Ep. 266: How This Long Term Traveler Seeks Out Epic Adventures with Sherry Ott
In this episode, I speak with Sherry who is a long-term traveler, blogger, and photographer with one goal in mind – to make you wish you were somewhere else.
She writes about her travel lifestyle and around the world adventures on Ottsworld.com and her social media channels.
She has lived in Vietnam, hiked the Annapurna Circuit with her father, drove 10,000 miles from London to Mongolia in the Mongol Rally, walked across Spain on the Camino de Santiago, kayaked in Antarctica, and drove an auto-rickshaw across India for charity.
She continues to seek out epic adventures to intriguing places in order to challenge herself and inspire people to overcome their fears and reap the benefits of travel.
Listen on to find out how this long-term traveler seeks out epic adventures.
Listen below:
RELATED EPISODES:
Ep. 265: How This Writer Turned Her Love for Travel Into a Career with Jordi Lippe-McGraw
Ep. 264: How This Nomad Turned A Backpacking Trip Into Lifelong Freedom with Paula Carvalho
Ep. 263: How This Serial Expat Helps Others Create Their Dream Lives Abroad with Richelle Gamlam
Transcription:
Debbie:
Hey everyone. Thank you so much for being here. I am really excited to speak with my guest today. I’m here with Sherry.
Hey, Sherry, how are you?
Sherry:
I’m good. Thanks so much for having me. Debbie. This is awesome.
Debbie:
Well, I wanted to talk to you because you have a really interesting story. Obviously, you have an offbeat life and you know, we want to learn more about that.
So, can you tell us more about you, Sherry and why you live an offbeat life?
Sherry:
Sure, and my story goes way back. In fact, I kind of consider myself somewhat of a pioneer in this whole digital nomad offbeat life thing.
I mean, obviously it was being done way before but, I think, I was, I got into this all kind of at the beginning of when social media was coming out, at the idea for blogs were coming out and so I’ve been at it a long time.
I am a travel blogger, content creator and I started this whole process back in 2006, when I quit my corporate career and took off for what I thought was going to be one year, as a career break, and it, you know, my whole life was transformed basically into, you know, the short story is into being nomadic for 11 years, while I traveled around the world and you know, kept up my blog and figured out how to monetize all of that. And that’s what I still do today.
So, it’s been 16 years of kind of building this lifestyle and it’s funny because like I said, I have the intention to go back to my corporate career after a year of a career break, cause I thought that was really at the time the only thing that was really available or seemed to be available.
But now I’ve been doing this, travel blogging and kind of having this digital nomad lifestyle for 16 years, which is longer than I ever had my corporate career, which is 14 years. So, I’ve now surpassed. So that’s kind of like the big picture of my timeline, I would say. But it was, it started a long, long time ago before there were any resources for any of this stuff. Before we even talked about podcasts, really.
Debbie:
Yeah, which is really interesting, right? Because around that time, there was, we didn’t even know what remote work was and was there even a word for digital nomads?
Sherry:
No, there wasn’t that, it’s funny’, I mean back in 2006, we didn’t have the term digital nomad. We didn’t even really, we were just starting the term blog. There were no smartphones. There was no social media, Facebook was around, but it was for college students. So I was really at that kind of beginning not knowing at all, that anything was possible in this realm because it never existed.
So, I think one of the things, you know, we hear now all the time about people taking leaps out of their corporate careers and changing careers and hitting the road. Back then in 2006, it was a huge decision for me because back then it was such that, you know, you leave a corporate career and you have a gap on your resume and it was detrimental. It wasn’t something that was thought of as typical, it seemed really abnormal and somewhat irresponsible. So, I think when I was getting ready to take off and I had a really good corporate career, I mean, it was a great job, great life. I just wasn’t happy doing what I was doing. And I looked, you know, looked out ahead and saw what my life could be and I didn’t want to wait for retirement to climb Kilimanjaro and do things that took more than a week or two of vacation, which is all I was getting.
So, it was really a decision to try to get out and do some of the things that I always wanted to do, that I knew that I was in shape and healthy enough that I could do now that I might not be able to do in retirement. And so that was kind of what drove me to get out and actually take this thing called the career break. And funny thing is, I basically then kind of took that term career break and that term for another business that I started when I was on the road actually too, but that was the idea. I wanted to, after I did this, basically, I wanted to teach people how they could also take a career break and have it actually be beneficial to their career. Not that they had to stay out and be this digital nomad the whole time, but they could take a break, travel, learn, engage in new cultures and then still come back and use those experiences to market themselves into either the same career that they were doing or maybe a different career. It wasn’t necessarily to stay out all the time, as a digital nomad. But so, that was some kind of the beginnings of this.
But the main stuff was like, when I left, I basically just had a little website that we called a journal at the time. And I did it, you know, it says that my family and friends knew where I was, cause I went out and I was going to do this solo. I wasn’t an experienced traveler. It was all going to be new to me. So that’s why I started the website. It was really to have other people just be able to know where I was and a place to put my photos. That was the other thing, and to pack light, I didn’t want to take actual physical journals. That was the whole thing cause I was going to be living out of a suitcase for a year and then with absolutely zero knowledge of how, you know, blogs and WordPress and all that stuff, worked, all of a sudden, I started, people started following along and I still remember the day, when a complete stranger commented on one of my articles and I’m like, “how in the world did they find me?”, I was just, I was completely oblivious to how any of that worked. It’s been such a journey kind of growing up with this technology and it’s you know, and growing up with the change in our society, as well as even the changes in corporations and their budgets. And I’m moving from print ads and print, you know, advertising and marketing into digital and and you know, a lot of it for me was being in the right place at the right time and turning blogging into a career.
So that, I mean, that’s basically what happened over the course of 11 years and a lot of changes in the world.
Debbie:
And well, it’s definitely changed a lot since you started. Now, it’s becoming the norm, especially since the pandemic happened, before this people thought that the way we lived was crazy and it wasn’t sustainable. And, you know, you’re really off when, when you’re working from anywhere or you’re working from home, or you’re doing remote work, and now everyone’s like, “How did you, like, “how do I make this more permanent?”, Right? Cause they got a little glimpse of what it’s like and now it’s like you enjoy it, cause you have more time for yourself. And yeah, you…
Sherry:
You have control over your life.
Debbie:
Yeah, a lot of freedom for sure, but it’s interesting what you did with your life, Sherry, because there’s a lot of people that just wait for things, right? Like I’ll wait until I’m earning this much, or I’ll wait until I’m this age. I’ll wait until this, this and this happens with my life before I get to that point and it’s a lot of waiting and sometimes the things that you wait for never happen until you actually go out and do something else and it kind of just aligns with what your needs are.
But you didn’t do that. You took that leap, and it’s funny because you thought that it was just going to be like a little detour in your life and it became a permanent thing. So if you didn’t do that, you still would be, maybe in your corporate job right now. So…
Sherry:
Oh, I think about that all the time. Yes, yes, where would I have been? I can only imagine, but yeah, I mean, I I waited in some respects because I was, I was still, I was pretty fiscally conservative in a way. So, when I decided that I wanted to travel for a year round the world. I looked at finances. I looked at, you know, and there were no resources out there to tell you how to do that, at that time either. There was one website called boots and all, and that was it, and it was for, like, independent travelers who wanted to travel like more than a vacation kind of thing, but that was it.
So, I basically decided I wanted to do this, like I was going to quit the job, I was going to travel around the world for a year, do all the bucket list stuff I’d always wanted to do. But I needed to save money and so where I waited was I actually planned this out probably 2 years in advance and I made the decision that I was going to do it. I started my closest friends because for me telling someone that I’m going to do something makes me actually follow through. That’s the type of person I am.
Debbie:
You don’t want to look badly like later, like, “Oh no!”.
Sherry:
Yeah and I didn’t really know how I was going to make it happen. I just knew that if I told someone, that I would somehow figure out how to make it happen. So, I told my friends, I told my family that that’s what I was going to do. And then I sat back and waited and saved money, and prepared and planned and all of that stuff.
But then I went and yeah, I don’t, I’m not someone that likes to, I can wait for a while, but I don’t want to wait until something falls in my lap. You have to make things happen for yourself. I think if you’re going to be an entrepreneur and run your own business, you have to have that mindset anyway, because, it’s because great things may fall into your lap, but you really have to make things happen. One of the hardest things for me was to get used to pitching myself, basically pitching my blog, pitching, you know, campaigns, all this stuff, as the years went on, but that concept of pitching something and asking someone for money for what you do was a really hard concept for me, but you have to be able to do it. So you just have to put yourself out there and try it, basically.
It was a big decision and it wasn’t always and I’m sure you’ve had this in your own entrepreneurial journey, like it wasn’t always, super exciting. Like you would think that I would have been like, “oh my God! I’m quitting my job and I’m going to travel for a year, this is so exciting!”, I was, but at the same level, I was also terrified, as we all are, and I think that’s the beauty of being in a place where you’re like, starting something new, is when you can be on that edge of excited and then kind of equally terrified, but not so scared that it’s going to like you’re scared for your life or something like that. It’s that those two things in combination, in the right amounts, creates excitement.
Debbie:
Well, it’s also leaving your comfort zone, right? And that’s what a lot of people talk about. You have to leave your comfort zone, so that you can grow. And yes, it sounds really cliche, but it’s also very, very true. Cause that’s how you grow, it’s always scary. You’re always, you know.
Sherry:
Yes. There were a lot of tears shed that first year. There really were and what, you know, you think, “why in the world, would she be crying? She’s traveling to all these places. She’s going to Kilimanjaro. She’s going to New Zealand.”, I was doing all these amazing things but there was still, this, all of this uncertainty because at that time too, the first year, for me, it was just about doing everything I ever wanted to do. I wasn’t trying to make money but, within the first three months of being gone, I knew deep down in my heart that I didn’t want to go back, already. Like, I knew that like, “oh, I really, I really like this.”, and one of the things that drew me into this lifestyle was the idea of experiencing something new everyday. And that was my drug basically, to keep traveling.
And so, from the first, that three months in, I knew that I wanted to stay on the road and I don’t want to go back to New York to my corporate life and, and so on, that I really enjoyed this and I wanted to keep it going for more than a year. But I also knew that I had to make money somehow, in order to stay on the road and do this. And even at that time, blogging, still not in our vocabulary and certainly not a profession. So I didn’t even think about that honestly. And at that point, after my year of, kind of fun, travel, don’t worry about money, what I ended up deciding to do to make money on the road, and stay on the road was teach ESL, which at the time was like, the main option available to us cause once again, digital nomad kind of thing and working, you know, from anywhere, was not really an option as well.
Debbie:
It wasn’t a thing. Well, there’s so much more options right now for everyone, cause there’s just…
Sherry:
Ugh, beautiful.
Debbie:
Yeah, cause there’s so many companies that are going remote first and, or they’re starting like that or companies are now transitioning to remote first work, which is pretty incredible that, you know, jobs that you thought would never become remote, are becoming one and you have so many options to do that.
Sherry:
Yeah, the pandemic is definitely something to thank, for moving us, our culture and society along in that respect, way faster than it ever could have gotten there at all.
Debbie:
Yeah, absolutely, because I don’t, I don’t think we would have gotten to this point until like years and years and years later. So it forced it and and you know, unfortunately it was a pandemic, but it also has some positives that came with it too, in terms…
Sherry:
Oh yes, definitely.
Debbie:
In terms of this type of lifestyle, and now people are really understanding what we talk about when we say freedom and they’re like, “okay, now I get it. I understand what you were talking about when you say there’s so much more freedom in this type of lifestyle.”.
You talked about having your first remote work experience, was that remote work experience that you have, was it ESL? Or did you do that in person?
Sherry:
I did do it in person. So, it wasn’t technically remote, but I stayed on the road. So I moved, I sold everything back that I had in the US at that point after my year of travel or so. And then I moved to Vietnam and started teaching English in Vietnam.
At the same time, I was always working on this little blog that I had, which was growing, that was the exact time, this was 2008. I joined Twitter, because I was curious, because it was just like, “what is this thing?”. I joined Facebook, because when I was living in Vietnam, or when I moved to Vietnam to teach English, it was the way to find, weirdly, it was the way to find apartment rentals in Vietnam. So I got an account and started using it.
So, you know, some kind of, you know, luck it away. I don’t know when Instagram came out. I can’t even remember, but it was also, like, you know, something that I’ve just joined out of curiosity. Yeah, so I was actually living in Vietnam, but I always credit Vietnam, that experience in Vietnam, it’s the place where I learned how to hustle. That’s where I really learned how to hustle, where I also learned to have confidence in a bunch of skill, in skill sets that I didn’t ever think that I had. That’s where I started pitching ideas and coverage, and products, and stuff like that in my blog. It’s when I started glimpsing the idea that I could blog and make money. In addition to the ESL thing that I was doing, and even the ESL thing, you know, once I lived in another country, I was living in another country as an expat, really, I found all kinds of opportunities outside of ESL that I could do to make money.
So it really, that was the piece that opened my eyes to, there a lot of different things you can do out here in the world and equally there a lot of things that I’m capable of that I never thought I was capable of and so, those two things kind of came together in Vietnam for me. And I stayed there for one year, teaching. I was also doing consulting, running website businesses for expats. I was house-sitting, I was running my blog, I was doing photography there, so a little bit of everything and then I also, that was the time I also started an actual website business called Meet, Plan, Go, that was all about career breaks. I did that with a friend in New York city.
So, you know, I was starting to really delve into online businesses for the first time and after I got done with my year commitment in Vietnam that’s when I probably took the leap, when I didn’t have a home anymore, and I’ve officially probably became a nomadic in that sense and I was traveling and I decided not to have a home mainly because it was cheaper.
Debbie:
Yeah.
Sherry:
It was cheaper for me to remain on the road because everything I did on the road, I wrote about, so it provided content, which then, it was interesting and different at that time, so I had all these followers, so it all kind of fed upon each other, the traveling and not having a home kind of fed into my whole storyline at the time and made it interesting.
So I stayed on the road and I started doing much more budget and slow travel which was very different than my first year on the road which was like, “I’m going to do everything I ever wanted to do”, which was great, but you know, I learned how to survive on the road without much money, how to start building all kinds of partnerships with tour companies and stuff like that in exchange for coverage on my site. I was also building this Meet, Plan, Go website and we were offering workshops and stuff like that there, so everything started kind of chugging along and that was probably 2009 at that time.
Debbie:
It’s also really great that you learned a lot of the skills that now is also being used right, with what you’re doing, with your current website, with your current business, because I see it all the time with with entrepreneurs, we start one thing and then we realize that it’s not really what we want and then you kind of feel that like, “oh my gosh, I just wasted all that time with this”, but then you realize, it’s like, “no, I learned a ton of stuff and I’m bringing it into my next business.”, and then, “even if this one doesn’t work, I can bring it into the next one.”. And I think that if you’re just starting out and you’re feeling like that. Don’t worry. You’re going to be using all those skills with the next one. So don’t feel bad.
Sherry:
Yeah. Definitely. Definitely. I know, yeah, everything that I’ve learned can be transferred into what I’m doing now or even things I’m thinking about next. What ended up happening then, after say, 2009, is then I basically traveled all around the world, really focusing on the blog and building out Meet, Plan, Go. So two different things, cause my blog is Ottsworld, which is my life, travels and journey and stuff like that, and Meet, Plan, Go was a career break website and I still have it, and we just kind of, sadly, it was a little bit before its time and I think about that all the time. But, you know, still like you said, all those things that I learned, and more importantly, the connections,
Debbie:
Yeah, absolutely.
Sherry:
that I made, which was huge, transferred then into me continuing to build out Ottsworld, in my blog, which is what I’ve been really living off of for the past, you know, 10, 12 years, but I really ramped up my travels, I really leaned in to this idea of being a nomad and not having a home.
And I also, one of the things I started doing was really kind of ramping up what I call like epic journeys and mainly because I found that people really were interested in journeys, from a to b kind of thing, like, big kind of life changing epic journeys and I liked doing them as opposed to writing things about like, “what to do in Paris”, or whatever.
No, granted, this is one of these times where it was probably an interesting point in the career, because if I had stuck to “what to do in Paris”, I might have actually done really well in SEO, but I didn’t want to get into that cause it wasn’t interesting to me. What was interesting to me were these big, epic journeys and people would follow along, but it wasn’t necessarily great from an SEO perspective. It’s a little bit harder in that sense.
Debbie:
Well, it’s different, right? Like you either have to choose your story and what you really like to do, or you have to kind of write for what’s ranking and what’s being searched. So, it’s…
Sherry:
And how you can make money.
Debbie:
And how you can make money. Well, I was talking to a blogger friend and I actually interviewed him and one of the things that he ended up doing, which was able to do both, was he would write SEO stuff, right? And that’s the stuff that would rank, and then he would also write separate ones just for like the journey aspect of it. And that’s how he was like, “yeah, I had to balance obviously”, but he was like, “it’s just so hard to write for SEO all the time because it’s, you know, yes, it’s ranking, but it’s not something you’re passionate about”, and they’re like, “ugh, it’s so frustrating!”, cause you’re like, “ugh.”.
Sherry:
And that’s really, really hard.
Debbie:
Right.
Sherry:
It’s a dilemma. It’s a dilemma we have in blogging and you know, content creation, I think. And what he did is basically what I’ve had to agree to do, but I was actually really slow to kind of get onto the SEO bandwagon. I don’t know why I was stubborn, but that’s fine, I’m on it now.
So, the epic journeys, they were really, really fun. And I did things like I did an adventure race with a few other bloggers very early on, like in 2010, I think. Where we bought a car and an inappropriate car in London and drove it all the way to Mongolia, in the course of like five or six weeks.
Debbie:
Oh, my gosh. That’s crazy! That’s amazing, wait, how did you get to Mongolia, was there like a, I know you can go all the way out to like parts of Asia without like, did you go on a boat to get to? Or was it, land?
Sherry:
The only thing we did, the only boat we, it was all land, except for, we went through the tunnel. So we started in London and that first day we went through the tunnel and then we were in Europe and then we drove all through Europe and you can do any route you wanted, there was no support in this race, there was a beginning party and an ending party and you had to try to make it. It was also a charity event.
Debbie:
Like, “goodluck!”.
Sherry:
Yeah, no it was, it’s terrifying. Also, one of these things where, on that level of like fear and excitement. It was,it was really crazy. But yeah, we ended up going through Europe, Eastern Europe through Ukraine. That’s my experience with Ukraine, which is really dear to me. I remember driving through it all, through Ukraine into Southern Russia, into the stands up through, like, I don’t know, another part of Russia that then borders Mongolia, and we entered Mongolia from Russia and then drove all the way to Ulaanbaatar. So, we did that.
Debbie:
That’s definitely epic.
Sherry:
It was. It was and we survived and we made it, which was great.
Debbie:
All these are like the types of like travels, I’m interested in, so I’m like, yeah, I would read about that, because well, it’s also your niche too, Sherry, because you’re, you’re not technically marketing to readers who just want like a nice relaxing travel to like Paris or they just wanted to go to the Coliseum and eat pasta. You’re, you’re talking about like Adventures like who want something extra like offbeat, you know?
Sherry:
Yes, I was just going to say this is where the offbeat comes in. I love doing things that are different. I don’t want to be like everyone else, which is also one of the reasons why I was slow to get on the SEO bend.
Debbie:
You’re like, “that’s what everyone’s doing, I don’t want that.”.
Sherry:
Yeah. I’m going to do something different. I always say, one of my animados is I like to see where everyone’s going and then turn around and go the other way. And that’s really how I, I live my life, you know, ever since I made that jump when I left corporate and I got that exhilaration. It’s been like that for me. And now, I’m 52 now and I’m still that’s a huge part of my life. I want to be different. I want to be offbeat, I want to do. I want to encourage others to push themselves into being different and not following the path.
Debbie:
Yeah, I love that you go to these different spots, these different places off the beaten track. I mean, that’s also how I travel, I like to do that as well. I mean, obviously, you want to see the famous spots that you always see but it’s I feel like it’s so much more interesting when you go and see things that are more like the background, you know, like, it’s kind of like going into the backstage of the movie theater and knowing what’s really there, you know, it’s like, it’s kinda fun.
Sherry:
Yeah, it’s that, it’s curiosity, you know, letting your curiosity guide you in a way, but I always talk about this,and I write about this, about like the idea of being an explorer like the old like, Lewis and Clark, like I’m going to go out and discover things and then you know, I want to be the person that that teaches people about these places and then hopefully encourage them to do similar things, but I think it’s really important especially now in these times of, you know, when we talk about over tourism and stuff like that, and so, I think it’s very important to find places off of the beaten track and, and try to introduce them to people to show people that they have other options, other than just going to Paris, potentially. And even if they just want to go to Paris, that’s cool, but how do you even find the different, behind the stage, kind of things in Paris.
Debbie:
Cause there’s a lot, there’s a lot of different spots like even in the most popular spots, right? Like as a New Yorker, there’s so much to see in New York than just what people are telling you about. And I’m like, yeah, and I always tell my friends to come and visit. I’m like, “don’t go there, go here instead.”. There’s so much more to see in these spots. And it’s not even far, and they’re always so surprised when I tell them, like the spots to go to cause I’m like, “I know. Yeah, I know you didn’t know about it.”. But yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s interesting. But, so I wanted to actually talk about this new journey that you’re planning out, which is this bicycle journey that you’re about to start. Can you tell us about that? Because that’s also really offbeat and very adventurous that you’re going to be doing.
Sherry:
Yes, I would love to and it’s starting this May.May of 2022. So back in 1984, I was 14 years old and my father, I think was 47 at the time and he decided for some unknown reason to start walking to, from capital to capital. This was like, before Forrest Gump, before anything, right? He just literally decided he was going to start doing this. He hadn’t even walked that much before, it was very odd.
Anyway, so, I was 14, as a teenager, I was completely embarrassed by it. There was nothing that I thought was cool about this, it was weird and you know, how you get, it’s a total teenager mind frame. But, because of that and he worked full time, he didn’t just take off and quit his job and take off or anything, he was very traditional. He works full time but he had this really kind of offbeat, quirky side to him, that I was embarrassed by.
So, through about, you know, 20, 30 years, he actually finished about 21 of the lower 48 capitals walking from capital to capital, and ended up close to 5000 miles that he walked and he would walk 25 to 30 miles a day. My mother ran logistics for and basically picked him up. They communicated by leaving post-it notes on stop signs because we didn’t have phones. I mean, it was, it was all, he had paper maps, it was all very fascinating and he recorded it all in a little cassette player and then typed it all out on our old Commodore 64. And that’s what I remember about my teen, about my teenage life and beyond was like my dad doing this weird thing.
Well, cut to, I started traveling, finding the uniqueness in myself and my desire to be offbeat and all the sudden,
Debbie:
You became like your Dad.
Sherry:
Yes, you have this aha moment where you’re like, “Holy crap! I am my father.”, and I never thought I was like my father. Like, what, how did that happen? I don’t even know.
Debbie:
And now you think it’s cool, right?
Sherry:
Yeah. So cool! And he’s still alive. He’s 85 years old same as my mom, but, and he’s very active, but he’s not walking anymore, those distances. He probably hasn’t in the last 15 years, I say, but he just kind of left it. And I feel this great desire now to finish it, but I do not want to walk it.
One of the other good things, we talked about good things that came out of the pandemic, one of the good things that came out of the pandemic is I became a biker. I never biked before, but I love biking now and I had this aha moment one day on the bike and I’m like, “That’s it. I’m going to finish this, capital to capital and I’m going to do it on the bike.”, and I’m going to meld these two stories together into a really cool either piece of content, some piece of content, or multiple pieces of content.
So that’s what I’m going to kick off in May and I’m going to start it with my father and mother who live in South Dakota. And finish off his walk that he was in the middle of, and he’d never finished yet, basically to Pierre, South Dakota. And then I’m going to go on and bike from Pierre to Bismarck, North Dakota.
Debbie:
Oh, wow.
Sherry:
So I’ll, I’ll knock two of them off, get my feet underneath me, like, how is this all going to work cause I don’t know. I’ve not, I don’t even know how, it’s a leap. We talked about, like going after what you want. It is a leap. I haven’t trained probably properly to be doing these many miles out of a bike. I don’t even know what it’s going to be like, but I’m going to get out there and do it. And I am going to learn as I go and I’m going to be sharing this whole story, which is more than just a biking journey, but it’s also kind of a family and a very personal journey for myself.
Debbie:
Yeah, it’s a legacy that you’re continuing from your Dad.
Sherry:
It is.
Debbie:
And you know, that is so beautiful. I’m like that’s a good legacy to keep taking with you and finishing, right?
Sherry:
Yeah. Oh yeah, I’ll finish it, it might be, my plan is to do like, probably 5 or so, you know, legs of this, of the capitals, maybe a year, because I still need to continue, I’m still blogging and traveling and stuff like that. One of the beautiful things about this, it does, still also allows me to use my current platform in a way and deliver this story as well, as you know, travel in the capital cities and more domestically and stuff like that. So it’s really exciting. It’s like I have all these fun ideas about what it can be, but I don’t really know how it’s going to take form and you know after blogging and doing this for 16 years, even an ideal life like being a travel blogger gets boring after a while, in a way, and so this really has regenerated, or you know re-energized me, I would say, in like having this new journey and purpose that I can kind of weave into the stuff that I do already. So…
Debbie:
Yeah, cause it, it’s, it may be hard to understand if you’re not doing this, this type of work that you are doing, Sherry, because it’s like, “oh, it seems like the dream”, but there are nuances to it that, it can become monotonous in a lot of ways because you do tend to do similar things day to day, and even when you’re traveling, you know, it can get tiring too, and there’s certain things that you don’t want.
Sherry:
Yeah, it’s a lot of work.
Debbie:
Yeah, and so when you do something that’s off of that and just a little bit different, it does perk up your creativity a bit more and it gives you a little bit more excitement and in so many ways, but thank you so much for sharing with us your journey.
I’m so excited for you to get started with this and I love that legacy, and speaking of legacy, Sherry, let’s look forward to around 22, maybe 30 years from now and you’re looking back in your life, what Legacy would you like to leave? And what do you want to be remembered for?
Sherry:
Oh, wow. I definitely want the legacy of being, what we talked about earlier, an explorer. I want to be one of those explorers, that’s what I want to be known for, about teaching others about new places they can go and new ways they can push themselves.
Yeah. I want to lean into the offbeat, the quirky and the new, definitely.
Debbie:
Yeah, that is definitely an amazing legacy and it seems like it is hereditary with your, your, you know, your parents, your dad, and then now to you, which is pretty awesome. I love that.
So, thank you again for being here, Sherry. If our listeners want to learn more about you, where can they find you?
Sherry:
Yeah, they can follow me on Ottsworld, O-t- t-s-w-o-r-l-d, on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook. That’s where I’m at on all those. I’ll be putting all of the biking stuff, kind of live as we go and the behind-the-scenes stuff on Instagram and Facebook for sure. And then of course on my blog, Ottsworld dot com. I’ll be following up with all the writing and so on, and there’s a whole bunch of information there about epic trips that I’ve done all through the years also, so go check it out.
Debbie:
I love it! Thanks again, we really appreciate you, Sherry, for being here.
Sherry:
Thank you! Thank you so much.
Listen to Sherry’s extended interview where she talks about where to go and when for your next adventure.
What you’ll find:
In this episode Sherry gives very valuable information on where to go and when to go for your next adventure.
