Nichole’s Story
Hey, I’m Nichole! & I am just a girl looking to explore the world.
I am a travel photographer and adventure seeker based in New England who lives for the outdoors and exploring every corner of this beautiful planet!
What is my “why”?
My “why” is pretty simple. When I was younger, I wished my life away. Rather than adventuring on weekends, I would sulk around because I wasn’t traveling to some exotic place for weeks at a time. This destroyed my mindset. I’ll talk about this in detail later, but one day I realized I needed to snap out of it and start living in the present. I started this blog with hopes to inspire others to find their own adventure. Whether it be across the world or in their backyard, I want to encourage people to get outside and explore!
So, who is Nichole? Here is the short version:
Too many people live their lives wishing it away. Wishing the day was over. Wishing it was the weekend. Wishing away five days of the week. And most of us don’t even stop to think about it! In the blink of an eye, weeks, months, years have passed. That was me when I was younger. Wishing away my week and only living for the weekend.
One day I thought to myself, “Nichole, you have an awesome life. Even though your life isn’t exactly how you want it to be, you still have an awesome life. YOU are awesome. So why are you wasting five days a week and living it up for only two? Why not look forward to doing something after work? Why not make the most of EVERY day and live for EVERY day? YOU ARE YOUNG GIRLFRIEND! YOU HAVE SO MUCH OF YOUR LIFE TO LIVE FOR, SO STOP LIVING FOR ONLY TWO DAYS OF THE WEEK!!”
(Yes, I have quite a few conversations with myself daily. I give the best internal pep talks. Just saying.)
After that moment, I stopped wishing my weeks away. I made time to do things I loved during the week, and it made a huge impact on my life! I also started hiking on weekends, and this is where I found myself. Yes, I know. It sounds cliche, but I really did find myself while hiking. Nature has a way of doing that to you.
Then, I started traveling. *Goodbye bank account.* I quickly learned that yes, New England is beautiful, but so isn’t the rest of the world. I got bit by the travel bug, and now my life is infested with them. Not a day goes by that I’m not itching to adventure.
I found the love of my life soon after and dubbed him my lifelong travel and hiking partner. (He only enjoys the traveling part, but that’s okay.)
Traveling, hiking, exploring, and everything in between are my passions, and this blog talks about all of them. My posts are meant to be a resource for you to help you on your adventures no matter what they may be.
Okay, here is the nitty-gritty:
I grew up in a small town in Massachusetts where everyone knew anything and everything about everyone. It was maddening, but that is beside the point. I was a competitive dancer and spent almost all of my free time in the dance studio. Whenever we had a free weekend, my parents would take my sister and I on trips exploring the New England outdoors. We would go hiking, camping, bike riding, you name it, and we did it! This is where my love for the outdoors began.
As I grew older, dancing became an even bigger part of my life, so I had zero time to do anything else. Exploring the outdoors became a thing of the past and a lost love. In college, I had the incredible opportunity to be an NBA Dancer. Not only was I able to do what I love for my favorite NBA team and share the parquet with players I grew up watching, but I was also able to travel internationally to represent the organization. It was a dream come true for me! I mean, how could it get any better?!
When I graduated from college, I had to make a decision: begin my “real world” career or get a part-time job and continue dancing. With the stress of paying loans approaching, I made the difficult decision to stop dancing and begin my career. Even though I was able to continue dancing for a Boston-based company, this was where it all went downhill.
I lost myself
Like, really lost myself. And I don’t think it was because I got a “real” job or stopped dancing. I think it was all of this pent up stress and frustration of having to get a job to pay for the loans that I used to pay for school to get a job. I started wishing my weeks away because I hated my job which made me start hating myself which made me start hating everything. Yeah, it was a pretty dark time…
Then one day, I woke up and had the internal conversation that I mentioned above. I realized that my life was not going to change unless I started to change it. *MIND BLOWN.* I then googled what to do when sad, and the great search engine spit out many options with the first being: go for a walk. I thought back to those times I hiked with my family and decided to one-up Google and go for a hike.
That hike changed my life. Seriously. It was the first time in years that I was able to quiet my mind and not overthink every little thing. That hike was exactly what I needed at exactly the right time. And I got hooked! I started hiking more because I became obsessed with the meditative state it would put me in. It helped me heal and change my perspective on life.
I quit my job, got a new job I enjoyed and met the love of my life. It felt like the Universe was like, “Ahh, good job Nichole. Now that you have relaxed your mind, here are all of the good things”. Thanks, Universe!
After that, I hiked as much as I could and began to travel. This is where my love for photography blossomed. As I started adventuring more and sharing those experiences through photos, I noticed more people were reaching out to tell me I was inspiring them to get outside and travel more. I loved it! So I thought, how could I do more to inspire? *Cue entrance of the blog idea.*
And that is where Nichole the Nomad was born! Now, I am here sharing my adventures with thousands of people and inspiring them to find their own adventure.
So what’s the goal?
My goal is ever-changing, but how can it not? I have a deep passion for capturing the world in a beautiful light and sharing the experiences with you. I want to use my photography, blog, and social media to show how beautiful the world is and be an inspiration to adventure. My ultimate goal is to travel to every country!
