Over the summer of 2015, I spent 72 incredible days living on the Big Island of Hawaii.

In a work-trade deal through WWOOF, I worked 20 hours a week on a small Hawaiian farm in exchange for room and board. My free time (most of the time) was spent hitchhiking around the island, snorkeling, body surfing, backpacking, fishing, climbing trees, cliff jumping, exploring, drinking coffee, and building this website. It rocked.

Over the summer of 2013, my brother and I pedaled 4,450 miles across the entire United States to raise funds for Phoenix Children's Hospital (PCH). We raised $96,832 for the hospital that saved my life and had the adventure of a lifetime pedaling coast to coast over 76 days.

It all started with a mosquito bite. Three weeks later I was unconscious, rushed by paramedics through the doors of Phoenix Children's Hospital in a grand mal seizure. Doctors quickly induced a coma to stop the seizure and began running scans to see if my brain was still functioning. I wasn't brain dead, but they discovered I'd had a stroke. Four days went by until I awoke from the coma, nine days until I left the Intensive Care Unit, and eleven days until I left the hospital.

For three months I worked as a deckhand on the American Glory, one of seven small cruise ships ran by American Cruise Lines. In February, I met up with the ship in Jacksonville, FL and by the time I finished in May, we had sailed the entirety of the east coast, from Florida to Maine. Though the work hours were many each day, the times were good. Work ranged from doing laundry to steering the ship to checking engine gauges. Every day was different. New experiences in new places. My fellow crew members rocked and I left with a hefty sum of money in my pocket. Oh, and good news, even if you have no experience, they'll most likely hire you too.

The Company

You've probably never heard of American Cruise Lines (ACL). They operate very small cruise ships (50 to 175 passengers) and their cruises are quiet expensive ($3,500 to $5,000 per passenger for a week long cruise).

The John Muir Trail (JMT) traverses 221 miles of the majestic Sierra Nevada Mountains starting in Yosemite National Park and ending atop Mount Whitney, the highest mountain in the continental United States. Being one of the most popular long distance backpacking trails on Earth, hundreds of backpackers take to the JMT every summer, drawn from all parts of the world. A wide-eyed wanderer's dream with it's 14,000ft peaks, unreal rock formations, and abundant water sources, some call it the world's best long distance backpacking trail.

In the summer of 2014, I traversed the entire length of the JMT with my younger sister, Haley. Though many had gone before us, our journey was one nobody had undertaken before.