ROOTED IN HOME. SHAPED BY TRAVEL.
Ellen Barone | Laura A Tiliman Photography
In 1998, I made a choice that would define the next quarter-century: I left a secure academic career to become a travel photographer and writer, armed only with curiosity and a storyteller’s instinct.
That leap of faith launched hundreds of journeys across six continents and a career devoted to transforming wanderlust into words. For fifteen years, I created travel and tourism stories and visuals that inspired others to explore the world. In 2015, I turned that experience toward helping brands share their own narratives through marketing communications and content strategy.
In 2011, my husband Hank and I took our biggest adventure yet—what began as a one-year travel experiment became a decade-long nomadic life that reshaped everything we thought we knew about what home means and how we find connection. That journey became my 2023 memoir, I Could Live Here: A Travel Memoir of Home and Belonging.
Today, I continue exploring how place, story, and connection intertwine. I’m writing a novel set along Portugal’s Atlantic coast and co-publish YourLifeIsATrip.com, a group travel blog. I call New Mexico home—but curiosity keeps me lingering in places, traveling slow and staying long.
When I’m not writing or wandering, you’ll find me lost in a good book, seeking out local artisans and their stories, or plotting about the next adventure.
I welcome collaborations, speaking invitations, and conversations about travel, storytelling, and the evolving idea of home—feel free to get in touch .