Everything worth doing starts with being scared.

— Art Garfunkel

The Very Beginning

I remember the very first road trip I took with my family to Chicago and New York City in the summer of 2008. I had brain surgery a year before and was still adjusting to what life was like without having the seizures and behavior problems brought on by a brain tumor. I was eight years old and telling my Mom where to go from the passenger’s seat while my brother Tom and sister Jessica was sitting in the back. Rihanna’s song “Umbrella” was playing on every radio station all summer long as we made it to the Windy City and over to the Big Apple.

I was hooked on traveling from that point on! We continued to take road trips as a family every summer around the United States until I started working and attending college at the age of 17. Since then, I primarily took solo camping and road trips around the state of New Mexico while completing my studies in Mechanical Engineering and English. Occasionally, I would take a trip to California, Canada, Colorado, or Mexico to change things up a bit and used the platform Couchsurfing to meet locals and find accommodation.

Fast-forward to March 2019, I went out to Ireland and met the Couchsurfing ambassador for Ireland and stayed at his cottage for five days while I was initially exploring the country. He was looking for people to watch over his cottage and dog in the countryside for the summer while he was going to be on vacation. I openly offered to come back and watch over his place while resting in a cafe outside the Cliffs of Moher, and I bought a plane ticket to return to Dublin before I left Ireland. May 2019 came around in the blink of an eye and I graduated from my undergraduate studies, quit my jobs, and packed my bags in a few days–eager to explore the world and feeling unsure at the time of what I wanted to do with my life just yet. I stayed put for four months in the quiet town of Clara, County Offaly (population is 2,000 people, just to give you an idea of how small it really is).

From September 2019 until February 2020, I lived on the road exploring mainland Europe, Morocco, and parts of Australia. I have been to a total of 16 countries on five continents, circumnavigated the globe, and traveled through 28 of the contiguous states in the USA. I am on a brief break from the long-distance travels during this time, and am using this blog as a way to jog my memory of past events that I want to share with you. The stories I share on here are a reflection of the strange situations I got myself into while traveling spontaneously. Maybe you’ll learn a thing or two, or maybe you’ll get a good laugh out of my many mishaps. Either way, thank you for joining me on my journey!

How I Got The Name Lizard

Lizard

I got the nickname of Lizard from my old workplace, Whole Foods Market. It was my first day on the job, November 13th, 2015. I was meeting all of my supervisors for the first time and getting acquainted with the regular customers and my coworkers. I was in a good mood all day. Near the end of my mid-day shift, I ran into a closing supervisor that I haven’t met yet. I walked up to him and said, “Hello, my name is Elizabeth. How are you?” He shook my hand and said in return, “You look like a Lizard to me. That’s going to be your name from now on.” One week later, he printed out a new name button for me that said “LIZ-ARD”. It was confirmed, and from that day on everyone knew me as “Lizard.”