The Unexpected Road To An Unconventional Life With Brianna Madia

How can we step away from the established patterns of life and choose a path that makes us truly happy? How can we redefine travel to find it in our own country, and choose a home in a place that calls to our soul? Brianna Madia talks about her unexpected road to an unconventional life in the desert of Moab with her four dogs. Brianna Madia is the author of Nowhere For Very Long: The Unexpected Road to an Unconventional Life.  Show notes * Questioning the established patterns of life — even when that’s hard * The freedom and challenges of #vanlife * Travel as an attitude, even without your own country * Highlights of the desert in Utah * The power of feeling insignificant in the face of natural beauty and how it helps to find perspective * Traveling with four dogs — and redefining happiness * Recommended travel books You can find Brianna Madia at BriannaMadia.com and on Instagram @briannamadia Transcript of the interview Jo Frances Penn: Brianna Madia is the author of Nowhere for Very Long: The Unexpected Road to an Unconventional Life. Welcome, Brianna. Brianna Madia: Hi, thank you for having me. Jo Frances Penn: I’m excited to talk to you today. I wanted to start about how you talk in the book about how you feel you didn’t quite fit in the place where you grew up, and then later on you felt that unease again. I wonder because many of us feel unease in our life. How do we identify that feeling of not belonging and know that we actually do have to leave, because it’s a big step. Brianna Madia: It is. And this is one of the things that makes me so oddly grateful now for the place that I grew up. I grew up in a place where there was a lot of wealth. It was right outside New York City. It was very like a go-getter type of place. I found myself from a very early age looking around and wondering why because I knew so many people and I would see so many people who were doing things in their lives, choosing the paths that they were choosing almost as like a performance for the people around them, as opposed to what really called to their spirit, if you will. I started to just question, whose idea is this? Whose dreams do we end up dreaming? Because a lot of the times I think we grow up and it’s like as kids, we’re almost put on a conveyor belt. We are told, these are the steps, you go to school, you go to college, you get a job, you get married, you buy a house, you have kids. I think it’s so interesting that we wonder why so many adults wake up one day looking around and wondering, when did I make these decisions? And so I think constantly asking why, and when I grew up, it was a lot easier. When I was a teenager, it was a lot easier to be rebellious. It was a lot easier to say, ‘Screw this way of life I’ve seen.’ But then I found myself right kind of back into it when I had moved out to Utah and I was working at a software company, and it was a great little company, and there wasn’t anything wrong on the surface with that decision. It just never felt like mine. I was taken aback. I was like, ‘Wow, I’m really going to have to consistently ask myself, check in with myself, is this what I want to be doing? Who am I doing this for?’ I think a lot of the times when people want to leave a situation, it’s terrifying. But I like to try to remind people that mostly, it’s socially terrifying. When we say the safe choice, it’s a safe choice to stay in the town that we grew up in. It’s a safe choice to stay at the job that’s paying the bills but not necessarily lighting your heart on fire. I think the safety of that comes more from the social safe...

Om Podcasten

Escape and inspiration about unusual and fascinating places, as well as the deeper side of books and travel. I'm Jo Frances Penn, author of thrillers and non-fiction, and I'll be doing solo shows about my own travel experience and interviewing authors about how travel inspires their writing. Interviews cover places to visit and tips for travel as well as thoughts on modes of travel like walking, cycling, and travel by train and other modes. Plus book recommendations for every interview so you have things to read on the move.