Today we’d like to introduce you to Elysabeth Lamoureux
Hi Elysabeth, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
In 2017, I left my hometown to move to college to a city where I knew no one, in a state I had never been. I first started traveling in internationally in 2021, about a year after I started working in healthcare. It was my first trip outside of the US as an adult with a girlfriend of mine. After that I started planning more and more trips. It became something to look forward too, that brought so much excitement to my life and so much value. Since then I’ve been to 16 countries on all types of trips. Everything from solo to random group trips to getting my close friends together. Traveling has been a way to meet people who are closest to me in my life. I started traveling for work in 2022 where I met a lot of my closest friends now. Traveling has truly been a way for me to learn about different cultures firsthand and myself. It’s given me a lot of courage and insight to life that I don’t think I would have without leaving my hometown. After three years I decided to start my blog, Travel With Ely. I had been thinking about starting it for about 6 months now but unfortunately didn’t due to insecurity and not knowing where to start. Now I’ve got a couple blogs under my belt and have received so much love and support from the people around me. The thought that “why me” came across a lot. Why would people listen to me or read what I write. Or why would I even do this when I’ve only been to 16 countries and there are so many more people who are more traveled than I am. Finally someone said, why not you and it was the final push I needed. I’m thankful to have people in my life who pushed me to do what I love and share with others.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I’ve had many struggles from college to being new in healthcare to figuring out how to balance work and life. At the end of the day, everything always came together. Moving to a new area not knowing anyone was something I had never done before. I was born and raised in the same town so I knew it like the back of my hand. Learning how to navigate a new world of people wasn’t easy. It made me open my eyes to different types of people and allowing people to show up as they are not who you want them to be. When I first started in healthcare, I was the youngest by a couple years. That came with some of its own struggles. Trying to find how I could fit in with people who were older and didn’t necessarily think I belonged there was hard. I felt like I had to be someone who I wasn’t to fit into the group close to my age. I quickly realized I didn’t have to fit into anything. That I can show up as I am and still do my job. I also found myself struggling with my relationship with money as a new an adult with a new job. That made it hard to balance work and life, I was always concerned about the unexpected or having more than I needed to feel comfortable that I missed out on a lot of life events for friends and families. I have slowly begun to feel more comfortable by balancing how much I work with time for my family and friends. The newest struggle I’ve come across is how to balance life and a new path with my travel blog. Figuring out how to balance my full time job, with traveling, friends and family and creating this new blog and trying to help it grow.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I currently work in healthcare. I am a nurse in the intensive care unit. This can get very intense quickly as your balancing multiple tasks at work to ensure your patients safety. I think my ability to separate my life from work and vise versa is something that a lot of people are unable to do. It’s something that allows me to show up presently in both atmospheres and give my best. Traveling is also something that allows me to reset and give my best because I have things to look forward and work towards. That’s why I started my blog Travel With Ely, to create a space where I can share my travels and hopefully inspire others to do the same. At the moment I am trying to balance full time professional work with starting a new blog in a new world of technology and the internet that I know nothing about.
We’d love to hear about how you think about risk taking?
I think in life, the risks you don’t take are the ones people come to regret. The people who take calculated risks and keep learning from them are the ones who life a live they enjoy. I see it all around me. I’ve taken risks since I was younger. The risk of getting a job in school and balancing sports, school and work. The risk of starting college young and missing “high school events”. The risk of moving away and starting somewhere new. The risk of getting into investing and real-estate. Traveling by myself or going with a group where I know no one else. They were all risks that changed the projection of my life. They all pushed me to grow and meet new people. To see new perspectives and experience different ways of life. Of course my risks didn’t always turn out how I planned but that’s the part that you learn and grow from the most. I say take the risk. Life is a progression of all the risks you take or don’t. The people around me all take risks. They’re usually calculated but the point of a risk is it can go anywhere. Don’t limit yourself on the possibilities in life by shying from the risks. The biggest risk I’m taking now it starting a travel blog, and sharing my stories and adventures with other people. In hopes to inspire them to essentially take the risk of traveling in the way that fits them. Travel With Ely, is something that I hope to grow into a community and space to inspire others to travel and open their minds to the world around them from their point of view.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://Travelwithely.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/life_of_ely_/?locale=id
