They’re doing it to learn something new about themselves, challenge themselves, explore a new place intentionally and slowly, and see beauty that leaves them in awe.

I think about this a lot, especially because of what I do for a living. I’m behind a camera more than most people, constantly looking for the beautiful image. And when I travel, there’s a part of me that wants to photograph everything. I want to make something beautiful, to come home with images I’m proud of, to add something meaningful to my portfolio.

But there’s another part of me that just wants to be there.

I want to experience the place without constantly thinking about how I’m going to photograph it. I want the trip to be what it is, rather than what I imagined it would be before I arrived. And yet, I’m still human enough to have expectations. I have images in my head before I ever get on the plane. I imagine the light, the places I’ll see, the photographs I’ll make, the version of the trip I’ve constructed in my mind.

So, I’m constantly negotiating between the two: wanting to be present enough to actually experience something, while also wanting to notice it, photograph it, remember it, and make something from it.

I don’t think one side is necessarily better than the other. Photography is part of how I experience the world. It’s one of the ways I pay attention. The challenge for me is remembering that I don’t have to turn every beautiful moment into an image for it to have been worth experiencing.

A while back I wrote about a trip to Italy that didn’t go how I expected — Just a Tuesday in Italy — about the gap between the trip you plan for and the one you actually get, and learning to be okay with that gap instead of fighting it. These prompts came out of that same place. They’re about noticing what’s actually there, expectations aside.

When I travel alone, I do a lot of coffee sipping and journaling. Normally I'm writing whatever comes to mind. There isn’t really any structure, no prompts, just whatever’s there. A brain dump, if you will. But recently, while traveling, I started thinking it might help to have a few questions on hand. Something to get me thinking, to help me actually remember specific moments from a trip instead of just the whatever comes to mind in the moment (even though this isn’t a bad thing either).

It occurred to me these might be useful for other people who love solo traveling too, so I’m sharing a handful of them here. Answer them daily, once per location, or just work through them over the course of the whole trip, however it fits.

Arrival

On presence in the unremarkable, every day moments

• List out the sights, sounds, and smells you’re noticing right now.

• What’s one everyday habit or ritual you saw locals doing today that would look completely unremarkable to them, but felt new to you?

Solitude

On learning about new versions of yourself

• Was there a moment today you felt completely at ease, even though you’re far from home?

• Name something you’re leaving in this place: a feeling, a fear, a version of you.

• What would you want to tell the version of yourself who was afraid to come here alone?

Connection

On the strangers who become part of the story, even if just for a moment

• Who did you talk to today, even briefly? What do you remember about them?

• If you could sit down for coffee with one person from today, who would it be and what would you ask them?

• Is there someone you wished you had spoken to today, but didn’t? What held you back?

Friction

On surrender and the parts of travel that aren’t Instagram-able

• When did you feel most out of your depth, and what did you do next?

• What did you have to release today: a plan, an expectation, an idea of how an experience should go?

Departure

On what stays with you after you leave

• What will you miss the moment you leave?

• What habit, ritual, or new thing do you want to bring back to your daily life?

• What’s one thing you did on this trip that you’re proud of?

Traveling alone has taught me more about myself than almost anything else I've done, and I think these little pauses to notice, even taking just five minutes to journal, are part of why. I hope these prompts are helpful and would love to hear if any of the prompts have resonated with you or if you decide to use them on an upcoming trip!

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I have that kind of comfort. And for a long time, I thought it was the goal.

But lately I’ve been noticing something: the same consistency that makes me good at my job has started to make me a little... bored. Not in my life. But more in my creativity. Like a muscle I haven’t been stretching.

I’ll be honest — I’m in a season of figuring out what’s next in terms of my photography and my career. I feel a nudge toward something different. I’m just not sure exactly what that looks like, yet. Creatively, I’ve felt a little stuck. And the longer I sit with it, the more I think my creature comforts might be part of the problem.

Staying comfortable is easy. It requires nothing from you but showing up and doing what you’ve always done. Funny thing is, fear has a way of disguising itself as contentment. You tell yourself you’re protecting your style, your process, your consistency, when really you’re just avoiding the discomfort of not knowing what you’re doing or trying something you may not be good at.

I’ve been avoiding that discomfort for a while now.

I think I let "I've figured out my style" quietly become "I'm done experimenting." The work became about protecting it, not pushing it. I stopped experimenting because it felt like admitting I didn't have it figured out (like I ever could have it "figured out"…). It's so silly writing it out now, as if art and experimentation don't go hand in hand? As if experimentation could ever do anything but make me a better photographer?

I think part of the worry is that I would stray too far away from the artist I am. Like I would lose my style if I try experimenting with new equipment, angles, subject, etc. But I'm still the one behind the camera. At some point it wasn't even a conscious choice, it was a comfortable one to keep shooting and creating the way I always have.

I’m completely self-taught. I never took a photography class in college. Every single thing I know, I taught myself by watching photographers I admired + doing it wrong first. And somewhere along the way I forgot that the doing it wrong, the learning by trying, was the whole foundation. It wasn’t a phase I outgrew, but really it’s the method I’ve been using from the start.

So I’m trying a couple of things. Not really as answers, just as movement in the direction of learning something new.

I picked up a Godox mini flash for my Leica Q, and I realized I’d forgotten what it feels like to not know exactly what’s going to happen when I press the shutter. To be a little uncertain. It’s a little uncomfortable - I've never really loved using anything other than natural light. But there’s something there in the discomfort that I haven’t felt in a while.

I’m also trying to shoot wider. For someone who lives in 50mm, wide angle feels almost like learning a new language. More in the frame means more decisions + more things to focus on, but I think it will add some fun new versatility to my work.

And I want to get more serious about film. Medium format, specifically. I’ve been circling it for years, always with a reason to wait: the cost, the learning curve, the inconvenience of getting it wrong. Film forces you to slow down, to be deliberate, to really choose the frame. I think it will make me a better photographer in ways I can’t fully predict yet. I have loved shooting with my 35mm and I’m looking forward to working with a larger negative. I’m thinking about the Pentax 645 — based on everything I have read, it will be a good way to ease into the medium format world.

If you shoot medium format, I would LOVE to know what you shoot with, why you enjoy it and any advice you have. I am hoping to purchase one later this year!

I don’t have a tidy ending for this one because I’m still in the middle of it. Still figuring out what this season is actually about and what it’s asking of me creatively. But I think the reaching matters, even when you’re not sure what you’re reaching toward. I absolutely tit will make me a more versatile creative and a more well rounded photographer.

If you’re in a similar place, I’d love to know. What does it look like when your comfort starts to feel like something that is keeping you stuck?

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I was only there for about 8 hours this trip, but I got to revisit a favorite spot for dinner and a friend showed me a couple of others:

Sullanua Libreria & Bistrot - for lunch or dinner. This who area feels really ‘cool’!

Ostaria Santa Fosca - perfect for a coffee + pastry or an aperitivo along the canals

Gelateria Gallonetto - wanted to try this place because it has 4.9 stars out of almost 4,500 reviews, but I just wasn’t willing to wait in the line. Maybe next time!

VENICE

VERONA

This trip was actually my first time in Verona! I loved walking along the water and the architecture, like most Italian cities, was so stunning. Again, this was another day trip from Trento, so I only spend about 7-8 hours in the city, but here are some of the places I stopped into:

Ammazza Caffé — journaled here for a couple hours and enjoyed a delicious cortado

Focacceria La Figaccia — got a delicious sandwich here for lunch and ate it on a bench in Giardini Vittorio Emanuele II

Migupottery — stopped in here for a souvenir (ended up getting an espresso cup for my collection)

Gelateria Ballini — grabbed my favorite combination of gelato, chocolate + raspberry and it was delicious.

Also made my way to Castel San Pietro for a beautiful view of the city.

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Then I became a self-employed photographer.

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Running a photography business doesn’t care much about your plans. There are seasons where the inbox is full and the work is good and you feel like you finally figured something out, but you are also exhausted. And then there are seasons where it goes quiet, sometimes really quiet, and you’re left sitting with all that careful planning and wondering ‘where did I go wrong?’.

The first few slow seasons, I fought it. I refreshed my email. I updated my website incessantly. I drafted pitches I never sent, or sent ones that never got responses. I convinced myself that if I just tried harder, pushed more, controlled more variables, I could manufacture momentum.

Turns out, I couldn’t.

There’s a seasonality to this work that I’ve had to make peace with. The slow seasons used to feel like failure. Now I’m learning to read them differently: as space, as reset, as a break before work comes through my inbox again, a place to create for myself. My business isn’t broken, but rather, has a rhythm.

Ten years ago I was working a 9-5, and my days looked more or less the same from one week to the next. Predictable in a way that felt safe. Now I can look at a completely empty month ahead and end it with five or six shoots on the books. Early on, that open calendar would have caused me to freak out. These days I know that most of my clients are booking two weeks out (sometimes the week of, which I'll admit is not my favorite) and the ones planning a month or two ahead are genuinely the exception. That's just the nature of this work. So I've learned to create my own sense of rhythm and routine through small daily habits. Now, I actually love that every week/ month doesn’t look the same.

That reframe didn’t come easy, and honestly it didn’t come from discipline either. It came from faith. From practicing, imperfectly and repeatedly, the belief that I don’t have to hold everything together by sheer force of effort. That God is moving in my life in ways I can’t see yet. That there is something larger at work than my color coded planner and to-do list.

Here’s what I’ve started to understand: there’s a real difference between surrendering and giving up.

Giving up is disengagement. It’s pulling back your effort, lowering your standards, deciding it just doesn’t matter. I don’t believe in that approach. I still send intentional pitches to brands I’d love to work with. I still make new connections (in person and online). I still put my best work forward, every single time, because that part is mine to control.

What I’ve slowly accepted is that I can’t control which clients reach out to me and when. Cold outreach has its place, but the work that has actually sustained this business has come through connection — through relationships, through word of mouth, through someone trusting me enough to pass my name along. That’s not something I can force. That’s something I have to receive.

And receiving requires open hands, not ones clenching to things that may not be right for me just because I’m scared to let go of them.

Part of that for me has meant letting go of a scarcity mindset. Early on I said yes to weddings, engagements, family shoots — work that plenty of photographers do beautifully, but that wasn't where I wanted to go, and I realized that pretty quickly. Over the last decade I've also gotten more intentional about the portrait and branding work I take on. The clients I want to build this business around aren't the ones shopping for the lowest quote. They're the ones who trust my eye, who give me creative room, who are moving in a direction I want to move in too. I'd rather wait for the right fit than fill a slow season with work that pulls me further from where I'm trying to go.

I've actually had to put surrender into practice recently. I had been working consistently with a client for a couple of years. I showed up, delivered photos early, accommodated what they needed, did work I was proud of. And last year, it ended. The reason given was ‘editing style’, though they've continued working with other photographers whose work isn't all that different from mine, so I'm honestly still not sure. Maybe they're still figuring out what they want. Maybe it just wasn't the right fit anymore. Either way, it was hard, humbling, and disappointing. But that's exactly where surrender had to come in. I gave everything I had for as long as it lasted. Some things just aren't meant to continue, and accepting that without bitterness is its own kind of surrender + faith.

I still make plans and work hard. I still show up trying to deliver a service and product that brands love + want to rave about to others. But I’ve stopped gripping so tightly to the exact outcomes, and something in me has gotten more confident because of it.

Surrender, it turns out, isn’t weakness. It’s the harder thing. It’s trusting God when the process isn’t giving you anything to see yet. It’s doing the work with everything you have and trusting God with the rest — the reception, the reach, the next opportunity you can’t see yet. It honestly has brought me more peace and confidence than any planning I’ve done on my own.

I’m still learning this. Some days I still reach for the old habits including sending extra pitches just to be ‘busy', anxiously refreshing my inbox, and trying to create some semblance of control. But I keep coming back to the same question: what’s actually mine to hold? And what am I trying to carry that was never mine to begin with?

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In April, I spent a week and a half in Trento, a small city tucked into the mountains of northern Italy. A dear friend joined me for the first few days before I had the rest of the time to myself — which I spent almost entirely sick with bronchitis, running on three hours of sleep, and somehow still wandering the city every day (and even going on a couple day trips). Our bodies truly are remarkable things.

I spent most of my mornings journaling at coffee shops and got several substacks out of it — here’s one of them:

Trento was also a great home base for day trips to Riva del Garda, Bolzano, Venice + Verona!

Spots I enjoyed for a coffee, glass of wine, or snack:

• Torrefazione Artigianale

• La Vie en Rose

• FC Daskclub

• Bar Caffè Portici

• Cin Cin Bar

• Lado Gelateria

• La quinta del sordo

Places to visit:

• Museo Castello del Buonconsiglio

• Piazza del Duomo

• MUSE - Science Museum

Also, here are the two hotels I stayed at while in town — they were GREAT locations, clean, and felt super safe + comfortable!

• Soul of Trento

• Electric Rooms

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And then there’s actual shoot day.

I’ve been doing this long enough to know that no amount of preparation eliminates the unexpected. But preparation does determine how much the unexpected costs you. And the place where most shoots either succeed or start to unravel isn’t on the day itself, but in the weeks before, when expectations are (or aren’t) being set.

Pre-production is where a shoot either gets set up to succeed or set up to struggle. I’m not always hired as a producer, and when that work does fall to me, it gets priced accordingly. But even when someone else is running production, I’m still showing up to those planning calls, still flagging what I’m seeing and sharing my thoughts on whether the schedule is realistic. That’s part of how I work. It’s not a separate service. It’s just what a photographer who’s been on enough shoot days brings to the table.

What prepared actually looks like varies shoot to shoot, but there are a few things that make a consistent difference. Before any shoot day that I know is going to be tight, I want to have a real conversation with the client about must-haves versus nice-to-haves. Not every shot on a wish list is equal, and knowing which ones are non-negotiable before we’re on location means we’re making those calls in advance, not in the moment when time is already slipping.

A written timeline matters more than most people expect, but how rigid that timeline needs to be depends on the shoot. More products, more locations, tighter windows means the schedule has to hold tighter too, and that’s worth being honest with your client about upfront. It’s also worth minimizing changes on the day itself for the same reason. When there’s very little margin, you’re often capturing specific shots and moving on, and there’s not much room for a moment to build into something you didn’t plan for. That’s why I always want to know the must-haves before we’re on location. Get those locked, and if there’s time left you’re not scrambling, you’re creating.

I had a shoot recently that reminded me of all of this in real time. The brand was great. The product was genuinely good. And there were still things that slipped through the cracks, which is what this post is really about.

Let’s get into it…

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But they both worked traditional 9-to-5 jobs, so when it came to running my own business, that was a little outside their wheelhouse. The foundation they gave me was invaluable, but some things I had to figure out on my own. And looking back, there are a handful of financial habits and systems I wish I’d put in place sooner.

Not because I was doing anything wrong. Just because a little more structure and knowledge earlier on would have helped my money start working for me sooner.

NOTE: I am not a financial advisor. Everything I share here is based on what works for me and should not be taken as financial advice. Everyone’s financial situation is different, and you have to figure out what’s best for you and your business.

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TLDR:

• Build a 3–6 month emergency fund.

• Open a SEP IRA + Roth IRA, and a brokerage account once those are maxed out.

• Set aside money for quarterly taxes, ideally in a separate account.

• Keep your spending consistent even when income fluctuates.

• Invest early. ‘Time in the market beats timing the market’.

• Invest in yourself and your business.

• Raise your rates regularly, or inflation is quietly doing it for you.

Build a 3–6 month emergency cushion.

When you first leave a steady paycheck to freelance, the income waves can feel disorienting. I still remember the first slow month after starting my business and immediately thinking I’d made a huge mistake.

Having 3–6 months of essential living expenses saved changes that feeling entirely. It’s not just financial security. It’s the freedom to make thoughtful decisions about your work instead of operating from panic. It means you can turn down a project that isn’t the right fit, handle an unexpected equipment failure, or simply breathe during a quieter stretch without spiraling.

Build this cushion early and keep it somewhere accessible. A high-yield savings account (HYSA) is ideal - more on this later.

Open a Roth IRA alongside your SEP IRA (and eventually a brokerage account too).

If you’re self-employed, a SEP IRA is a great starting point. It lets you contribute a larger percentage of your income while lowering your taxable income in the current year. It was the first retirement account I opened, back in 2017.

But I wish I’d also opened a Roth IRA sooner and made it a goal to max it out every year.

The biggest advantage of a Roth is that you don’t pay taxes on the gains when you withdraw in retirement. Having both accounts lets you balance your tax strategy: getting deductions now with the SEP, while building tax-free growth for the future with the Roth.

Once your emergency fund is in place and your IRA contributions are maxed out, a standard brokerage account is the natural next step. It gives you flexibility to keep investing beyond the retirement account limits, without locking the money away until you’re 59½.

Actually spend time learning how to invest.

In the early years of my business, I was good at saving. But I didn’t spend nearly enough time learning how to invest strategically, and that’s a different skill entirely.

If I could go back, I’d spend more time reading books, watching YouTube videos, and asking questions about things like ETFs, dividends, and long-term investing strategies. You don’t need to become an expert. But having a basic understanding makes it so much easier to feel confident about where your money is going and how it’s growing.

One concept I wish I’d understood earlier is Coast FI — the idea that if you invest enough early on, your money can eventually grow on its own to support retirement, even if you stop contributing aggressively later. The earlier you invest, the more freedom you may have down the road to work less, take more creative risks, or simply stop feeling like every dollar has to go toward retirement savings forever.

Here is a free Coast FI calculator if you are interested in figuring out your numbers!

Time in the market beats timing the market — and that’s something I had to learn the slow way. Don’t sit on too much cash just because it feels safe.

Move your extra cash into a high-yield savings account.

If money is sitting in a regular checking account earning almost nothing, it’s quietly losing value to inflation. A high-yield savings account (HYSA) is one of the simplest upgrades you can make.

I use mine for my emergency fund, money set aside for quarterly taxes, and savings for any larger upcoming purchases. The interest rate fluctuates with the broader economy, so it’s not a long-term investment vehicle, but it’s a genuinely easy way to let your money earn something while it sits there waiting to be used (we’re combatting inflation here).

Track your income and expenses in a cohesive spreadsheet.

For the first few years of my business, I tracked business expenses by hand on printed spreadsheets. It worked, technically. But it wasn’t efficient, and it made it harder to see the full picture.

Eventually I moved everything into one comprehensive spreadsheet: income, business expenses, personal expenses, taxes, net worth. Once a month I sit down with it and actually review the numbers, not just record them. That monthly habit is where the real value is. You start to see patterns, catch things you’d otherwise miss, and make better decisions because you actually know where you stand.

Keep your spending consistent, even when income fluctuates.

Freelance income comes in waves. The temptation during a busy, high-earning month is to let your spending rise with it. But over time, I’ve found the most stabilizing thing you can do is keep your day-to-day spending relatively consistent regardless of what’s coming in.

During higher-earning months, I try to direct the extra toward investments, savings, or future business expenses rather than lifestyle creep. It creates a steadiness that makes the slower months feel much more manageable.

Invest in things that increase your earning power.

Early in a business, it’s easy to focus almost entirely on minimizing expenses. And discipline matters, but not every expense is something to cut.

Some of the best investments I’ve made have been in upgrading equipment, improving my website, taking courses, traveling for creative inspiration, and building relationships in my industry. These things have a return that’s harder to measure but very real. Being thoughtful about where you invest in your work and skills can often have a much bigger payoff than simply trying to keep costs low.

Set aside money for quarterly taxes — in a real account, not just mentally.

As a freelancer or DBA, quarterly estimated taxes are your responsibility. No one is withholding anything for you. (If you are an LLC or S Corp, this might look different. It’s important to research when you are paying taxes depending on the type of business you have.)

I’ll be honest: even now, I tend to track this more mentally than with a dedicated account. But building the habit of moving a percentage of every payment into a separate tax account would have created a much cleaner system. It removes the low-grade anxiety of holding that number in your head and eliminates any chance of a nasty surprise when the deadline hits. We’ll work on this one…

Raise your rates regularly.

When I first started, I set my rates and then left them there for a long time. Part of that was confidence, part of it was not wanting to lose clients, and part of it was simply not realizing how normal and necessary it is to adjust pricing over time.

But costs go up every year: equipment, software, insurance, travel, all of it. If your rates stay flat, you’re effectively earning less. Small, consistent increases over time are far easier for you and your clients than waiting years and realizing you need to make a much bigger jump all at once.

Know your worth. Negotiate confidently. And build a habit of revisiting your pricing every couple of years.

None of this is particularly complicated, but when you’re in your mid-20s just trying to make a creative career work, it can feel overwhelming or easy to push to “someday.”

I’m proud of the financial discipline I did have early on. But if I could sit down with younger me when I first started freelancing, these are the habits I’d gently nudge her to prioritize sooner. The good news is that wherever you’re starting from, sooner is always better than later (that could mean today!).

If you want to go deeper on how I actually structure all of this — the specific accounts I use, how I invest, and the tools that keep me organized day to day — I’ve covered that in more detail in a separate post for paid subscribers:

I’d love to know — what’s one financial habit you wish you had started earlier in your business or personal life??

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What a beautiful gift. And also, it's a quiet kind of grief.

There’s a particular kind of ache at the end of a trip. Not just the sadness of leaving, but something a little harder to describe. The awareness that you’re leaving something behind you can’t pack. A street you wandered down over and over. A table at a cafe that became routine. A person who made you feel, for a little while, like another version of yourself. The community you’ve built away from home. You don’t always know in the moment that it’s the last time. I guess it’s a type of grace in not knowing it's the last time. By the time you realize it, it's already a memory worth keeping.

Sometimes you do know. You hug someone at a door or an airport and you both hold on a beat longer, because the distance is real and the timeline is uncertain. You have to leave anyway.

Visiting places you may never come back to. Seeing people for what could be the last time in years. You just never know. And yet you give your heart anyway, because the alternative is far worse.

C.S. Lewis said it better than I ever could, in The Four Loves:

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket — safe, dark, motionless, airless — it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.

That word irredeemable is the one that stops me every time. Because heartbreak is redeemable. Healable. A closed-off heart is the thing that isn’t.

It’s actually amazing how resilient humans are. That we experience heartbreak in varying degrees, constantly, and still continue to love, to build relationships, to give of ourselves, knowing we may not get something in return. Life may be full of tiny little heartbreaks and a few big ones, but the fact that we can experience many means we aren’t closing ourselves off. That we try again. That we believe in hope and love again.

That’s beautiful resiliency. The well is never truly dry, if we don’t want it to be.

I’ve experienced romantic heartbreak, friendship heartbreak, travel heartbreak. And while it changes you, shapes you, teaches you, breaks you — I wouldn’t trade those experiences. The ones that let you connect more deeply with other people, and with yourself. You learn what and who you care about. What you truly value.

So how do I try to keep my heart open? To keep it soft and strong at the same time?

A FEW THINGS I KEEP COMING BACK TO

• The heart is a muscle, practice using it. Encourage others, serve others, be a good friend, pour into people.

• Let yourself be moved by beauty. Seek it, notice it, document it.

• Build memories in places and with people worth missing.

• Embrace the grief. You experienced something lovely, it’s okay to be sad it’s gone.

• Share your experience with others and listen to their stories of both hope + heartbreak.

The tiny heartbreaks are proof we’re still in it. Still showing up. Still willing to love places and people even when we can’t keep them.

I think that’s always worth something — definitely worth the heartbreak.

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You’ll have to reinvent yourself. Repeatedly.

Freelance life is constantly evolving. You’ll experiment with new strategies, improve your skills, shift your style, update or archive old social media posts, explore new passions, and adjust your offerings based on changing markets. Reinvention isn’t a failure; it’s part of growth. Embrace it.

You’ll get rejected. A LOT. And that’s okay.

No matter how talented you are, rejection is part of the process. Some clients will say no, some pitches won’t land, and some opportunities will fall through. Everyone experiences this, even the people whose work you admire. It doesn’t define your worth or your potential.

Being good at photography isn’t enough.

Skill alone won’t build a business. You also need to understand client relationships, contracts, pricing, marketing, finances, taxes and managing the logistics of a self-employed career. Your photography is the foundation, but everything else is what makes it sustainable. Keep learning + be audacious.

You’re more resilient than you think.

Freelance work pushes you into uncomfortable situations, forces hard decisions + discussions, tests your patience, and exposes you to a lot of rejection. Over time, you realize you can handle more than you imagined, and those experiences shape your confidence and adaptability. You'll pivot, try new ideas, fail, and try something else. It's all part of it and even on your worst day, it's still better than the 9-5 you left behind (almost anything is better than data entry, right??).

There is more than one way to be successful.

Don’t compare your business’ journey to anyone else’s. Just because someone’s advice or career trajectory worked for them doesn’t mean it will work for you. Find what aligns with your skills, values, circumstances + the life you want to build. Allow yourself the freedom to create your own version of success.

Be selective about the advice you take.

There’s endless resources about how to run a business and build your creative life (we are constantly inundated with courses, How-To PDF’s, and ‘Get Rich Quick’ guides). It’s important to find a community you trust and voices you respect. Take what resonates with your values + goals, leave the rest, and trust your instincts.

Expect financial fluctuations and plan for them (or at least try your best to).

Some months will be quiet, and others overwhelmingly busy. Keep a budget, track expenses, save consistently + don’t forget about taxes. Don’t let one successful month tempt you to overspend, or a slow month discourage you. Stability comes from managing the highs and lows strategically. More on the financial advice I wish I'd learned sooner in an upcoming post.

Pay attention to your strengths.

Know what you’re best at and don’t be afraid to market it. Some skills come naturally while others you’ve worked hard to develop, and clients want to hire someone confident in what they do. And don’t underestimate your ability to grow. The things that once felt outside your comfort zone might turn into a strength.

Most of your time won’t be spent taking photos.

From emails to invoices, logistics, preproduction, client communications, marketing and networking, photography is only one piece of the puzzle. Having solid routines and systems in place allows you to enjoy the parts you love most, like being on set, traveling or creating your art.

Market yourself repeatedly without guilt.

Talking about your work is necessary, not ‘cringe’. Word of mouth helps, but you have to put yourself out there first. Pitch yourself, network, and share what you do confidently. Sharing about what you do consistently isn’t bragging. It's marketing. People can’t hire you if they don’t know you exist.

Make sure you create for yourself, too.

Remember why you started doing this in the first place — you love photography. Set aside time to take the photos you want to take, whether that’s a fashion editorial, travel images, or capturing another talented artist at work. Don’t get so caught up in creating for clients or pleasing others that you lose sight of your own vision and passion.

If I’d known then what I know now, I might have hesitated and maybe I wouldn’t have taken the leap as a naïve 25-year-old. But looking back, I’m so grateful that I did. Every challenge, rejection, late night, and hard-earned lesson shaped the career and life I have today. Freelancing isn’t easy, but it’s taught me resilience, creativity, and the freedom to shape my work and my life on my own terms. And for that, I wouldn’t trade a single step of the journey.

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And I then I ask myself: is this okay? Is this enough?

That question ‘is this enough?’ occasionally follows me while solo traveling. It’s the uninvited travel companion I didn’t pack but somehow it snuck into my bag anyway.

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Solo travel looks a certain way in your head (or on instagram) before you do it. You’ll be bold. Magnetic. Every morning will feel like the opening scene of a romcom. You’ll push through discomfort and come out the other side changed, or at least with a good story. You’ll order in Italian and have casual broken conversations. You’ll say yes to things. You’ll be the kind of person who says yes to things.

And sometimes it actually is that. Sometimes I feel genuinely proud — when I manage a full conversation in Italian, when I try something that scares me a little, when I make new friendships or romantic connections, when I push through the resistance and show up anyway. Those moments are real.

But then some days it’s just a Tuesday. The sun is out, it’s 50 degrees, there’s a beautiful light landing on cafe tables in a piazza, and absolutely nothing remarkable is happening. No one to meet. Nothing to document. Just me, a coffee, and the quiet.

And my silly brain starts keeping score.

I’ve noticed I have a habit of grading my own experience in real time. Not exciting enough. Not adventurous enough. Not interesting enough. If extraordinary things aren’t happening, I must be doing it (solo traveling) wrong. I must be doing myself wrong somehow — too introverted, too comfortable, too willing to take a quick nap when I should be living out my Italian dream trip.

But who am I comparing myself to, exactly? The movie version of this trip? Some version of everyone’s highlight reel? The person I imagined I’d be when I bought the ticket?

There’s a particular guilt that comes with being an introvert traveling alone. Some days my quieter side wins — I spend the afternoon inside, I read, I sit with myself — and a voice pipes up immediately: why are you even here if you aren’t going to live it up? You could do this at home. As if I owe the city my extroversion. As if rest is a form of failure.

There’s also this strange in-between identity that nobody really talks about. I’m not a tourist. I’m not here for a week with a list of landmarks to photograph. But I’m not a local either. This place doesn't quite know me yet, and I don't quite know it. I don’t have community. I exist somewhere in between, untethered, which is sometimes freeing and sometimes just quietly disorienting.

At some point you realize the noisiest part of the trip isn't the city at all — it's the thoughts in your own head.

Here’s what I’m learning, even if it is slowly:

Not every day of a trip has to be extraordinary. That’s not lowering the bar. That’s just reality, and fighting it only makes you miss what’s actually there.

Because there are moments of magic. They’re just smaller than the movies promised. A stranger’s laugh in the conversation next to me. The specific way afternoon light hits an old building. The fact that I am here, breathing, alive, doing this thing I decided to do. I am more open to noticing these things when I stop waiting for something bigger to arrive.

And sometimes, I catch myself in a moment of pure, uncomplicated freedom. I wake up and decide what I want my day to look like. Where I eat. What I do. Whether I talk to anyone at all. There’s no one to consult, no one to compromise with. It’s entirely mine. And that feeling, quiet as it is, is its own kind of extraordinary.

Maybe the calmness isn't something to push through. Maybe it's the point. Maybe learning to enjoy my own company — really enjoy it, not just tolerate it on the days when nothing else is available — is the whole lesson. That sitting with yourself in a foreign city, with no one to perform for and nowhere to be, is less something to survive and more something to practice. The Tuesdays aren't the gaps between the good parts. They might just be some of the good parts.

I absolutely believe God is in both kinds of days. The bold ones and the Tuesday ones. The conversation with a stranger and the aperitivo alone. The moments that make good stories and the ones that don’t make anything at all except a quiet sense that you are exactly where you are supposed to be.

I’m not here to perform this trip. I’m not here to prove something to myself or fill every hour or become someone more interesting by the time I fly home. I’m here, I think, to pay attention. To stay open. To trust that God is creating something in me through both the adventure and the stillness — and that I don’t always get to know what it is while it’s happening.

The invitation is to stop grading it on some imaginary scale and just receive it.

Even when you're the only one sitting outside, and the wine is good, and nobody knows your name. Sometimes that's just what it is. And it's enough.

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Cafe Portici — Trento, Italy — March 28, 2026

I’m back. Back in Italy. Back in the mountains. There’s something so fresh in the air here (minus the occasional gust of wind carrying the cigarette smoke from my fellow cafe patron). It’s 9:45am and I’m definitely jet lagged (woke up at 3am, but luckily fell back asleep until 8am). Yesterday was a VERY long day consisting of 2 plane rides + 3 trains, but it’s all worth it to end up here, at this cafe overlooking a beautiful church + piazza. It’s a salve for the soul.

I’ve recorded the lulling cafe sounds for you to listen to as you read :)

I’m in Trento to meet up with my sweet Danish friend, Louise, who I met 3.5 years ago in Rome. She was working at a cafe (Forno Conti & Co.) that I visited almost daily during the month I was there and we became fast friends. Our ability to have deep + meaningful conversations (about love, politics, values) is one of my favorite things about our friendship — even though we live thousands of miles apart, when we meet up it is like no time has passed.

This morning I spent an hour or so exploring the city with my film camera. I truly love a good wander. It’s Saturday and the streets aren’t very busy (even at 9am) except for vendors getting set up for farmers markets and a few people peering into closed shop windows. It’s been the perfect way to ease into the next 3 weeks of travel.

Each city I visit in Italy has its unique charm — slightly different dialects (here it’s a mix of German + Italian), different architecture, local dishes — but there’s this underlying current I love in Italy. Something hard to explain. I’m not sure if it’s something I feel because I love the country so much, or if everyone can feel it.

I’m sure there’s a similar sensation in other countries — it’s very human, communal, simple. A feeling of connection that I don’t feel in the States, something that ties humanity together in a way that feels more intimate, less disjointed. I don’t really know.

Maybe because I’m in a new place so my senses are heightened? At home I move through life focused on my own to-do list, but here I’m focused on observing, being present. Definitely something to look into bringing home with me… I think we just get so consumed with responsibility when we are home that we forget to truly live + observe the beauties of the day-to-day. This isn’t a new concept, humans have struggled with “presence” forever. Always worrying and anticipating. It’s understandable, the world can be harsh and full of troubles, but how do we juggle both? Both its beauty + goodness alongside confronting the hard?

It’s a question I keep coming back to. It’s really a beautiful, and difficult, ability we have to be able to feel multiple things at once. That it’s a choice to be present, to choose joy + contentment. To choose connection over separation.

Sights + Sounds:

• an older man in a camel coat chatting animatedly with a friend

• bustling piazza with beautiful church at its center (looks almost like a castle)

• soft conversations in Italian

• happy greetings of “ciao, come stai? tutto bene?”

• clanking ceramic coffee mugs + spoons stirring cappuccinos

• bright morning sun

• shop owners sweeping their steps

• sounds of trickling water coming from the beautiful fountain in the center of the piazza

• crisp 52° with breeze, but sunshine

So glad you could join me 🤍 Have you ever felt this in a place — that intangible sense of connection you can't quite name? Where was it for you?

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If you’ve ever wondered why you feel like a different version of yourself when you travel, this one’s for you.

TLDR: What We Talked About

Slow travel and why coming back to the same place matters I’ve spent years returning to Italy rather than constantly chasing somewhere new. Eve and I dig into what it actually means to immerse yourself in a place — building routines, recognising faces, letting a city feel familiar. That’s where the real magic happens, and it’s a very different experience from cramming ten cities into two weeks.

The “vacation self” and what to do with her when you get home Eve has a whole theory around this and I love it. We both talked about that shift that happens when you’re traveling solo. You become more open, more present, more willing to strike up a conversation with a stranger. The question is: how do you bring that version of yourself home? We got into this a lot, and I think it’s one of the most useful things to reflect on after any trip.

Eve actually interviewed a clinical psychologist on the podcast to unpack more on the psychology of travel and how it can help you develop as an individual through themes of identity, compassion, problem solving etc.

Italy and the aperitivo hour If you know me, you know I cannot stop talking about Italy. Eve asked me to describe the energy of an Italian city at aperitivo time in one word, and I landed on carefree. We talked about why that feeling is so hard to recreate at home — and why it’s worth trying anyway.

Photography as the practice of noticing I shoot a lot of film when I travel, which forces me to slow down and be intentional. I shared how I process images when I get home: printing them to hang around my house, weaving them into my journals like a scrapbook, reliving memories with friends. We also talked about what I gravitate towards shooting: light on buildings, cups of coffee, quiet scenic moments. Photography, at its core, is just the art of noticing. And slow travel is what makes you notice more.

On audacity and why I started this Substack Last year was a slower year for my business, and rather than shrinking, I tried to lean into boldness. Starting this Substack felt genuinely audacious for someone who doesn’t call herself a writer. But it’s turned out to be one of the most connecting things I’ve done in a while. My friend Paige described it best: it’s just taking your inside thoughts and putting them on the outside. Otherwise known as vulnerability.

Solo travel and the quiet confidence it builds We wrapped up talking about why traveling alone — even just a weekend in a new city — is one of the most powerful things you can do for yourself. Not because it’s glamorous, but because navigating the unfamiliar alone builds something that’s hard to find any other way.

A Few Moments Worth Sitting With

“I’ve just unlocked this other part of myself that, if I didn’t travel, I would have never met her.”

“Photography is the art of noticing. When I’m moving slowly through travel, I’m just noticing more.”

“I can be lonely in my own house. So why not be in a beautiful city I’ve never been to before?”

Listen & Find Eve

You can find the full episode wherever you listen to podcasts. And if Eve’s work resonates, go give her a follow — she’s building something really special.

• Podcast: Lifestyle Eleven

• Instagram: @lifestyleleven

If this conversation sparked something for you, I’d love to hear about it in the comments. And if you know someone who’s been on the fence about that solo trip, I would love for you to send this their way.

*Below you can find the full transcript of the podcast.

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Eve Gower: Welcome back to episode 11. It is so amazing to have you here. Today we have a really cool guest joining us. Her name is Katie Jameson and I actually found her on the platform Substack. I was really engaged and inspired by her content — she creates the most beautiful images and blogs and journals from her travels. I reached out to her and said, would you like to join the podcast? Because I would love to chat with you about your experiences and your creative flair. And here we are today. She’s going to join us for an awesome, epic chat. We are going to explore how slow travel — the act of mindfully immersing yourself into fewer places for longer periods of time — actually enhances creativity and our understanding of ourselves.

Katie is a photographer as well, so it’s going to be really interesting to unpack how we can actively start to notice the things around us, to pay more attention by slowing down, taking notice, taking pictures, and seeing the little things in the places around us. I really do recommend going to have a look at her profile on Substack or Instagram and checking out her artwork and her talent. It’s pretty incredible. So without further ado, let’s get straight into it.

Wonderful. Thank you so much, Katie. Thank you for joining us on the podcast today. It’s an absolute pleasure to have you here.

Katie Jameson: I’m so happy to be here. I’m excited to chat through this stuff!

Eve Gower: Yes, me too. For everyone listening, and just for a little context, I found your work on Substack and it was so beautiful — your creatives, the aesthetic that you’ve pulled together, it just looks so well thought out. And for someone who has travelled a lot and journals a lot, I saw your pieces where your words and your photos come together and I thought, how? It’s the most beautifully put together creative piece, digitally as well. And you’ve done an amazing job. Your Substack is called Inside Thoughts on the Outside — is that correct?

Katie Jameson: Yep!

Eve Gower: I love it. It’s so good. Anyone who’s listening should have a look throughout this episode, as it definitely gives a little context to you and your work. But did you want to tell us a little bit about yourself and what you’re all about, where you are in the world, maybe your travel history?

Katie Jameson: I’m in Austin, Texas, so a little ways away from you. I’m a photographer, and I’ve been doing this for 10 years now, which is really crazy to say. I feel super lucky and fortunate that I get to do this for a job every day. I’ve travelled since I was a kid. When I graduated college is when it really took off, and I did a lot of group trips, travelling with friends. I think it was after COVID that I ended up doing more solo travelling, and really digging into just being like, okay, I’m a single woman and I don’t want to be held back by only making plans when other people can go, or waiting for a partner. And it feels like there was a revolution of women doing that after COVID.

Eve Gower: I was one of those people too. Don’t worry.

Katie Jameson: I think we were just cooped up for so long. We were like, okay, let’s just fully send it and go to a different country by ourselves. Why not?

Eve Gower: Honestly, I think it was the season for booking one-way plane tickets. I was like, let’s go.

Katie Jameson: Yeah. I also started learning Italian during COVID, along with my other hobbies — baking, yoga. Really just piled it on. But Italy is the only place where they speak it, as everyone knows. So I’ve just convinced myself I have to go back every year. That’s been one of the main places that I’ve solo travelled to, and it has become kind of like a second home. Italy and Copenhagen have been the places I’ve been to most over the last few years.

Eve Gower: Those are the two places I haven’t been to but are at the very top of my list. Copenhagen I’m really hoping to get to. And Italy — I don’t know why I haven’t, it’s just been...

Katie Jameson: Well, I have a list of places to send you to once you need an itinerary.

Eve Gower: Oh, great. I did read your article about the month in Italy that changed your life, and I read it and I was like, okay, sold. I’m going.

Katie Jameson: Italy — the whole country should just be paying me for all of the press I’ve been doing over the last few years, because all of my friends, if you know me, I talk about Italy all the time and how much I love it — the language, the people, the food. That’s really been where my solo travelling journey has taken me most of the time. So now it almost feels too comfortable — talking about getting out of your comfort zone — that I may have to change it up a bit.

Eve Gower: Yes. Do you have a favourite place in Italy that you always go back to?

Katie Jameson: I always go back to Rome. If I’m going there, I’m going to spend at least some time there. I’ve travelled to a lot of the country now — north, south, Sicily, and Sardinia — and I feel so lucky. I did a retreat in Sardinia a couple of years ago with a bunch of other photographers and videographers. I think they all have so much charm, all the different areas for different reasons. There’s so much soul in the south, and the food is just different. In the north, I feel like I can breathe in the mountains. So I’m happy to go back to all of them.

Eve Gower: I would do another trip just to tell you again.

Katie Jameson: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Eve Gower: And as a creative, what is it about Italy that really inspires you? What do you notice the most when you’re there from a creative perspective?

Katie Jameson: I feel like there’s so much around every corner. I love just going out and wandering around, and I think that has been such an important part of solo travel for me — just the slowness of it. In Italy, there are so many textures, old buildings and new buildings, and people are just unbothered in the streets. Depending on the time of day, there are such different energies. I love aperitivo time — it’s like happy hour — and it’s just different, you know? People are getting off work, maybe coming from their office, and they’re meeting their friends on the corner at their local spot. The energy of any city in Italy around that time is just amazing.

Eve Gower: Could you describe it in a single word?

Katie Jameson: That’s a great question.

Eve Gower: I’m curious to know what this energy feels like.

Katie Jameson: It feels carefree. People have this time of the day — maybe an hour or two — where they’re truly just engaging with people they like and want to be around. It’s almost careless — they’re not thinking about worries or work or problems. It’s just a comfortable place where you’re having a glass of wine, eating some potato chips, and catching up. Everyone seems lighter. I think because you have to drive everywhere here, it’s hard to experience the same thing — driving from suburbia into the city and then having to drive back. So everybody’s kind of got a time crunch. But when you can walk to a place and then walk back home, you can hang out for a few hours if you want. You’re not worried about how many glasses of wine you’re having, or anything like that.

Eve Gower: I think that’s what I’ve found too. I’ve felt similar things in places like Spain or in Greece. Everyone’s so present with each other. There’s this community feeling — like, yeah, life moves on, we keep moving, but we have each other and we have this moment. And it’s really hard, I think, in the US or here in Australia, or especially in the UK — it’s hustle and bustle, you keep moving, you keep churning. Work, home, work, home. But in places like the Mediterranean, it is that slow travel concept where it really does just encourage you to breathe and enjoy the moment. The simplicity of life is so inspiring. And then we talk about getting outside of your comfort zone — when you first go to these places and you experience it, it feels really overwhelming. You’re like, why is no one doing anything? What do these people do for work? It’s just the most bizarre concept. And then you’re like, actually, you know what, I could take a little bit of this. I think I need to learn something from what’s going on here. I personally really learned from my experience — would you say the same?

Katie Jameson: Definitely. And I think there is this ability to romanticise a place that isn’t your home, right? It’s really easy when you spend a week, two weeks, or maybe a month — which I’ve done — and then you go back home. So that place has this special ambiance and feeling to it. A lot of people are like, oh, would you move to Italy? Is that something you want to do? And while I would feel so fortunate to be able to do that, I think there is a reality of running a business, and it’s harder there. So for me, it’s about taking those lessons I’ve learned there — appreciating the slowness, stepping out of a work-grind mindset, and being able to just take a few hours either in the morning or the evening to enjoy time with friends. But also realising that reality isn’t vacation. So I have to remind myself to appreciate that for what it is, and appreciate home for what it is and how much it grounds me, so that I can refuel my introverted self and then go back to who I call vacation Katie — who is not quite another person. I like to think it’s just another level or another version of me. Not that I’m trying to be someone completely different, but I’ve just unlocked this other part of myself that, if I didn’t travel and didn’t experience those things, I would have never met her, you know?

Eve Gower: Honestly, speaking my language. I don’t know if you’ve listened to our last episode or anything like that, but I had a whole episode on the vacation self and the conversation around how there are parts of you that were always there, but you just never really bring them out — and how you’re able to translate that into your everyday life. The movie that came out recently, The People We Meet on Vacation, talks about that so amazingly and really articulates that concept visually. I think it’s just being able to be aware that you are different when you go overseas. And you’ve just articulated it so beautifully by saying the vacation isn’t reality, but your reality could be like a vacation if you’re able to bring those concepts home with you. And I think being a creative, you probably have different outlets for being able to do that — whether it’s through photography, writing, journaling, or just creating art. That’s really special, but there are a lot of other mechanisms too.

I would really love to know: who are you when you’re on vacation? You speak to vacation Katie — what is she like?

Katie Jameson: I’m an introvert at home. I love my people and I get out and socialise, but I spend a lot of time at home working and with Charlie and in my neighbourhood. When I’m travelling — especially solo travelling — if you aren’t going out and talking to people, that’s on you. Nobody else is going to do it for you; you don’t necessarily have community there. And so it pushes me to talk to people on trains, at coffee shops. I love just sitting down and maybe looking over at the next table and having a topic pop up, or practising my Italian if I’m in Italy. Definitely I’m a lot more chatty and open to conversations. It’s so easy to kind of be laser-focused when I’m here and just do the things I need to get done. But when travelling, that’s just not how it goes.

Eve Gower: The other day I had a really strange moment. I was out for dinner and we were at a communal table, down at the beach here. It was a Thursday night, a beautiful evening. We were just chatting and then I looked to the people next to us on the table and I was like, why is no one talking? We’re all on this table together, but no one’s having a conversation. And then I felt really awkward about whether I should start a conversation with them. Because when you’re overseas or when you’re travelling on vacation, that’s exactly what you would do. You’d be like, hey, what’s good here? Have you tried something? What are you up to? But when you’re in your hometown, it’s like, oh, I don’t want to do that, I don’t want to seem strange or talk to a stranger. But that’s where the growth happens — being able to step outside of your comfort zone and say, you know what, they’re just everyday people out for dinner.

Katie Jameson: Yes, absolutely. I was in Cinque Terre in Italy, staying the night there, where most of the time people are just day tripping to that area because there’s such an influx of visitors every day. But I realised that staying overnight, the evenings were a lot calmer — a lot more locals, and then just other people who were staying. The mornings were really quiet too. One evening I was at dinner by myself, reading a book. I would never do that here — I don’t know why, I just wouldn’t. So I was just there reading and eating, and then an American couple sat next to me and we started chatting. Here, I would have been like, oh my gosh, they’re on a date, I don’t want to interrupt them. But there, I overheard them saying something about their travels and I was like, oh, I’ve been there, I have some suggestions. And then we just started talking. I ended up helping them with other places they were travelling to and we connected on Instagram. I would never have done that here, and I don’t know why — I’m the same person. It’s just strange.

Eve Gower: One of my friends was an au pair in Italy and she met a Canadian girl, and that Canadian girl is now visiting Melbourne and travelling here. She was at an event we were at recently and she was super chatty — she’s in that travel mindset. It was really interesting to have that travel-style conversation in my hometown. But then it was also like, no, this isn’t weird, because to her, if I were in her hometown, it would be the same for me. And then I was able to give her some recommendations on places to go and places to eat. You end up loving your own hometown a little bit more, because she’s pointing out, you know what, you have some cool things here. And being able to help someone at the same time actually makes you feel really good. There’s a lot of power in that as well.

Katie Jameson: And I realise, as you’re saying that, I’m never giving recommendations for here in Austin. If people come to visit, they stay with me and then we go do things. But nobody’s ever emailing me or texting me and saying, hey, I’m travelling to Austin, do you have any recommendations? It’s always, hey, I’m travelling to Italy, do you have any recommendations? I don’t know why. I’m never having those conversations where I’m recommending places around town because I’m just in my daily life, doing things.

Eve Gower: It’s just really important — this conversation about finding what you love about where you are and being a solo traveller in your own hometown as well. Like giving yourself permission to say, you know what, I’m going to act like a traveller today. I’m going to take myself out for a coffee and a walk and not feel guilty about it, or start my day off in the sunshine reading a book. There are different things that you can do. In our previous episode with our psychologist, Dr. Eileen Aldo, she speaks really well about that — the different techniques and tactics that you can pull from your travel experiences. Like, what were you strong at? What were you brave at? Identifying those things so you can bring them home. I think that’s really cool as well.

Katie Jameson: So cool.

Eve Gower: I recently came across one of your new articles and you touched on this word — audacity — having the audacity to try something new, to live boldly. What does that word mean to you?

Katie Jameson: Last year was a really slow year, and like I said, I’ve been doing this for 10 years. The idea of every year should be better — that you’re constantly growing, constantly earning more money, because that’s what should happen under capitalism — that just wasn’t the case. I found myself almost feeling like a new photographer, thinking, okay, my business hasn’t changed, but clearly the world has. So what am I going to do to be more audacious and step into the next year trying new things? Which is what I would have done when I first started, because I didn’t have any connections and there was nowhere to go but up. Why not have that mentality of just being almost like that young, naïve girl who was 25 and just starting out freelance, just reaching out to people, proposing things — like starting the Substack last year. I’m not a writer by any means, but I feel like it’s a combination of all my journal entries. And that’s where Inside Thoughts on the Outside came from — a friend who I sent my first couple of articles to for proofreading. Shout out Paige! She was like, you know, what you’re writing feels like you’re taking your inside thoughts and putting them on the outside. And she said, another word for that is vulnerability. I was like, okay — Inside Thoughts on the Outside. That’s my Substack. Even starting that felt audacious, because it’s taking really vulnerable thoughts — things that we all have — and we think, oh, other people probably don’t feel this way. But Substack has made me realise over and over again that so many people do. And putting it out there and having someone say, oh okay, I’m not crazy, I felt that too — that is so life-giving and connecting. So doing more things like that is what audacity is for me.

Eve Gower: It’s quite empowering to know that you’re not alone in your experiences and in your thoughts and feelings. And there’s a vulnerability side to being creative and to being a solo traveller — all of these little things coming together. Yeah, being brave enough to give something a go, to say, you know what, I’m going to continue to do what I’ve always known I can do. Even when we think about those experiences of going out for dinner on your own — you are being super vulnerable to an opportunity that could happen or not happen. I’ve had moments where I’m like, you know what, I’m in a new city, I’m going to go out to a bar and hopefully meet someone to have a chat with, and then who knows what will happen. Nine times out of ten, nothing will happen and you’ll just go home feeling like it was a bit underwhelming. But at least you tried something new. You gave it a go. But then there’s that one chance that you will — and you’ll meet someone incredible and make a best friend for life. I remember being in Kuala Lumpur and just deciding, you know what, I’ve heard really good things about speakeasy bars, so I went to the closest one. Walked in, sat at the bar, ordered a cocktail, and there were these two British girls sitting next to me. I just started a conversation — I could hear they were British — and said, hey, really randomly, sorry, hope you don’t mind me jumping in, but where are you from? And we got chatting. Ended up being like an hour-long conversation. They were so lovely. And they were like, oh, we’re actually going to this rooftop bar, do you want to come? We ended up on the helipad in Kuala Lumpur where you could see the Petronas Towers — it was the most incredible evening that I just did not prepare for at all, because I was vulnerable enough to go and sit at that bar by myself. So I think there are so many moments like that where you have to trust that something good will happen.

Katie Jameson: That’s so true. I have something similar. I was in Italy for a second month the following year and I decided I was going to go to the same coffee shop over and over again, because the more you do that, the more you see the people who work there, but also other regular patrons. I love doing that when I travel. I ended up, for a couple of weeks, going in and connecting with the girl who worked front of house. We ended up saying, let’s go get a drink after you get off work. We spent the whole evening together. I met her roommate, we all hung out, we were laughing so hard. That was in 2022 and now I’m planning another trip back to Italy and she’ll be there and I’ll get to see her again. I’ve even seen her in Denmark because she was living there for a while. So we’re now three or four years into a friendship. And like you said, you just find good friends and people who are like-minded.

Eve Gower: Absolutely. I think it’s always a reminder that we all live in the same world and we’re all looking for connection and looking for experience. Just being kind, for one — and two, being open to the experience. I’m not a psychologist — that’s why we have a psychologist to unpack how to be brave. Because it’s like, I have my introverted moments, and you’ve said you’re an introvert too. It’s not easy to just decide to do these things, but you can do it. It’s just about having the confidence. So I’m really excited to learn more from Dr. Aldo and just get those little insights. I think it’ll be really interesting.

But back to you, because I really want to explore this — as a photographer, I love photography but I always struggle to know what to do with my photos afterwards. There’s such a big gap where you go on a trip and now your camera roll is full of thousands of photos, but you don’t know how to bring these experiences to life. And what you do so beautifully on your Substack is create this visual diary of everything.

Katie Jameson: Oh, thank you.

Eve Gower: It’s beautiful. Do you have any advice or tips on how you start to digest your creative output when you get home?

Katie Jameson: That’s a great question. A few years ago I started shooting film, which has been one of the biggest influences on the way I shoot in general. It causes me to slow down, and I don’t get to see the images until a month later when I get them developed — and that feels like Christmas. Once I have the images back home, even if they go nowhere, I love being able to relive memories. I’ll either print them out and put them in a notebook, maybe filtered in with the pages that I’ve journaled, because I’m a big journaler — which is why I want my Substack to kind of feel like a journal entry. So I love printing them out. I also recently, probably within the last few years, started selling prints. And now I have prints of my own work in my home, which I hadn’t done for years before that — which is crazy as a photographer. And then I think just being in community with people who know I love travelling and being willing to sit there and go through photos and videos from my trip when I get back — because they know it means so much to me and they want to live vicariously through my experience — is such a blessing.

Eve Gower: I think a lot of family and friends will say, oh, I love living vicariously through your Instagram. Things on Instagram are always the highlight reels and the best images. But from a slow travel perspective, being able to capture the moment — it’s pretty easy to just get your phone and take a photo. But being able to notice something small on a table or a street sign, those different little micro-moments that are unique and foreign and novel to you — that’s why people are interested. They might not have that direction when they’re in a new country to even notice those things. So the art of being able to notice small moments and small things. Is there something you really love shooting when you’re overseas? Is it a coffee shop, a beach?

Katie Jameson: A lot of my work is portrait work because I work with fashion and product and things like that. And I find that when I travel — and I need to be more audacious about this — I don’t take a lot of portraits of strangers. I’ve always been really hesitant about that aspect of photography, right? I don’t want anyone to feel like they’re at a museum or a zoo, like I’m trying to capture them. I’ll take some from far away, or groups of people, but I have on occasion seen a moment and thought, I’m going to see if I can ask to take their photo. I end up taking a lot more scenic shots — like where the light is hitting a building, or a photo of a cup of coffee. I have so many of those in my camera roll, so many film shots of it. There’s something just...

Eve Gower: Calm.

Katie Jameson: Calming. That’s exactly it. It’s calming and grounding and it’s such a universal experience. I just love it. So I have a lot of that. Like you said, photography is the art of noticing, right? It’s everyone noticing things a little bit differently — the way someone’s smiling, the way light is hitting something, the angles of a building. And when I’m moving slowly through travel, I’m just noticing more and trying to turn my brain on to being attentive, paying attention, and not rushing through.

Eve Gower: Just immersing yourself in the surroundings and what’s going on. I think it’s pretty easy to just travel and go, yep, I need to tick this off and tick that and tick this. But being able to say, I’m going to commit — like you had a month in Italy — and just being a part of the culture, absorbing yourself in it and becoming a new version of you, and then deciding, yeah, I’ve noticed this and that’s different and foreign to me. It’s an incredible opportunity and experience, and it’s very inspiring to a lot of people, I’m sure.

Katie Jameson: I think it’s also worth noting that, like you said, not everyone has a month to travel somewhere. And a lot of people — I’ll say Rome is one of my favourite cities and you’ll see people being like, oh, I didn’t like Rome very much. And I think, oh, you haven’t experienced it. I was very fortunate to see it as an adult for the first time with a local. Whenever anyone’s asking me about travel, whether you have a week or 10 days — don’t overpack your schedule. I know it’s really easy to do because you may not do this again for another three or five years, but overscheduling is going to ruin it more than not seeing everything. Just plan one, maybe two things a day in Rome, and then just wander. Go off the beaten path. That’s where the charm and romance of Rome really is. It’s not in the line for the Vatican, even though the Vatican is crowded for a reason — it’s stunning. But I actually haven’t been inside since I was a kid. It’s just not on my list. I’d rather see the nuanced parts of the streets and go wandering than see something everybody else is seeing.

Eve Gower: Yeah, be clear on your intention for why you’re there and what you’re trying to get out of it. If it is a short trip, plan accordingly. But if you’re there because you want to experience it, then do that. You can see it happening — a lot of people are travelling now with more intention and more purpose, looking for places that fulfil a creative need, or an adventure travel need, or literally just an R&R beach holiday, or they’re trying to do a yoga training. There are reasons behind movement and travel at the moment, which is really great to see.

Katie Jameson: The biggest thing solo travel has done for me is build confidence. And I’m sure you can relate to this — just the ability to move through vulnerability, open yourself up, and accomplish something that everybody else says, oh, I don’t know if I could ever do that. How do you travel by yourself? Aren’t you lonely? And I’m like, I can be lonely in my house. What do you mean? Yeah, I can be lonely here at home, so why not be in a beautiful city I’ve never been to before? There is nothing more empowering than navigating public transit in a country where you don’t speak the language. If you can navigate New York City public transit, you’ll feel very empowered. Doing little things like that builds confidence, and you don’t have to travel overseas to do it. You can solo travel to a different state, a different city. Spend a couple of nights, enjoy your own company. I think that’s been the biggest blessing — the confidence and just enjoying my own company.

Eve Gower: And I think that’s the hardest thing, right? It’s really uncomfortable to be on your own sometimes. Void of phones, television, screaming ads — there’s so much noise around us. Being on our own feels really foreign. But I love it, and I’ve learned to love it. It’s uncomfortable at the start but then you find a groove and you’re like, I actually really enjoy doing this. And it looks different for different people. It sounds like we’re both very creative and into similar things, but maybe some people listening to this are thinking, absolutely not, I’m not sitting in a room on my own for four days.

Katie Jameson: And that’s fine. I get it!

Eve Gower: Yeah, that’s cool. But there are still moments — like you’ve said — of being able to take risks and find different opportunities that are there. Whether it’s trying to figure out the subway map, finding a new restaurant, or knowing how to order in Italian. There are different ways to really challenge yourself. And then those actions make you feel empowered, they make you feel strong, they give you confidence, and you begin to grow as a person. And that’s really and truly the power of travel.

Katie Jameson: Seriously. And you learn the ways that you travel best alone. I’ve realised that if I go for a month or three weeks and I’m moving to a new city every two or three days — or even four — that’s not for me. Because then I actually do feel more alone. If I can build a little routine and see similar faces over the course of a week, and maybe go to a different place once a week, then I feel a lot better. I did a trip a few years ago where I was bouncing from city to city every three or four nights and I was like, okay, this is not how I solo travel best. And that’s okay.

Eve Gower: Yep.

Katie Jameson: It’s just discovering — like we talked about — that different side of you that you wouldn’t have found if you hadn’t given yourself the opportunity.

Eve Gower: I love that. This has been a really incredible chat and I’ve loved unpacking your creative brain and seeing how it’s translated to someone who lives on the other side of the world from me, who has had similar experiences. And that’s what happens, right? When we go away and we meet people and you go, oh, you’re just like me. And it really is about slowing down and being engaged — with the people around you, the things around you, your surroundings, your own abilities, your own potential — and then bringing it all into one place. I think that’s really powerful.

Katie Jameson: And it’s all things that we want to share. I feel like when we start listening — whether we’re abroad or at home — that’s ultimately what being human is about, right? We just want to hear and share stories. So yeah, it’s been such a wonderful time chatting about the common ground we have all the way across the world. I’m so thankful you reached out and you’ve been so sweet to me.

Eve Gower: Oh, thank you so much for your time. I’ll leave any links and descriptions to you and your profiles and your writing and your work in the show notes as well. But it’s been an absolute pleasure to talk to you, Katie. Thank you so much.

Katie Jameson: Thank you. Hopefully it’s not the last time!

Eve Gower: Absolutely. Thank you!

This series explores what it looks like to integrate work into travel — not as an escape or a productivity flex, but as a more intentional way of living and creating.

Through personal experience as a freelance photographer, I share the mindset shifts, practical systems, and honest tradeoffs that come with working elsewhere, along with the boundaries that make it sustainable.

This final part of the series goes beyond logistics and into the nuanced conversations: the fear of losing momentum when you leave space in your calendar, the temptation to overbook while abroad, the reality of charging a rate that reflects your value, and what it means to build a business that can operate both in Texas and internationally for the long term. This is the less obvious layer that makes everything else work.

Even with the planning, workflow, and systems I described in Parts Two and Three, traveling while working can still feel overwhelming if you don’t know your limits. Flexibility is only truly sustainable when paired with clear boundaries, intentional decision-making, and self-awareness. I communicate my availability with clients ahead of time, protect at least one work-free window each day (when I’m not on set), and say no to projects that would overwhelm or conflict with priorities, values + alignment.

With that being said, let’s talk about the questions I ask before saying yes, how I think about pricing, and how I try to avoid burnout while building a business that supports this kind of travel.

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I just finished journaling about the month ahead. It’s shaping up to be busy, both socially and with work. As I was writing, I started thinking about how the past few months have been slower, and how the stress of money can creep in quietly when you work for yourself. It builds slowly, sitting in the background of your thoughts — a feeling that grows after one, or four, rejected proposals, a shoot that gets postponed, or a few days passing without a single inquiry in your inbox.

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When things are slow, I find myself praying for more shoots, more opportunities, more abundance. And then when those things do arrive, I often forget to pause and sit in thankfulness for them.

Lately I’ve been praying for busy after a slower winter season.

And here I am, a couple weeks away from heading to Italy for work, looking at a calendar that’s pretty full in the weeks leading up to my departure. Some work, yes, but also a lot of life. SXSW events. Birthdays. Friends coming to visit.

As I sit here enjoying a slow morning, while simultaneously stressing about money and finances, I found myself asking a different question:

Isn’t where you are right now what you prayed for years ago?

A life you’re building on your own terms.
Savings in the bank.
A beautiful community.
Opportunities to travel.

Just because I’m not currently raking in tons of money doesn’t mean it won’t come. And it certainly doesn’t mean that everything I’ve done up to this point hasn’t been incredibly valuable.

Everything I’ve done has brought me here.

The super busy, financially successful years.
The slower seasons that taught me lessons I needed to learn.

All of it led to this morning. This cozy moment.

I want to rest more in that. I want to rest in the growth.

I’ve spent most of my life and career being a go-getter, and that part of my personality isn’t going anywhere. But I’m realizing that success for me can’t only be measured by how full my calendar is or how much I’m being paid.

The work I’ve done to build my savings and investment accounts isn’t suddenly erased because a few potential clients said “no thanks” this time around.

I’m continually learning that success might look a little different than I once imagined.

Sometimes it looks like a slow morning in the sunroom with a cup of coffee and my journal. The freedom to structure my days the way I want. The ability to book the trip. The time to invest in a new hobby. The space to spend time with people I love.

When I step back and really look at it, I think my younger self would be in awe of this life.

The places I’ve traveled. The clients I’ve had the chance to work with. The creative projects I’ve gotten to be part of. The community of friends I’ve built here in Austin.

She wouldn’t be worrying about the next invoice, worried about her budgeting spreadsheet or analyzing a slow season. She would just see the bigger picture: a life full of creativity, freedom, and people I love.

Sometimes I forget to look at my life through her eyes.

I want to keep defining success for myself — my own version of it. One that isn’t tied solely to a busy calendar, but to building a life that actually feels meaningful. Maybe success doesn’t have to be something I’m always chasing. Maybe it’s something I’m already living.

If you have enjoyed this article, I would love for you to consider liking, commenting, or subscribing. I would love to have you as part of the community!

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Her post got me thinking, what are ‘boring’ habits I do weekly that make it possible for me to enjoy everything else, from creative work to travel to spontaneous weekend activities with friends. These are the things that most days, I really would rather not do, but creating routines around them has helped hold me accountable.

A Morning + Evening Routine That Resets My Brain

My routines aren’t glamorous, but they give my days consistency + grounding. Morning and evening rituals reduce the number of decisions I have to make, which means I have more energy for focused work and creative play later. They’ve become non-negotiables — small signals to my brain that consistency matters more than urgency.

For Christmas, I got a Hatch alarm clock and a Kindle, and they’ve kind of changed everything. If I’m being honest, my morning routine has needed help for a while. The Hatch has made waking up feel peaceful instead of abrupt. There’s no snooze button, just a gradual glow of morning light and the soft hum of café sounds easing me into the day at 7am.

The bigger shift I’m working on is not touching my phone immediately (why is this such a hard thing to implement??). I want my first moments to be slower — making coffee, going for a walk with Charlie pup, or journaling — before emails and social media start pulling at my attention. I’ve found that once I pick my phone up or get on my computer for the day, it’s hard to put them back down.

My nighttime routine, on the other hand, has transformed. I’ve been sticking to it since January 1st, and i’m pretty proud of myself for that. I start winding down around 9:30pm, get into bed by 9:45 or 10, and turn on my Hatch 30-minute reading segment (I’ve actually read 5 books this year already, which is a lot for me!). By the time the light fades, I’m usually tired enough to fall asleep.

It’s a huge shift from doomscrolling TikTok or Instagram until midnight. And while none of it is particularly exciting, waking up well rested and starting my day with intention absolutely is.

Budgeting & Expense Tracking

This is one of the most “boring” habits possible, but it has completely transformed the way I think about money. I don’t check my finances because it’s fun. I do it because it removes the constant negotiation around spending, keeps me grounded in my goals, and frees up more time and money for the things I actually value — travel, hobbies, dinners, and long coffee dates with friends.

I’ve always used some form of spreadsheet to track my income, expenses, net worth, and taxes. However, at the end of 2025, I started using Michela’s Personal Finance Dashboard, and it truly stepped up my tracking game. I input all of my expenses and any income I have made every week and then update my net worth every month.

Being self-employed without consistent biweekly paychecks makes this especially important. Knowing exactly where my money is coming from and where it’s going gives me stability in a career that can otherwise feel unpredictable. It allows me to make confident decisions about how much I can save, how much I can invest, and how much I can spend without guilt.

These habits are what makes my financial freedom possible.

The Analog Habit That Keeps Me Sane

One of the simplest tools I use to stay organized is a good old-fashioned handwritten planner. Each day I create separate to-do lists for work and for home. Sometimes, when I need a break from work, I’ll switch gears and knock out a few items on my home list. It feels productive without being stressful and gives me a little momentum to keep going. I also keep a running list of tasks for the week that don’t need to happen on a specific day. There’s something about physically crossing items off the page that makes the work feel real and satisfying.

I track all of my events, shoots, meetings, and travel in the planner using color coding (meetings in orange, shoots in pink, travel in blue, etc.). Because I’m not completely stuck in the past, I do use Google Calendar. It’s color coordinated to match my planner, but it serves as a secondary reference rather than my main system.

Planning Meals + Online Grocery Shopping

I don’t enjoy going to the grocery store, so meal planning and ordering my groceries online each week is a nice compromise: more credit card points (Chase Sapphire give you 2x points on online groceries), healthier eating, fewer last-minute snack additions from wandering the aisles, and significant time savings. *I also like that I can see all of the coupons and foods that are on sale all at once!

Spending a little energy at the start of the week deciding what meals I want to make frees up so much mental space later. I’m not standing in my kitchen at 7pm trying to figure out what to eat, and I’m far less tempted to default to takeout just because I don’t feel like making another decision. It’s a small act of preparation that pays off all week long.

Consistent Learning leading to Tangible Results

I have a lot of interests — building a business, managing my finances, baking, photography, learning Italian — that I want to grow in intentionally. Learning isn’t always exciting in the moment. Watching videos about investing isn’t riveting, but it helps grow my portfolio so I try to watch/ learn something new a couple times a week. Studying Italian grammar isn’t always fun, but it brings me closer to fluency in a language I’ve fallen in love with. I make it a point to listen to at least 30 minutes of Italian each day, usually through a podcast on my evening walks. That small, consistent habit has dramatically improved my comprehension over time. Even baking the same technique repeatedly can feel tedious, but it makes me a better cook and deepens my craft.

My efforts aren’t always perfect, but they compound. Consistently learning in the areas I value has helped me grow my investment portfolio to six figures (plus), become conversational enough in Italian to connect with people abroad in a more meaningful way, and bake for friends, family, and neighbors which contributes to a sense of community I deeply cherish.

Working Out for What I Love, Not Because I Actually Enjoy It

I have to admit, I don’t love the gym. Like most people, I love how I feel after, but the hardest part is simply walking through the doors and stepping onto the treadmill or picking up the weights. Even though this is true, I work out consistently 4–5 times a week because it keeps me in shape for soccer, which I truly love. At 35, I feel genuinely lucky to have a body that still allows me to play competitively, sprint hard, and recover well. That perspective alone shifts how I approach those workouts. Most of the time I am running 2 miles and doing some form of a HIIT workout (with + without weights) or a Yoga practice. I used to workout in the mornings, but now my schedule is to fill 3:30-5:30pm with a workout + walk. For some reason, this is part of my day feels like such a slump, so it’s nice to fill it with something productive even if it isn’t business work.

This is discipline as self-respect. It’s showing up on the days motivation is low and trusting that long-term consistency lets me play harder, recover faster, and avoid injuries. On my off days, I still move. A 2–3 mile walk with Charlie keeps me active without overthinking it. It’s nothing flashy, just more small steps towards the kind of athlete and person I want to be.

The systems I maintain aren’t glamorous, but for me, they’re really necessary. Doing them reduces decision fatigue (which leads me to doing nothing), builds trust with myself, and creates space for the creative, spontaneous, and joyful parts of my life rather than treating them as rewards for when I “finally finish” everything else. I definitely don’t follow these routines perfectly and I don’t hit every habit 100% of the time, but what matters is that I try, consistently. Trying to maintain these tiny boring habits is how respect myself, my time, and my goals on a daily basis.

I’m so curious — what boring habits keep your life running smoothly each week?? Would love to hear from you in the comments!

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This series explores what it looks like to integrate work into travel — not as an escape or a productivity flex, but as a more intentional way of living and creating.

Through personal experience as a freelance photographer, I share the mindset shifts, practical systems, and honest tradeoffs that come with working elsewhere, along with the boundaries that make it sustainable.

Working while traveling isn’t just about having a laptop and a sense of adventure. It’s about designing systems and routines that actually have allowed me to get things done, creatively and professionally, while on the move. Flexibility and inspiration alone aren’t enough; without some intention + preparation, even the most ‘ideal’ lifestyle of combining work and travel can lead to burnout.

For me, every successful travel-work trip begins with planning. I make sure I know client deadlines and deliverables before I leave, so I can structure my travel days around editing, shoots, or meetings. Flights, accommodations, and local transportation are booked with my workflow in mind — like staying in a walkable part of the city, close to coffee shops + areas I want to explore/ be inspired by. I also prep files, backups, and gear long before departure, so nothing is left to chance while I’m on the move. For me, planning isn’t restrictive; it creates the freedom to focus on the creative work that truly matters.

But planning is only the beginning — the real difference is in the systems I’ve built behind the scenes.

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For a long time, I translated those emails into something deeply personal. Instead of hearing, This isn’t aligned, I heard, You are not good enough.

As a freelance photographer, it’s hard to draw a clear line between my work and myself. My eye, my taste, my creative direction, my experience — they are all intertwined with who I am and the product I deliver. So when someone passes on working with me, it can feel like they’re passing on me as a human being. It’s vulnerable to put together a proposal that reflects not just time and deliverables, but years of refining a craft, and then be told it’s not the right fit. There have been many times when I questioned if I was charging too much. If I wasn’t worth the rate I was pitching. But that is where community comes into play + a true definition of self worth. It has been so helpful to chat with other photographers + creatives about their pricing and realize that we are setting a reasonable industry standard. Over the last 10 years of working for myself, I have had to establish a strong confidence in who I am + my worth outside of work.

What I’ve learned, sometimes slowly, is that rejection is not indicative of my worth. It’s a filter. Not every client is meant to work with me, and I am not meant to work with every client. That truth sounds obvious, but it took experience and a fair amount of resentment to actually understand it.

Ok ok, BUT what if sometimes it is about me?

Not in a shame-filled, woe-is-me way, but in a grounded + honest way. I don’t want to use the idea of “alignment” as a shield that protects me from growth. Sometimes a no is simply a mismatch. But sometimes it’s an invitation to course correct + refine something about my business.

Was my portfolio truly aligned with what they needed, or did I assume it would translate? Did I clearly communicate what I was offering or did I expect them to understand it without context? Am I continuing to refine my craft at the level I want to be hired at?

There is a difference between protecting my worth and avoiding self-reflection by labeling every “no” as just not meant to be. Confidence doesn’t mean assuming I have nothing left to learn (Trust me, I am constantly humbled by how much I still don’t know about running a business). It means being secure enough to evaluate my work honestly without tying every critique to my identity.

If there is something to sharpen in my work, in my communication, in the way I position myself, then I want to recognize it. I want to grow from it. Rejection can either harden you or refine you, and I’m trying to let it refine me.

There was a version of me who believed that if someone said, “We only have X budget,” my job was to respond with, “Okay, I can make that work.” I would shrink the scope, reduce the deliverables, take on the extra labor, and convince myself I was being flexible and collaborative. I thought that saying yes more often meant I was being resourceful and a smart business owner.

In reality, I was setting a precedent that wasn’t sustainable. I was training people to value my work less, and training myself to tolerate the quiet frustration that followed. Because when you squeeze your craft into a budget that doesn’t truly support it, something shifts. The creative energy changes. The collaboration feels tighter, heavier, more transactional. And over time, that builds resentment. Not just towards the client, but toward yourself for agreeing to something that didn’t feel aligned.

I’ve had to learn that someone not being able to afford my rates is not an insult. It’s not an attack on my talent, and it’s not a moral failure on either side. It’s simply information. It tells me we’re in different stages of business, or that we prioritize different things, or that the investment doesn’t match their current goals. None of that has to mean I lower my prices to fit into the gap or they have to squeeze their budget try to afford me.

The clients I am building toward and currently working with are not price shopping or just looking for the lowest number. They are looking for a specific eye, a specific voice, a specific way of turning their brand story into images. They want my perspective, my direction, my experience on set. They aren’t asking, “How cheap can this be?” They’re asking, “Is she the right person to bring this to life?”

This mindset shift has required audacity.

Audacity to say, “This is my rate,” without immediately following it with justification. Audacity to trust that what it costs to do my job well is valid. Audacity to let a project go without scrambling to accommodate a smaller budget and turning myself into something more affordable + more convenient.

And it has also required honesty to make changes where I might be falling short. Honesty regarding how I can shift my correspondence, refine my portfolio, or strengthen the way I position my work. The audacity to stand firm only works when it’s paired with the humility to improve.

Rejection, when I refuse to stew on it or let it define me, starts to look less like the loss of a paycheck and more like provision. Every “no” creates space — in my calendar, in my energy, in my creative capacity — for the projects that are actually aligned. The kind of work where the budget matches the vision, where the creative collaboration feels aligned, and where I don’t leave set feeling like I compromised something essential.

I used to believe that surviving as a freelancer meant saying yes as often as possible + making as much money as was offered to me. Now I’m starting to believe that building something sustainable means saying ‘no’ without shrinking + without panic because the right clients don’t need to be continually convinced of your value. They already see it. And when that kind of alignment shows up in my inbox, I never regret the projects that passed me by.

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I stayed in Manarola, which I truly can’t recommend enough. The real magic was in the margins of the day: early mornings and late evenings, when the day-trippers hadn’t yet arrived or had just left. Those quiet windows belonged to the locals and to those of us tucked into cozy B&Bs along the cliffs.

Waking up with the sun let me experience the true cadence of the town — its softness + rhythm — before the crowds poured in. I hope you enjoy these images almost as much as I enjoyed taking them!

*Images were shot using my Nikon F3 + Kodak Gold film.

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This series explores what it looks like to integrate work into travel — not as an escape or a productivity flex, but as a more intentional way of living and creating.

Through personal experience as a freelance photographer, I share the mindset shifts, practical systems, and honest tradeoffs that come with working elsewhere, along with the boundaries that make it sustainable.

Flexibility is often framed as a perk of freelancing or remote work. What traveling while working taught me is that while it is advantageous, if not used with discipline, it can actually become a liability. True flexibility isn’t the absence of structure, but the ability to choose it intentionally.

When I travel, my days naturally organize themselves around my energy rather than obligation. If I am not on a shoot, mornings are quieter, focused, and productive. That’s when I edit, write, upload images, or check in with clients. Afternoons are for wandering, shooting personal work, or letting inspiration lead. When I’m in Europe, U.S. calls often land later in the day after I’ve already spent time exploring. Instead of fighting time zones, I let them shape my daily rhythm. I will try to book days like this in between campaigns in order to feel grounded + organized after the chaos that can be shoot days.

In the spring of 2024, I found myself living inside a version of work I had once only imagined. I had just wrapped a two-day shoot along the Amalfi Coast and was headed to Paris for another campaign. I wasn’t rushing to “optimize” the days in between. I built in space to upload images, apply early edits, organize files, and rest before the next project. The flexibility of being able to book time in Rome in between shoots was a great way to feel grounded in a city I loved, catch up on admin, and feel like my days weren’t rushed before I got started on the next project.

But how did I get to this place?

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It wasn’t just about the money. It was about validation. Proof that I could build something real and proof that I could be one of those women I was watching online — the ones launching, growing, thriving. Instagram was just beginning to shape how we saw entrepreneurship, and there was an undeniable energy in the air. Women were building personal brands in real time. Creative businesses were scaling publicly. Growth was visible, measurable, and celebrated.

I started my photography business right in the middle of that era, and I hopped on board with the mindset completely.

As a firstborn with a deep drive for perfection, it felt natural to aim higher every year. Raise my rates. Expand my services. Diversify income. Work with ‘cooler’ + bigger clients. Make more money. Ambition felt responsible. It felt mature. It felt like the only logical direction forward.

In many ways, the Girl Boss season was formative. It taught me grit. It taught me how to advocate for myself, how to pitch, how to negotiate usage rights, how to build systems that supported creativity instead of chaos. It forced me to become resourceful and brave. I don’t dismiss any of that. I’m grateful for it.

But what I didn’t realize at the time was how easily hustle can blur into identity, especially when you’re self-employed.

When you are the business, there’s very little separation between your work and your worth. The clients you book, the money you make, the images you produce — they all start to feel like a reflection of who you are. And when social media became the scoreboard, comparison became pretty constant. I was watching other photographers travel more, book dream brands, announce bigger milestones. Even when I was proud of my own progress, there was a subtle pressure to keep up.

There were a lot of optics involved in that era (maybe there still are now and I just care less?). A lot of emphasis on visible growth. It wasn’t just about building, it was about being seen building. So much of it revolved around how your business looked from the outside. Busy schedules became proof of relevance. If it wasn’t visible/ post-worthy on instagram, it almost didn’t count. And when everything is public, it’s easy to start performing success instead of simply living it.

Over time, I realized how tightly my identity was connected to my output. When business was thriving, I felt confident and capable. When things slowed, I started questioning myself — my motivation, my abilities, my creativity.

Last year, year ten of my business, my salary didn’t increase.

Not because I had failed. Not because I stopped working hard. But because the world is changing. The industry is shifting. And, quietly, my own desires were changing too.

My pride still took a hit. There was a voice in my head that said, You should be making more money in your tenth year. You’ve earned it. I had taken the courses. I listened to the podcasts. I watched the YouTube videos. I offered a product I believed in. Growth was supposed to be linear. That’s what I had absorbed for a decade.

Instead, I was forced to sit with something far less glamorous: business plateaus. pride. humility. uncertainty. thankfulness.

Last year taught me more about myself than any revenue increase ever did. I found myself focusing less on chasing the next income jump and more on making the money I was earning actually work for me. I paid attention to where it was going. I invested intentionally. I thought about sustainability instead of optics.

And at the beginning of this year, I made a quiet decision: I wasn’t willing to let worry run my life, no matter what my income looked like. Worrying isn’t productive. It doesn’t create clarity. It just steals time + energy.

Somewhere in my mid-thirties, business intensity began to soften.

What’s changed isn’t my ambition, but the weight I attach to it. I still want to grow, create meaningful work and financial stability, but I no longer want achievement to be the only place I source fulfillment. I want to rest without negotiating whether I’ve earned it. I want long dinners with friends that aren’t squeezed between deadlines. I want to travel without instinctively turning every experience into content or a networking opportunity (I’m still working on that one). I want space for a partner, for family, for community — not someday, once the business reaches some invisible milestone, but woven into the life I’m building now.

Reading The Psychology of Money deepened that shift for me. There’s a line in the book that says, “The best dividend that comes from money is time.” For years, I saw money primarily as proof of growth. Now I see it as a tool for optionality.

I want to build wealth not to accumulate more, but to loosen the grip of urgency. To choose projects because they excite me, not because they make me appear “cooler”. To reach Coast FI/RE not as an escape from work, but as a way to approach it differently, with less fear and more intention. I want to enjoy the money I’m making now while still building a future that feels secure.

The Girl Boss era taught me how to build something from nothing. It taught me discipline and audacity and resilience. But I’m slowly leaving behind the belief that bigger is always better, that revenue must increase every year to validate progress, and that rest is a sign of complacency.

Success, to me now, looks less like constant expansion and more like integration. A business that supports my life rather than consumes it. Wealth that buys time rather than status. Ambition that coexists with softness.

One of the things I will always cherish from that era is the women I met along the way. The ambitious, creative, driven women who were building right alongside me. I was reminded of that yesterday by one of them, — a ‘girl boss’ in her own right and someone who inspired me during that season, and still does today.

We were all learning in real time. Growing businesses. Developing new skills. Sharing the beauty we created with the world. There was something powerful about that collective momentum. And maybe now, years later, we’re all a little more tired. A little more aware. A little more honest about what it costs to constantly pursue ‘more’ with everyone watching. But the connection remains.

What I hope we carry forward isn’t just the ambition, but the support. The encouragement. The ability to cheer each other on in a softer season, one less defined by metrics and optics and more rooted in who we’re becoming as women.

Maybe that era wasn’t wrong. Maybe it was just a season.

It gave me the foundation. Now I’m learning how to live inside what I’ve built without letting it define the entirety of who I am. And that feels like growth of a different kind.

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