Six years ago, on a whim, I left my apartment in the middle of the night for a cross-country road trip. I never really came back. Fast forward to now, and I’m still living on the road and haven’t looked back since.

Looking back, I think part of that decision comes from how I was raised. My family moved around a lot when I was a kid, mainly across the Midwest and the East Coast, settling down for just a little while in very small towns. When I was super young, I hated moving. And honestly, I don’t blame myself—being thrown into a new school in the middle of the school year and having to restart my life was always hard. But as I got older, I began to embrace it. The changes became exciting. I realized that every time I moved, I got to add an entirely new chapter to my life and more members of my growing web of friends all around the country. It stopped feeling like I was losing something and started feeling like I was gaining something new every time.


Since that fateful first trip, I’ve been to nearly every state in the U.S., and still, the Midwest holds a special place in my heart. Whenever I’m driving through, I always stop to visit old friends, and it feels like we travel back to simpler times. Growing up in small towns, we always had to make our own fun. We’d hang in the woods, build forts, have shopping cart races, and find the highest viewpoint in town to sit on and talk for hours.

When my best friend got his first car, we would drive through back roads lined with endless fields. I remember sticking my head out the window and into the breeze, and experiencing one of my first moments of true, euphoric freedom. We had no destination and no plan, but with the road stretching out and the scenery rolling outside the window, it felt like time slowed down for a moment.

So nowadays, I love to share that same sense of freedom with my friends when we hit the road. I call it a “road trip to nowhere." We just pile in the car, pick a direction, and drive. Our only rule is that whenever someone wants to stop and see something, we stop.


Regardless of our route or what we find along the way, our road adventures always bring out this childlike sense of joy. You start to notice the things you’d normally pass by: a random roadside stand, a view you didn’t expect, a conversation with strangers that lasts longer than expected.

Somewhere along the way, I found Yerba Madre, and it naturally became part of those adventures. It’s just one of those small constants you come to rely on when everything else is changing. Living on the road means you’re always on the move. Having a Yerba gives me that sustained lift to keep moving through early mornings, long drives, and spontaneous stops.


The goal of all my travels is to fully experience everything life has to offer and form connections all around the world. It’s less about getting somewhere and more about staying open to whatever comes next. Doing this full time was always a bit unimaginable, but if I could meet little Aidan—always nervously anticipating the next move, the next change—I think he’d be pretty proud of the life of adventure we ended up chasing.