It’s Thanksgiving in the United States today and I’m spending it in Peru with my husband Hank and an international gang of expats and Peruvians while feeling grateful for the random and unexpected path that led us here.
How do you celebrate Thanksgiving? Here are 8 Pinterest quotes to help inspire the day.
Ellen Barone is an American writer and wanderer. After 15 years as an independent content creator for travel and tourism, she has been enjoying extended stays abroad for the past decade, the inspiration behind her travel memoir, "I Could Live Here" (November 2023)
I was raised to tell the truth, though sometimes I can't help but say what other people want to hear: No, I don't mind waiting. Yes, you're right, I should take tango lessons. The lie is out of my mouth before I can stop it, though it doesn't feel like a lie because it's what I imagine a better version of me would say. And yet, last summer, when my honest response to an airline steward's request was met with a scowl of disapproval, I couldn't stop feeling guilty. Crazy. Right?
Ellen Barone is an American writer and wanderer. After 15 years as an independent content creator for travel and tourism, she has been enjoying extended stays abroad for the past decade, the inspiration behind her travel memoir, "I Could Live Here" (November 2023)
Note: This essay, inspired by a family visit, was written in 2012. Since then my relationship to family has been slowly transformed. It wasn’t something I ever spoke about, but a powerful internal shift had taken place. At the time, I had no idea that circumstances would conspire to put my love to the test or that I would take the plunge to help when needed and still feel as I did when I wrote the piece —that the most important thing in life is showing up for one another.
Ellen Barone is an American writer and wanderer. After 15 years as an independent content creator for travel and tourism, she has been enjoying extended stays abroad for the past decade, the inspiration behind her travel memoir, "I Could Live Here" (November 2023)
It’s a compelling question: If I only had a few weeks to live, where would I go?
Would I drop everything and head off on a thrilling round-the-world Bucket List adventure?
Would I would stay right where I am, in a temporary house in Mexico?
Would I return ‘home” to the landscape of my childhood?
Ellen Barone is an American writer and wanderer. After 15 years as an independent content creator for travel and tourism, she has been enjoying extended stays abroad for the past decade, the inspiration behind her travel memoir, "I Could Live Here" (November 2023)
Part terror, part pleasure, a writer’s life is complicated. Like a gripping adventure tale, it’s a pulse-pounding journey that never lets up, with danger lurking everywhere. It can set your heart soaring one minute and break it an instant later.
So why do we do it? In my own life, writing is how I make sense of myself and the world around me. I suspect it’s like that for many of us.
Ellen Barone is an American writer and wanderer. After 15 years as an independent content creator for travel and tourism, she has been enjoying extended stays abroad for the past decade, the inspiration behind her travel memoir, "I Could Live Here" (November 2023)
Many years ago my husband, Hank, bought me a T-shirt that read “I used to be schizophrenic, but we’re just fine now.”
We joke about the crazy woman he married. The unconventional wife who reinvents herself every decade or so and still doesn’t know who she wants to be when she grows up. And, as the shirt suggests, there’s more than one of me in this marriage.
Ellen Barone is an American writer and wanderer. After 15 years as an independent content creator for travel and tourism, she has been enjoying extended stays abroad for the past decade, the inspiration behind her travel memoir, "I Could Live Here" (November 2023)
It’s the first day of the new year and I’m spending it defining my intentions for living a better life, being a better person and traveling to greater creative expression in the new year.
Are you using the holiday to write the story of your new 365-day life chapter? Here are 20 of my favorite quotes to help inspire the journey.
Ellen Barone is an American writer and wanderer. After 15 years as an independent content creator for travel and tourism, she has been enjoying extended stays abroad for the past decade, the inspiration behind her travel memoir, "I Could Live Here" (November 2023)
Who has time to think about the meaning of life, happiness, and fulfillment when iPads, Facebook, and jobs fill the days? These are big concepts. Deep questions. Topics that, for much of my life, I rarely contemplated. Like most people of the world, I was busy doing my best to hang on and enjoy the ride as life whizzed by.
The miracle is that despite a formidable capacity for denial and significant gaps in knowledge of myself and the world around me, important questions still accumulated: Who am I? Where do I find meaning? What is my purpose?
Now, with streaks of gray in my blonde hair and fifty years on this planet, these are questions I’m finally getting around to asking. The answers are not what I expected.
Ellen Barone is an American writer and wanderer. After 15 years as an independent content creator for travel and tourism, she has been enjoying extended stays abroad for the past decade, the inspiration behind her travel memoir, "I Could Live Here" (November 2023)
It was a golden November afternoon. I strolled across the bustling Mexican plaza in the Jalisco village where my husband Hank and I live part-time. Photogenic scenes were everywhere.
It was fiesta time and I immersed myself in the jubilant celebrations and felt the strength of community in the vibrant Mexican village. Absent, however, was an urge to photograph. The goodwill that surrounded me felt too precious for a bystander’s camera.
Ellen Barone is an American writer and wanderer. After 15 years as an independent content creator for travel and tourism, she has been enjoying extended stays abroad for the past decade, the inspiration behind her travel memoir, "I Could Live Here" (November 2023)
The plan was to meet in Rome and then spend the following three weeks circumnavigating Italy’s hot spots creating lifestyle photography for a travel tour company. I would be the photographer and my beautiful German friend, the model. The client was footing the bill for expenses and a generous day rate. Dream assignment, right? It should have been.
Ellen Barone is an American writer and wanderer. After 15 years as an independent content creator for travel and tourism, she has been enjoying extended stays abroad for the past decade, the inspiration behind her travel memoir, "I Could Live Here" (November 2023)
I’ve learned a lot from travel and living abroad. I’ve learned about my own ignorance, arrogance, and resistance, but also about kindness and compassion. However, one of the most liberating lessons of being a foreigner has been learning to love the feeling of anonymity that comes from hanging out in places where no one knows me.
Ellen Barone is an American writer and wanderer. After 15 years as an independent content creator for travel and tourism, she has been enjoying extended stays abroad for the past decade, the inspiration behind her travel memoir, "I Could Live Here" (November 2023)
I need quiet to sleep well. I need high-speed Internet to work. I need to live in a natural setting to feel at peace. Until two-and-a-half years ago I believed unequivocally in the truth of these “needs.” Today I can get a good night’s sleep amidst a cacophony of barking dogs, exploding fireworks, and blaring music.
Ellen Barone is an American writer and wanderer. After 15 years as an independent content creator for travel and tourism, she has been enjoying extended stays abroad for the past decade, the inspiration behind her travel memoir, "I Could Live Here" (November 2023)