually enjoy listening to anything people want to play.

Books: anything by Anne Bishop, Roald Dahl (especially his work for adults), Kurt Vonnegut.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I took a solo road trip from Alaska to Wisconsin, stopping in Portland on the way down. It was my first time really doing anything on my own, not to mention exploring the lower 48, which I'd mostly just known about from TV. What seems commonplace to everyone who lived in the places I drove through was new and exciting to me. I saw things I thought were just universally accepted works of fiction, but which were actually real. The trip itself was mundane, but the experience of driving those 4,444 miles, by myself, with no GPS or smart phone, was something transcendental for me.

Teach, Learn, Share

I've spent six years in college with a variety of majors (theatre, English, philosophy, psychology, sociology, etc) and held several odd jobs (my favorite: acid digestion specialist at a chemical assay company--ask me what I did!). I've lived most of my life in central Alaska and have a vast wealth of knowledge on the area and general survival in a climate that reaches -40 and colder (that's both F and C) and can reach dangerous highs in the summertime as well--my hometown actually has the highest temperature variance of any city on the planet.

I'd like to learn about other cultures. I've had a very 90s sitcom perfect family type upbringing, which has given me a lot of privilege, but despite open minded parents and being raised to be inquisitive and accepting, I never pushed outside of the culture I grew up in until I was in my 20s. As I learn more about other ways of life, I can't help but be fascinated, and question the complacent belief so many people I grew up around held, that their way is the only good way.

Countries I’ve Visited

Austria, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, United Kingdom

Countries I’ve Lived In

United States