for somebody who's listening to this podcast today what would you want them to take away from your
story for any person who does want to travel and who wants to do it solo and have been waiting on
people to go with i was that person probably three or four years ago and i finally get to a point
where i turned 30 so you know quarter life crisis right congratulations and i was like you know
what i'm going to have a bigger regret not doing this now like well i have no family like no kids
not saying that she'll hold you back i know a lot of families that travel so i just did it
that that regret alone like knowing that would be a regret later was big enough for me to just
say okay i'm gonna go i'm gonna travel i'm gonna do it yes let's just do it this is why we're here
welcome to another episode of everyday badassery in which we are telling travel stories from the
field to help you be more inspired to live a little bit more of a bad ass life it doesn't
have to be about those huge moments sometimes it's just that one percent more badass super
excited about today's guest who i think is a total badass katie wine traveled through mexico for
is it a year like five months six months five three times yeah she's sitting right now she's
also holding the camera we're gonna dig into her story and understand some of the things that may
have been a challenge for her along the way and her badass story let's dive in this meeting is a
long time in the making yes i have been trying to meet you for a very long time so actually i
learned something new today and we're traveling right now in ocean beach san diego and it's a
beautiful evening we're about to drone the sunset and i just learned that when i first met you you
were in guatemala and this was at the beginning of the pandemic right where did you go right after
guatemala and then how did you choose mexico once the pandemic hit when i was in guatemala it was
like a crazy ridiculous five six day journey to get back home and then i just stayed put
in colorado yep and i took on a nanny job and then you know got to a point where i was like
you know what i feel confident to try and do this again try and start my central america trip
and went back to mexico and i didn't intend to stay in mexico that whole time i tended to
kind of go a similar route and go back down to guatemala and you know all the other
countries in central america but i started really enjoying it in mexico actually so that's a really
important thing because she went into this trip with an original intention
that ended up not being the trip that you took right so walk me through that like you went to
mexico and at what point in your journey were you like i really like this i'm gonna stay here
and were you okay with that choice by the time you left the five or six months later
definitely was okay with it i it is now my number one country
i would tell anyone to visit oh wow which i never would thought it would be because
i know i shouldn't have probably felt this way in the beginning but growing up in indiana my
an idea of traveling for most people that i knew in indiana
was you take a trip to florida for spring break right or if you do go international it's mexico
so mexico kind of just had this bad connotation to it yeah like it wasn't really getting outside
it wasn't really exploring in my eyes like you know other countries in a big way and
so i kind of just put mexico's like oh you know i'll hit up mexico but it's
probably not gonna be a place to where i wouldn't say so maybe my expectations were really low
and i got there i got to tulum met some really great people had conversations exchanged stories
and they started talking about different spots in mexico they've been to like palenque and song
crystal and it's like you know these do feel like my kind of style my kind of vibe of where
i'd like to go and you know you meet some people when you're in hostels and you just
kind of go with the flow and you're like all right you're going to go this town i'm going
to come with you that sounds like a great time like i want to check it out too and there's
something really important that you're saying here that i think is a mindset of a true traveler
which is even though you may have had like pre perceptions about mexico before going right you
still went there with an open mind and while you were there even though she may have had an
end goal of getting to central south america you decided to be open to the idea of staying there
and not only that you went with the flow it wasn't like you heard these stories from other people
and you're like no i don't know and you kind of doubted it you were open to listening and then you
tried new places within mexico right actually how many different places did you go to within mexico
i have no idea a lot um i don't know i mean i i started down in tulum i went up to holbox and then
you know eventually i made my way all the way up to mexico city right so i stopped at a lot
of places along the way i couldn't and basically every single place she traveled to i went there
right after you went and always missed you and so now that we are both randomly in san
diego in ocean beach now i finally get to meet you so actually so one other thing you
were talking about indiana in there which and this is just a perception from me because my guess is
given they think you know mexico is the exotic destination and florida is the normal vacation
my guess is they are of a more conservative mindset is that a true statement this is
just nothing but right just within your your circle of people who you're interacting with
when when you decided to embark on this multi-multi-month trip in mexico what were
some of the things that your network within indiana or your network within your family and
friends in the states like what were they saying to you were they for example were they supportive
i i mean i've always kind of been the oddball they tolerate me like my mom tolerates me
but you know when they when i told them i was going to mexico there was a lot of well
mexico's dangerous like you know there's cartel there and you need to be really really careful
and i i'm not going to lie i let that get to my mind a little bit so when i flew there
i felt like i was more on edge in some ways when i was in mexico city in tulum and you
know i kind of started letting my guard down after a while because i don't think people realize how
the locals mexico people in mexico are so so friendly they really really really are and i think
you know being back at home you hear what people your friends or family say you hear
what the news says and you develop this idea about what this place is
yep and i think that's why i love mexico even more because it is so much better than what i think
i think a lot of people had a similar mindset before i went like i thought mexico was going
to be really dangerous which i'm not saying there aren't parts that are but it has way more to offer
than you'll ever imagine and i think people should give it a chance for sure i think that goes back
to this theme that we were hearing earlier which is being open to the idea that it might
not be yeah what you expected and it might not be what everyone is saying it's going to be and
that was the little voice in the back of my head too when i was going there i was like it can't be
like what i'm imagining and i'm a little story when i was a kid this is another reason why
i had this kind of mindset that preconceived mindset that mexico was bad a little bit which
it's not but when i was a kid we walked over the border to mexico and i my only experience
and like schema for what mexico was like was right when i walked over the border and it was a pretty
you know rough area and i saw this grandmother
holding a baby begging for water and i remember seeing these two kids sleeping on a cardboard box
like on the side of the street so i also had that kind of in the back of my head
and but i but i knew i was like this this can't be all that mexico like is like there's got to be
more to it than what i'm just seeing right now and you know i don't want to not go
you know explore this country and you know just knock it off because of something that
it's amazing i'm trying to think about it yeah it's a singular experience yes and i
mean experience i understand that mexico is a super teeny tiny country it's not it's huge and
just like with anything right even sometimes like when you meet someone for the first time you might
not have gotten who that person is from that one instance but yeah you didn't knock them from that
one interaction and i think that's important because it's you know a lot of people are like
oh no i hate like i hate that place because i had that one bad experience but it's like yes you may
have that but that doesn't count for the whole country like there's a lot of other places and a
lot of other experiences and you're only you're only holding yourself back from experiencing
something that could potentially be amazing by by just giving a blanket statement to the whole thing
actually here's a side question as you look back on your time in mexico and how long were
you there for like i think just a little over five months yeah is there like a single moment
or a couple moments that stand out in your mind as being as being a like this is why i'm here
what's the first one that comes to mind when i ask that question i think palenque
palenque is like this um it's a small town surrounded by jungle and
at the time it was more of just like a stepping stone to get to the next town i didn't really
expect to get much out of it just like when i initially went to mexico i guess and i think it
was like the perfect little break that i needed from the craziness that was going on in tulum
and hobash and then before i went to ended up being in san cristobal and puerto escondido and
i just i remember being at i can't remember the place i stayed but just at the hostel and i was
just chilling there and we stayed in these little huts and at night you can hear the howler monkeys
and it was it was just like so cool and then we went to this we hitchhiked me and two other girls
to a waterfall and just relax and chill there all day it's just like a nice relaxing like it's
just what i needed it was great it sounds like something you can just do in indiana right yeah
yeah yeah exactly and everything i love that it's that it's that experience where you're just so in
it actually hold on you said something in there let's dive into this for a second so you said that
you hitchhiked yeah somewhere yeah i would say in this day and age let's say i were to get out of
this car in san diego right now and hitchhike i would say the majority of people think that
would think that i'm a goner thereafter yeah um i got a lot of hate for that let's talk about that
what kind of hate do you get about hitchhiking and how does that like what do you do with that
they come from a place most of the time where they're just caring like they want to make
sure you're being safe but i also know after being in tulum because i hitchhiked there too
after talking to a lot of travelers i wouldn't do it if i had known
like if if i hadn't heard of anyone else doing it and it's a very common thing to do
in the places that i did it it was very common to do like i when i did it in tulum um a lot of the
travelers talked about how they hitchhiked from the beach back to the hostel in town into loom
and we heard the same thing in palenque from there to the waterfall so if it's something that i know
is like common and i've heard of other traveling travelers doing it then i feel
a lot more comfortable doing it plus i was with a couple other girls um but yeah i'm hearing a
few things in here which i think are really important one is and when we're referencing
this hate that katie's getting we're referring to you sharing things in your instagram stories
and followers friends and family responding back not necessarily in a go katie kind of way yeah
right they're responding with concern and um we heard this in stacy's podcast as well which is
the people who are looking out for you aren't necessarily saying like uh uh like don't do
that you're not allowed but they're simply based on what they know and what they have experienced
right with what they know about hitchhiking in indiana for example that it might not be the
safest thing right and so it's not like they're out to get you to stop you but they're just
looking out for you in a loving way that as the person who's out there doing it on your own might
feel like you second guess yourself but the important part of your story is two things one
you did it anyway regardless but the second part is you didn't just do it you were still utilizing
the information that you knew around you based off of what was common culture what other people were
doing and their experiences with it and then you were making the decision that was the right one
for you and not the right one based off what other people are expecting out of you in my opinion
that's a badass because on a normal day jumping into some random person's car could be potentially
really scary the last time i hitchhiked i had a flat tire in colombia in guatemala
i was at lake tikal is that right no lake atlanta yes i was at lake land i was nowhere near where i
started from on this bike ride flat tire obviously there's no bike shop there's no bike shops
yeah so i imagine i hitchhiked and they're like get in the back of the truck and when i go to
take the tarp like move the tarp to get in there were like 30 people in this truck and i'm like
okay and and 30 hands 30 sets of hands reached out grabbed my bike car's still
moving grabbed me there's room for my bike it's on everyone's lap and i am hanging off of the back
holding on to the side of the truck having the time of my life having the time of my life
those types of like when you're hitchhiking like that feel free don't you yes and like that's
that's why you're here like this is the experience that you're looking for i love that for you right
i love hearing that oh it's amazing oh it feels so good in your air wind in your air
wind in your hair and just that feeling of freedom yeah yeah you can't you can't beat that okay last
question for you so we've heard a lot would you consider yourself a badass why or why not
just because you called me a badass just consider myself a badass
um okay i don't know that's a hard question like because i don't want to like you know
like uh what sort of look for have a big inflated ego yeah exactly but i mean i do
i think i'm more like other people than they realize and it is hard to put yourself out there
like that yeah um and they're more capable of being a badass and doing the same thing too than
they realize um sure you know what why not i'm a badass you know what let me tell you why you're a
badass and why i think you might not think you're a badass okay so the reason why i think katie is a
badass is because regardless of what other people say you went out there and you rocked mexico for
a long time often solo and just kind of flying by the seat of your pants wherever the wind took you
not wind in your air i knew what you meant they knew what you meant probably too so but
that might not feel badass to you because you were with so many other people who were
likely doing the same thing and so relative to the people you were surrounding yourself by
you might not feel that badass because you've seen it done time and time again potentially with other
travelers right you did it for twice the amount of time or maybe hitchhike two more times a day than
you did or something like that and so badassery can often feel relative yeah and so the question
i have for all of you listening is strip away what you're used to seeing every single day ask
yourself within something amazeballs that you have accomplished or did that day big or small could
it be badass regardless of what everyone else is doing you are badass well thank you thank you too
thank you for doing this with me yeah okay let's hug it's gonna be terrible for the microphones
and katie where can we find you uh instagram twitter facebook katie underscore wine
and youtube all of that stop sorry all of that will be in the show notes below
so make sure you check out katie go forth be a badass if you enjoyed this episode tell us in
the feedback section below and we appreciate it and we'll see y'all in the next adventure ciao