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Hi, my loves, and welcome back to The Wanderlover Podcast!
This is a really special episode because we’re officially at episode 300. I started this podcast back in 2020, and if you’ve been listening since then, first of all, thank you. It genuinely means so much to me that some of you have been here through so many different versions of my life and my business.
And if you’re watching on YouTube or listening for the first time, hi! I’m Danielle, and I’m so happy you’re here.
I thought episode 300 would be the perfect opportunity to do a proper reintroduction and have a little heart-to-heart with you. I want to share my story, where I’ve been, where I am now, and where I see my life going next.
I’m recording this from Florianópolis, Brazil. My husband and I recently applied for Brazilian citizenship, we have an almost 18-month-old son, we’re about to leave Brazil and head back to the States, we’re buying our first investment property in New York, and next year we’re planning to go back to Asia.
When I look at my life now compared to what it looked like ten years ago, it’s kind of crazy. I’ve lived so many different lives in between, so I thought I’d take you all the way back to the beginning.
Before The Wanderlover
I was born in China and moved to the United States when I was two years old. I’m the daughter of immigrants, and growing up, I think I had a pretty traditional idea of what success was supposed to look like.
Do well in school, go to a good college, get a good job, make money, and be financially secure.
And that’s pretty much exactly what I did. I went to Cornell University and studied business. During college, I spent semesters abroad in Italy and Hong Kong, and I actually graduated early so I could volunteer and backpack by myself.
That was probably the first time I really started thinking about travel as something I wanted to make a much bigger part of my life. I even had the idea of starting my own travel blog.
But I already had a job lined up after college, so after that trip, I went straight into corporate finance at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
On paper, everything was going exactly according to plan. I had a good corporate job in New York, a salary, benefits, and a pretty clear career path ahead of me.
But I remember looking at people who were five years ahead of me, ten years ahead of me, even twenty years ahead of me, and thinking: Is this really what I want?
There was nothing wrong with that life. I just started realizing that it wasn’t necessarily the life I wanted.
The biggest thing for me was travel. I couldn’t imagine spending the rest of my life waiting for weekends and having a limited number of vacation days every year. I wanted to see the world and have more control over my time.
So while I was still working, I started The Wanderlover, along with a bunch of other side hustles like dropshipping and Amazon FBA, because I wanted to figure out if there was a way I could make money online instead.
Quitting My Corporate Job
On July 11, 2017, I quit my job.
I definitely didn’t have the next ten years mapped out. I didn’t know I would eventually be sitting in Brazil recording episode 300 of my podcast with a husband, a toddler, and an online business.
I really didn’t know exactly what was going to happen. I just knew that I wanted to give myself the chance to try something different.
Obviously, there were nerves around it. I had spent my whole life working toward this traditional definition of success, and my parents had worked incredibly hard to give me opportunities and stability. So voluntarily leaving a stable career wasn’t necessarily the obvious next step.
But I knew I had to try.
At that point, what I wanted most was the ability to travel and have control over my own time.
Becoming a Full-Time Traveler
And that’s pretty much what happened. Travel became my life for the next several years.
I’ve lived on remote surf islands and in big cities. I’ve spent months at a time in places like Bali, Hawaii, Portugal, and Brazil. I met my husband, Ragz, and we ended up building this pretty unconventional life together where home was basically wherever we happened to be at the time.
And I loved it.
I wanted adventure. I wanted to see new countries. I wanted to surf. I loved not necessarily knowing where I was going to be six months from now.
Travel also introduced me to so many people who had completely different ways of living. I met people who weren’t following that traditional corporate path at all, and they were still successful and happy.
It really opened my eyes to the fact that there isn’t one correct way to build your life.
Turning The Wanderlover Into a Business
Of course, if you want to travel indefinitely, you need to make money. So while all of this was happening, The Wanderlover was also evolving.
In the beginning, everything was travel-related: blogging, Instagram, content creation, photography, brand partnerships, and digital products.
Eventually, that expanded into courses, coaching, podcasting, and building an online education business.
And it definitely wasn’t a straight line where I started a business and suddenly everything worked.
I’ve tried plenty of things that didn’t work. I’ve spent time building on platforms that later changed. I’ve had really successful launches and launches that didn’t perform the way I wanted them to. There have been times when business felt amazing and times when I questioned what I was doing.
But over time, I did build the thing I originally wanted.
I could make money from my laptop. I could choose where I wanted to live. I could structure my own days. I didn’t need to ask someone if I could take three weeks off to go somewhere.
And I was making a few hundred thousand dollars a year from anywhere in the world.
Becoming a Creator and Coach
The Wanderlover originally started as a way for me to share the life I was living. But eventually, people started asking me how I was doing it.
How are you making money online? How are you getting brand deals? How did you build your audience? How can I start an online business?
That’s really how education and coaching became a much bigger part of what I do.
I realized I didn’t just enjoy sharing my own lifestyle. I really enjoyed helping other people figure out how they could create more freedom in their own lives by making money online.
And I think that’s an important distinction because I don’t think everyone needs to quit their job and travel to 69 countries. That’s what I wanted to do. Your version of freedom might look completely different.
That’s ultimately what Wanderlover Business Academy and a lot of the work I do today is about.
It’s not about creating my exact life. It’s about building income and systems that give you more choices in your own life.
300 Episodes of The Wanderlover Podcast
Then, in 2020, I started The Wanderlover Podcast during the pandemic.
I don’t think I ever really thought about what episode 300 would look like. I just kept recording.
I’ve recorded episodes from so many different countries and random apartments over the years. I’ve interviewed incredible people and shared lessons about business while I was actively learning those lessons myself.
We’ve talked about money, travel, entrepreneurship, mindset, relationships, manifestation, launches, failures, and everything in between.
If you’ve been here for a long time, you’ve basically heard me grow up through this podcast.
And I think that’s one of the biggest things this milestone is making me reflect on: we underestimate what happens when you just keep doing something.
One podcast episode doesn’t feel like a big deal. One Instagram post doesn’t feel like a big deal. One sale doesn’t change your entire business.
But then you look back after doing something hundreds of times and realize how much all of those little things added up.
I think that’s true for so many areas of life, and it’s something I’m appreciating more and more as I get older.
Becoming a Mom
Then probably the biggest life change of all happened. I became a mom.
Our son, Leven, was born in Rio de Janeiro in February 2025.
Sometimes I think about myself sitting at my corporate desk in New York and just laugh at how impossible it would have been to predict this life.
I quit my job, traveled around the world, married a British surfer who I met in Bali, moved to Brazil, and then had a baby in Rio.
Life is funny.
Motherhood has definitely changed the way I think about freedom, too.
Before becoming a mom, most of my decisions were about me. Where do I want to go? What do I want to do? What experience do I want to have next?
Now there’s this little person who is obviously part of every decision we make.
Where do we want to raise him? How much time do we want together as a family? What kind of childhood do we want him to have? What countries and cultures do we want him to experience?
And I actually think motherhood has made me value the life we’ve built even more.
Having control over our time and where we live isn’t just about me getting to travel anymore. It gives us options as a family.
Realizing It’s Okay for the Dream to Change
I’ve also been thinking a lot lately about what happens when you actually get the life you wanted.
I wanted to leave corporate, and I did. I wanted to travel the world, and I did. I wanted to become a creator, and I did. I wanted to be a wife and mother, and I did.
And now I’m realizing that it’s completely okay to want other things, too.
I think it’s really easy to get attached to an identity you’ve built. I’ve been The Wanderlover for almost a decade. Does that mean I need to want to travel nonstop forever?
If I’ve spent years building an online business, does that mean that’s the only thing I’m allowed to be interested in?
Obviously not.
Life changes. Your priorities change. You get older. You learn things about yourself.
And I think it’s actually really exciting to let yourself explore whatever you’re interested in next.
For me right now, one of those things is real estate.
Getting Into Real Estate
For most of my twenties, I really didn’t care about owning things. I wanted experiences. I wanted to be able to fit my life into a suitcase and go wherever I wanted.
And now I’m really interested in investing and building assets.
We’re currently buying our first investment property in New York. It’s a two-family property that we’re planning to renovate and refinance, and I am learning so much because this is an entirely new world for me.
We’re doing everything remotely. We’ve never even seen it in person.
My husband used to work in construction before he started traveling full-time with me, and I’ve always loved interior design, so I think it was the perfect next step for us.
Eventually, I’d love to own larger multifamily properties and get into commercial real estate. I’m interested in building wealth in ways that don’t rely entirely on my personal brand or my online business.
And it’s kind of funny because I spent years building a life where I wasn’t tied to any particular place, and now I’m buying something that literally cannot move.
But I don’t actually see those things as opposites.
Real estate is another investment and another potential source of income. And ultimately, that can create even more freedom.
I’m also enjoying being a beginner again. There is so much I don’t know, and I’m excited to learn and share more of that process as I go.
We’re Not Done Traveling
And don’t worry, this is definitely not turning into The Real Estate Lover Podcast.
Travel is still a huge part of our lives.
We’re about to leave Brazil and spend some time in the United States, and then next year we’re planning to head back to Asia.
I’m really excited about that because I’ve experienced Asia at so many different points in my life. I’ve been there as a backpacker, a digital nomad, and an entrepreneur, but I’ve never experienced it as a mom.
Read Next
Navigating Marriage, Business, and Full-Time Travel as a Digital Nomad
My Birth Story in Rio de Janeiro
How to Give Birth in Brazil as a Foreigner: Everything You Need to Know
10 Lessons from 10 Weeks of Motherhood
Traveling With A Baby! Digital Nomad Life as a Family
My 3-Month Maternity Leave Recap and Insights
Wondering If Motherhood Is For You? Here’s What Helped Me Decide
Reflections From My Wales Road Trip
Tips for Traveling With A Baby
How Much It Costs to Give Birth in Rio de Janeiro Brazil as a Foreigner
