My best friend, Ginny, has always been my travel inspiration. After our high school graduation, she invited me to go backpacking in Europe for 2 weeks with her. At age 18, this was my first true taste of wanderlust and it’s been an addiction and huge part of my life ever since.
After my sophomore year at the University of Maryland, I traveled abroad with Study Australia. Those 6 weeks in 2008 were the most stimulating of my life. Australia held this certain intriguing mystery about it and I couldn’t get enough. I immediately added living in Sydney to my bucket list and ached to go back to Australia for years.
I graduated from the University of Maryland in 2010 with a BA in Communication. With a few international travels here and there, by 2013, I was ready to experience more. I applied for my working holiday visa to New Zealand and spent seven months backpacking both stunning islands. The natural beauty of that country was something like I had never seen before. As a solo female traveler, I originally started writing my travel blog “Sweet Kiwi” to keep in touch with my family and to share stories with my friends back home.
On November 25, 2015, I finally returned to Australia. It’s been almost three years since I’ve been lucky enough to call Melbourne home and couldn’t be happier with my life abroad. With my blog, I want my stories to inspire others to travel and also to share advice with those who live a wanderlust lifestyle. Please feel free to reach out to me as I would love to connect with anyone who has any questions or wants to share their travel tips!
Steph Dobson 