My Personal Story

Below is a much shorter version of my personal story. If you are interested in getting to know even more details about my life struggles and breakthroughs, please head over to my podcast page, Down To Wander, and check out episodes 1 and 2.

I strongly believe that if you are going to give me the privilege of joining you on your personal journey, I should first share a little of mine with you. My name is Karri Nelson. I am a daughter, sister, wife, dog mom, aunt, and friend. I am a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in two states and a life coach who has been helping individuals reach their own personal goals since 2006. I’m Pennsylvania born, but have also lived in Germany, New Jersey, Louisiana, Colorado and currently travel full time in a RV. 

Like many others, obstacles I experienced in my childhood and young adulthood provided me with a wobbly foundation of low self-esteem, self-doubt and fear, lack of self-care, and an inability to foresee my path in life. Due to this, I found myself staying in my little bubble of comfort thinking that I was protecting myself from rejection, failure, or lack of acceptance. In my early twenties, my foundation began to crack even more. I constantly felt a strong desire to be perfect at everything I tried. My self-worth was non-existent unless I was getting validation from friends, family, or colleagues. I put my energy into proving to everyone else that I was worthy while not believing it myself. Because of this, I started to feel overwhelmed by fear and internal pressure. I couldn’t continue to stay on the path I was on. I decided that something had to change; I had to change. I sought out a therapist and put my faith in the process. I allowed myself to open up, shared the traumatic memories of my past, and began to learn how to love and care for myself. My self-doubt and fear were still present, but to a lesser degree and I was feeling a little more confident in not allowing them to take control. 

I started making life goals and continued to work through self-doubt while accomplishing them. I earned my Masters degree in social work, became a mental health therapist so I could help others like me, and even married a wonderful life partner. I had achieved some pretty big life goals, ones I never thought I was capable of achieving. And yet somehow, I still felt like something was missing. Surely something was still wrong with me for feeling this way.    

For years, my partner and I had daydreamed about traveling full time while living in a van or RV. Like many, we resigned to the fact that it would be our retirement gig, put it on the back burner, and decided to focus on the present. In 2015, we decided to move from central Pennsylvania to Denver, Colorado, the home of bluebird skies, 300 days of sunshine, and lots of mountains. Our happiness in Pennsylvania had been found in travel, hiking, and camping so it seemed like a perfect fit. I quickly established my career, first providing therapy services at a local clinic and then accepting a position within a corporation making more money than I had ever dreamed of in my field. The beautiful weather of Colorado drew us outside every chance it could. Weekends were spent traversing the city, traveling to different towns, exploring, hiking, and camping. I began focusing on my self-care which then provided me with the positive energy needed to conquer my lifelong struggle with unhealthy eating habits. I started cutting out sugars, refined carbohydrates, and processed foods which had been my way of coping with stressors for my entire life. I experimented with different ways of eating to improve my energy, mental health, and physical well-being. By finally focusing on my body’s response to food, I was able to determine the right way of eating for me. For the first time in my life, food was viewed as fuel as opposed to a coping mechanism. I began to shed years of excess weight, both physically and mentally, as well as chronic pain that I had accepted as a part of life. I was a new and improved woman. Our timeline for our dream of traveling full time even moved up. Because of the joy we experienced on the weekends, we decided to start our dream of living on the road when our student loans were paid off. And yet somehow with all of this personal success, I still felt like something was missing from my life. Surely something was still wrong with me for feeling this way.  

Because my happiness was found on the weekends, I found myself traveling there in my mind during the week while at my desk. It was then I realized that I was living “The American Dream” and not my own. Society had influenced the creation of my life goals without me even realizing it: higher education, marriage, and successful career. While I didn’t regret these choices, I knew the next steps of “The American Dream” weren’t for me: having children, living in a large home, and working myself to the bone for more and more money. So now what? I didn’t know where to go from where I was so I just continued to stay in my little bubble of comfort. I felt lost until one Saturday in the summer of 2018. Maybe it was the smell of pine in the air, the warmth of the sun, or the lack of oxygen from the high altitude, but during a hike with my partner, we realized that our fears were the only barrier to living our dream now. Coincidentally on that same hike, we accidentally went off trail and added almost six miles to our trek allowing time for us to process through our fears together. On that day, we decided that we didn’t have to wait to live our dream. We could push through the fear together to make it work. We decided that we would not be re-signing our lease in April the following year; we would start living our dream.

From that day forward, we began making detailed plans and working towards our dream. Self-doubt and fear continued to creep in; some individual fears and some shared fears but we just kept going.  We researched everything “vanlife” related in order to gain more confidence in our abilities. I started working part time as an online therapist for extra income and to test the waters to see if I could take it on the road with me. Luckily, my partner already had a job that was road ready. In March 2019, I submitted my resignation to my corporate job, understanding the financial consequences of doing so which was one of my biggest fears. That same month, we bought our van and began selling off most of our belongings. By April 2019, we were ready to head back east to visit with family and build out our van into our little home on wheels. My grandfather, a skilled woodworker and jack of all trades, helped with the build process which took us a month to complete. We then began to test the waters in our van by traveling around the east coast visiting friends and family. This allowed us to baby step through any remaining fears before we headed back west. Two weeks before our take off to the west, the transmission in the van starting slipping. Mechanical issues were one of our shared fears due to lack of know-how, but due to our planning, we took it in stride (for the most part), resolved the issue, and conquered yet another fear. 

We began our journey west in August 2019 and are now living our dream. Eight months after starting our travels in our van, we upgraded to a RV as we determined that this lifestyle would not be short term. This life has been what we expected and more. We live as minimally as possible to afford us more time to fill our souls with what makes us happy: travel. We visit with friends and family, explore, hike, and work on our self-care as much as we can. We’re met with and overcome obstacles and fears regularly proving to ourselves that we are capable of constant growth. We express gratitude daily for the life we have created and have room to become better versions of ourselves that we can share with others. We share our travel journey with friends, family, and future friends on social media (Facebook and Instagram) hoping to inspire them to think outside the box when it comes to what they want in life. The possibilities are endless if you allow yourself to face the fear that tells you otherwise. Sometimes we just need to make room for ourselves to dream and succeed. I want to help you with that.  Contact me to get started today.