Embracing Vulnerability + Facing Cultural Biases with Courage

She Who Wanders

Nov 1

7 Questions with Cassidy from Living Unconventionally

Meet Cassidy. This brave mama of two boys has overcome so many challenges to be the adventurous lady we all know as Living Unconventionally. She lives outside the box, chases her dreams and doesn’t worry about what society says is important, but instead listens to her own passions and instincts…something that is not always easy to do in today’s world. Check out her interview below and prepare to be inspired! I know I fell hard for her story, her courage as a woman and mama, and the energy she brings every day to her corner of the internet.

Q: At what time in your life was your passion for travel ignited?

I found my passion for travel in Middle School. I was blessed to attend a very small, public school in the San Juan Mountains of Southwest Colorado. My school was very outdoor-centric, experience-focused, and offered many opportunities to travel.

Our 6th grade class trip was a 4 day adventure through Denver (about 6 hours from home) where we got to experience things like the Boulder Dinner Theater, the Celestial Seasonings Tea Factory, the Denver Mint, and more. On our 7th grade class trip, we got to visit Moab where we explored the national and state parks, repelled into slot canyons, and truly embraced the outdoors. Our 8th grade class trip was a 10 day expedition from our tiny mountain town in Colorado to Catalina Island, just off the coast of Southern California. We got to stay at a sustainability-focused camp there where we learned about composting, the Kelp forest, did high ropes courses and night snorkels and team building. It was a pivotal time for me learning to get out of my comfort zone.

The summer between 7th and 8th grade, I was invited (along with a group of about 6 or 7 other students) to join our science / language arts teacher on a 3 week adventure throughout China with EFTours (an educational-based tour company). We toured all over the country via bus and domestic airlines and had so many deep, cultural experiences. My palette was not very mature at this time so I mainly existed on oreo cookies, white rice, and redbull for those 3 weeks; nonetheless, it was a life-changing experience where I was pushed outside my comfort zone and grew this dying need to just take in as much as possible. I didn’t sleep. Was it the red bull or the excitement? Who knows… but I remember staying up later than everyone else & rising earlier every single day and night to watch what was going on outside the hotel windows. I felt alive for the first time in my young life (at age 12 in China with my school group). From that point forwards, my life revolved around travel and seeking deep, growth-type experiences both in the backcountry and abroad. I wanted to stretch out and become all that I could be.

Q: The Great Wanderlust is all about women getting outside the box and diving deeper in both travel and in life. Our mission is to inspire women to feel more vibrant through adventure and exploration. So, what is your great wanderlust? What most makes you come to life?

Wow! What a great question! My great wanderlust is the feeling of being in conversation with someone I’ve just met who doesn’t speak my native tongue, has never visited by native land, and who doesn’t really understand my culture. I love the interactions that feel like charades. I love the patience and grace that I’ve always been granted by foreigners. I love feeling vulnerable in a foreign land because it forces me to redirect any biases that I have stuffed deep down within me. To depend on others who are unlike me for advice, suggestions, directions, protection, or even just community and conversation makes me come to life. I love to understand the way their minds work and how they get from point a to point b within their minds, limited by the social norms and ideology of their culture and life experiences instead of my own.

Q: Do you ever have hesitations or fears before a trip - either RV life, here in the states or abroad? If so, what are they and how do you overcome them and go anyway?

If I were to be perfectly honest with you, I always get butterflies in my tummy the night before we go on a big adventure or right as we are embarking; however, none were more vibrant than the night before we left for El Salvador last December. In my mind I knew that the biases I had were programmed into me by the media and government and racism within my own country, but that doesn’t make getting on a plane with my kids any easier. Everyone told me I was crazy for bringing my family to the “murder capital of the world”. Our families were worried about us and were sending us negative news articles up until our departure. Of course I was second-guessing our decision. I even went as far as calling the airline to see about refunding our flights or switching to a “more mild” destination… but I knew I had to do it. I knew I had to go. I knew that the only way to understand the truth was to experience it for myself. I knew that my kids were watching me and every decision I made. I felt inspired to NOT let them make judgements without knowing a people or a place. So we went for it… and thank GOD we did. El Salvador is one of the most incredible places we have ever visited, and I’m going to be grateful for the rest of my life that I got to experience it and come back to sing its praises to the other people in my homeland.

Q: Everything you do shows your passion and excitement for travel and life in general. What is something from your personal story that has empowered you to be a more passionate and adventurous mama?

The time I got caught in a flash flood on the San Juan river is an experience that helped shape me into the woman, survivalist, outdoor enthusiast, and passionate LIVER that I am today. It was the weekend of my 18th birthday, and I was an adventure education major on a required field trip for my Paddling Fundamentals class. Our class of about 12 students and 2 instructors paddled 7 canoes down the river in late September. As students in the AE program, we couldn’t camp in tents. And on the trips we were allowed to bring tents on, it was generally frowned upon. Instead we built lean-to shelters out of just a tarp, the strings attached to it, and our canoe paddles. I had done that before and didn’t mind sleeping near the scorpions, snakes, and creatures of the Southern Utah Desert... but as me and 2 other gals slept under our make-shift shelter, it began to pour.

We were in a flash flood, on our camping pads, being pushed by the water out from under the lean-to and into the elements. It turns out we picked a spot on a slight incline, so the entire night we were being pushed out, sopping wet, and trying to get back under our shelter.

It was miserable.

The water subsided in the morning. We cooked our food and got back on the river to finish our last 10 mile+ stretch to the take out. It was Sunday, and we were so close to getting back home... It was also my 18th birthday.

While on the river the second day, the flash floods began again. We all watched as the dry creek beds on either side of the river filled and pushed out an abundance of water, tree parts, shrubs, and other desert foliage that had grown in the dry beds. The color of the river darkened; It all turned to chocolate milk. When the lightning began and became too close for our comfort, our instructor had us pull all of our metal canoes over on the side of the river. He then instructed us to disperse in the woods so that hopefully the lightning would strike the trees above us and if it struck one of us, hopefully it wouldn’t strike us all.

This was the hands-on life experience that taught me about risk mitigation and what it truly means to be not only a group facilitator, but an adventure leader.

It taught me that our most precious life experiences exist in the realm where fear is rampant. Travel and adventure have pushed me to grow in a way nothing else ever has.

Q: If you had to give one single greatest benefit of traveling the world with your family, what would it be?

This is an extremely difficult question for me to answer, but I suppose that if I had to summarize it all into one word, that word would be: wisdom.

When we travel, particularly abroad, we gain such a greater understanding for not only cultures and languages and foods but also for other ways of thinking.

Travel teaches us patience and that our ideas or solutions may not be the best and are definitely not the only.

There is a sense of wisdom that elevates with every trip we take.

Q: You are really passionate about travel in Central and South America specifically, right? What qualities draw you to that part of the world and how has traveling there had an impact on you and your family?

Yes! We primarily focus our travels on Latin America at the moment. We’ve actually never been to South America but have our first trip there booked for July: 1 month in Colombia.

My passion for Latin America began in high school when I was a foreign exchange student in Panama during my junior year. I returned to Panama again during my senior year to visit a friend for her birthday. It was the first time I traveled abroad alone. I booked my flights and rode a cross-country bus down the PanAmerican highway for ~4 hours to get from the international airport to the city where my friends lived / where I had studied abroad the previous year.

I had attended a bilingual elementary school and had been practicing my Spanish for years, but nothing forces you to learn a language than by being totally immersed in it and totally alone in it.

Now we focus our travels on this area for several reasons: (1) We really value bilingualism and urge our kids to practice their Spanish at every opportunity; (2) Long-haul flights with kids SUCK, but most flights to Central America and the Caribbean are totally bearable with small children; (3) the cost is extremely low compared to traveling to other regions of the world. Flights are cheap and so are accommodations. (4) On our last winter adventure to Honduras and El Salvador, I found out how much I loved breaking down the travel stereotypes for these types of places. I can’t wait to show the world more of what Latin America has to offer and to help break the stigma about it being dangerous for family travel!

Q: Where are you off to next and what are you most looking forward to about it?

We get to spend 1 month in Colombia this July/August and are beyond stoked to explore so many different parts of the country. We didn’t realize how vast it was until we began booking our trip. I think 1 month is the bare minimum someone can do on a trip to Colombia to really try to “see it all”. Even with a month to spend there, we’ve had to cut out several amazing places because it just is too much to see for such a small time frame. Some of the things we are most excited to see are the Amazon Rainforest, the Coffee Triangle, and the Rosario Islands off the coast of Cartagena. The friends who I went back to Panama to visit in my senior year of high school now reside in Bogota, so we are super excited to get to visit them!