What led you to start traveling? What motivated you to start exploring new places?<\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s funny because I could actually say that failure led me to start traveling. I say that with a smile on my face now because it ended up being the best thing that ever happened to me. I owned a small wedding dress company and had a side hustle as a fashion stylist. The company I styled for filed Chapter 11 and the money they never paid me caused my own business to go under. At the same time, I was going through a breakup. I was kind of a hot mess and decided I would take off and travel the world. I didn\u2019t have anything tying me down, so I took lemons and made lemonade.<\/p>\n Where have you been recently?<\/strong><\/p>\n In the last two weeks, I\u2019ve been to Austin, Texas where I attended Travel Con (a travel blogging conference). I also went to New York City to visit my friends there. I don\u2019t often travel within the U.S. so it\u2019s been fun getting to see a new state and city in my own country.<\/p>\n What inspired you to start blogging about your travels?<\/strong><\/p>\n When I decided to go travel, a friend told me to start a blog so I could get free trips. I realized pretty quickly that\u2019s not really true, and having a blog takes a ton of work. On the other hand, I started to do it simply because I realized that I love it. Since then, it\u2019s become my passion and my career.<\/p>\n About a year into blogging, I visited Nepal and fell in love with the country. The more time I spent there, the more I learned. The more I learned, the more interesting my blog posts became. One day, I was trekking in the mountains and realized that my blog should be about Nepal since I\u2019m so passionate about it. I still write about the other places I go, but that\u2019s my main focus.<\/p>\n Nepal really is the most interesting place I\u2019ve ever been. There are 125 different ethnic groups and 123 different languages. Every time I become friends with someone, I get the opportunity to learn a whole new culture including food, language, festivals, and traditions. I feel like I could never get bored. It\u2019s also famous for its trekking since the Himalayan Mountains run through almost half of the country. On top of all of that, Nepali people are the kindest I\u2019ve met anywhere in the world thus far.<\/p>\n What is the craziest travel story you have? Has anything weird or strange or chaotic happened to you during your travels?<\/strong><\/p>\n There\u2019s probably too many to mention, but my favorite is when I tried to summit a small peak in the Everest Region of Nepal. It was my first time mountaineering, and we got hit with a snow storm while we were above 5,000m (16,400 ft) in altitude. I couldn\u2019t see more than ten feet in any direction. I could hear people talking but never actually saw them which was bizarre, to say the least. Being at that altitude, it\u2019s extremely hard to breathe and every single step takes effort. We walked in the clouds for eight hours, but the next morning the sky cleared, and I got to see the most incredible view I\u2019ve ever witnessed. It was a moment I\u2019ll never forget.<\/p>\n How do you save money before and during a trip?<\/strong><\/p>\n On my first trip, I planned to spend 8 months in Southeast Asia. I worked in NYC for almost two years to save. Luckily, I had a good job that made it fairly easy. I was really fortunate that it worked out that way. To keep motivated, I compared every single purchase to a day in paradise. For instance, would I rather have a $30 shirt or a day on the beach in Bali? Do I want to go to dinner and drinks with friends for $50 or visit an elephant sanctuary in Thailand? I stayed home a lot those two years, didn\u2019t make unnecessary purchases, and ate a lot of ramen noodles. But, it was totally worth it.<\/p>\n While I\u2019m traveling, I have an excel spreadsheet that I made to track my spending. I have a $30 a day budget so it calculates everything for me. That way, I can see if I\u2019m over or under budget. I stay in hostels a lot, eat local food, and take local transportation. It\u2019s not always convenient or easy, but those items are always cheaper.<\/p>\n Do you have any travel advice for others?<\/strong><\/p>\n Smile at everyone and talk to everyone you can. Having lived in NYC for half my life, it took a while for me to open up to strangers. Now, when people begin talking to me on the street, I stop and listen. If I\u2019m sitting alone at a restaurant, I ask someone if I can join them. I\u2019ve met so many incredible people and learned so many individual\u2019s stories just by smiling and listening to them. It really gives amazing insight into the places you travel, especially if you can interact with locals.<\/p>\n What are your future plans, travel or otherwise?<\/strong><\/p>\n I\u2019m planning to head back to Nepal in January, where I\u2019ll spend another five months. I\u2019m planning to do one easy trek and one difficult trek along with a myriad of other activities<\/a>. Nepal is an amazing country and a large portion has been left unexplored by tourists, so I\u2019m hoping to find some off the beaten path places to direct future tourists to. I try not to plan too far in advance because I\u2019ve learned that the most interesting adventures are often spontaneous. So we\u2019ll see where it goes!<\/p>\n Thanks, Michelle!<\/em><\/p>\n If you want to learn more about Michelle, you can follow her blog at Full Time Explorer<\/a>, or on Instagram<\/a> or Facebook<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Find out more about this inspiring traveler who spends most of her time in Nepal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9156,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_type":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1228,75],"tags":[171,106,30,1091,276,15],"class_list":["post-9155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia","category-travel-stories","tag-austin","tag-backpacking","tag-budget","tag-interview","tag-nepal","tag-travel","entry","has-media"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-13 23:31:52","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.budgetyourtrip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.budgetyourtrip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.budgetyourtrip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.budgetyourtrip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.budgetyourtrip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9155"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.budgetyourtrip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9155\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10565,"href":"https:\/\/www.budgetyourtrip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9155\/revisions\/10565"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.budgetyourtrip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.budgetyourtrip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.budgetyourtrip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.budgetyourtrip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Michelle](\"http:\/\/www.budgetyourtrip.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/IMG_0355-850x567.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Michelle](\"http:\/\/www.budgetyourtrip.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/IMG_0648-850x567.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Michelle](\"http:\/\/www.budgetyourtrip.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/GOPR6547-850x638.jpg\")
![\"Michelle](\"http:\/\/www.budgetyourtrip.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/GOPR6131-850x638.jpg\")