"What's your job?" "How did you get to where you are today?" Two questions which are a little long for a DM, so here's the story...

Back in 2012 I was working 9-5 for a large public relations agency called Edelman until a series of events lead me to quit and book a one-way ticket to Kathmandu where I spent the next three months travelling around Nepal, Thailand, and Indonesia with my boyfriend Alexey.

It was the first time I had ever left North America, and I spent 80% of my time behind my new DSLR pursuing ‘actual’ photography for the first time - a hobby I enjoyed throughout high school and university, mostly shooting sports, but never made time to pursue seriously until I had the space and inspiration of my first trip.

After those three months of travel, I came home with no money, no job, and no idea what life direction I was supposed to head in next. I wanted to keep making content while travelling, but I didn’t know how to do it while making money at the same time, so I dropped into a heavy cocoon phase with zero income and lots of tears for eight months as I figured out how to figure it out.

I added to my nerd skills, read books, and experimented with a bunch of projects, until I finally broke through the other side by landing a new job as a social media coordinator for a cruise agency, which I was able to negotiate into a full-time remote position during the interview so I could work from anywhere while continuing to travel with my camera.

The job itself involved running an entire suite of social media accounts for each of their four separate brands - content sourcing, scheduling, community management, ad campaigns, blogging, all of it - and I was the social media department of one. I knew how to fill the role but it was a sh*t ton of work to do properly by myself, and I wasn’t in a position to say something and risk losing my epic new job either, so I entered the world of virtual partnerships, digital efficiency software, and outsourcing.

This shift enabled me to allocate tasks to other people and then implement the work myself on behalf of the cruise agency. Together my digital team and I grew their total social media reach from 24k impressions per month to over 20 Million monthly impressions with an 11,000% growth rate month-over-month, for each of the 8 months I was with the company - and I was able to make it happen from behind my laptop in Canada, Mexico, the Bahamas, Nicaragua, Panama, the Philippines, and Thailand.

When my term with the cruise agency came to an end in 2015 I founded my company Social Lume and moved into independent consulting within the realm of social media marketing and audience growth strategies. I continued working with my clients on a remote basis while travelling and shooting content, which eventually evolved from a passion project into a new avenue for me to work with brands as a content creator.

This is the work/life balance I currently have. Working year-round with my clients as a remote-based social media consultant, while travelling 6 months of the year for content campaigns in the travel & lifestyle space… Creating strategies, and telling stories.

I love watching my clients pick up steam on social media, and I love sharing unique travel and lifestyle experiences with the 130k+ of you who have joined me on Instagram.

If you would like to connect, whether to book a discovery call with me to learn about consulting options, talk about an upcoming campaign, receive a copy of my media kit, or say hello, the best way to reach me is through the link below.