hello
For 8 months we traveled around the US as digital nomads, laptops open, living out of suitcases in a different city every month. It was epic, we got to live in some of the most iconic cities in the country and experience them like a true local. But after a while, something shifted. Don't get us wrong, we still love a good adventure, but we realized wanderlust isn't all there is. We craved more - time for things like our health, our relationships, actually growing as people. So, we downgraded the nomadic life and found ourselves a home base. Now, we get the best of both worlds - month-long trips to satisfy our travel bug, and time back home to focus on other parts of life. Because we've finally figured it out: a dream life isn't just about where you go, it's about building something fulfilling and sustainable in all areas of life.
NICE TO MEET YOU!
We’re Quest and Mikalen, the couple behind Freedom to Explore! We are so happy you’re here and can’t wait to get to know each other! Check out down below to get to know us better
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Hi, I’m Mikalen!
I grew up in a small mountain town in Colorado then headed for the beach in Wilmington, NC for college.
My love for travel started with a high school trip to Europe and has continued to grow ever since. My time studying abroad in college and then living and working in Spain gave me some of my best memories and shaped me into the person I am today.
Having the freedom to work from anywhere has impacted my life in so many positive ways. Not only has it allowed me to travel, it also has given me the time and flexibility to pursue other passions and focus on a more wholistic way of living. It truly allowed me to live my dream life in so many ways and I want to help other people do that as well!
To get to know each other a little better, here are some fun facts about me!
-Tacos, happy hour, and a good sunset are some of my favorite things in life
-My dream destination is the Maldives
-I love all the marvel movies
-I learned how to ski when I was 5 and it’s still one of my favorite sports
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Hi, I am Quest!
I grew up in Greensboro, NC then went to North Carolina State University for college where I studied Mechanical Engineering.
My love for travel really ignited after I took a 30-day backpacking trip around Europe after graduating college. Since then I have traveled to over 27 countries, and don’t plan on stopping any time soon.
Since graduating I have built a life of location and time independence, and seek to inspire and educate others on how to do the same.
To get to know each other a little better, here are a few of my favorite things:
Sports of any kind are my love language.
DJing has been a favorite pastime of mine recently.
Big car enthusiast, especially old Japanese cars.
OUR STORY
Our story is a fun one (at least we think so lol). Mikalen went to college with Quest’s brother, we met once in 2017 and didn’t see each other again. Until 2021…Quest was living in Denver and Mikalen was there for the summer visiting family before moving back to North Carolina. Quest slid in the DMs asking to hang out, we did (everyday for two weeks), and the rest is history :)
Well not quite…
Mikalen moved back to North Carolina and we were forced to be long distance until August 2022 when we started our digital nomad journey. And now the rest is history :)
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We both had corporate jobs that allowed us to work fully remotely! We worked the traditional 9-5 and used those paychecks to fund our travels and lifestyle.
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The 8 cities we lived in as digital nomads were Toronto, New York City, Miami, Atlanta, Denver/Breckenridge, Tulum, San Diego, and San Francisco. We chose cities that we thought we might want to live in so we could ”test them out” to see if we really liked them!
Our favorites were Toronto, Miami, and San Diego but we ended up setting up a home base in Denver due to proximity to friends/family and overall cost.
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Our time being long distance was coming to an end and we had to start thinking about where we wanted to live next. The only problem was we couldn’t decide where! For a long time I had wanted to do a world tour living in a different country every month so when Quest mentioned he wanted to do something similar we knew we had to do it.
Since our original objective was to find a place to live and my job at the time wouldn’t allow me to live internationally, we chose 8 US (and Canada and Mexico lol) cities that we either always wondered what it would be like to live in or that we could see ourselves living in.
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We LOVED our time as digital nomads but as we got to San Francisco, our last stop, we just started to feel really tired. Tired of having to pack up our stuff, not knowing where we would be staying the next month, missing time with people we cared about, and just not having a space to call our own. We also started to realize that other important parts of our lives were being pushed to the side since pretty much all we thought about was making the most of our time and planning the next stop. Our physical health was going downhill, we felt disconnected from the people in our lives, our relationship was on auto pilot, and we rarely did things to take care of our individual needs.
So we decided that we needed to find a better way to balance all of the things were think are important in life; travel, personal growth, health, and relationships. For us, the best option was finding a home base and decreasing our travel to just one or two months at a time.