This woman traveled to all 7 continents before her 30th birthday
After earning a degree in visual communications, Miller moved to China to teach English, where she became “fascinated” with language, food, and culture.
“I just became so passionate with traveling that it became such a priority for me,” she said.
When she returned from China, Miller moved to Chicago to work in sales. She read up about backpacking through Europe, then traveled through 21 countries when she was 25.
“It's easy to do when you're young because it's a lot more affordable,” she said, citing reduced youth travel fares. “I wanted to do it when I was young. You can't really stand cheap crappy hotel rooms and hostels when you're in your mid 30s or older.”
She then moved to Florida and began working as a bartender. Her flexible schedule allowed her to travel even more.
“I would work really hard for a couple months and then I would go travel, and then work really hard and go travel,” she said.
She set herself an ambitious goal: to visit all seven continents before her 30th birthday.
The hardest one to reach was Antarctica — but she did it.
“You pretty much have to get there by a ship,” she said about Antarctica.
Her ship departed from Ushuaia, Argentina, the world’s southernmost city, and sailed through the Drake Passage, some of the world’s most dangerous waters.
It was worth it.
She visited an island inhabited solely by 6,500 penguins, and took in pristine arctic landscapes.
“Once you land on the main continent, it's just huge white glaciers, and mountains of white ice. It's just beautiful," she said. "It's an experience unlike any other.”
Five years ago, she met Doug Sass, a farmer from Iowa, while he was visiting his sister in Florida. “On our first date I learned that he had never even had a passport,” Miller said. “They say opposites attract, right?”
She ended up joining him in Iowa, where she currently works to bridge the gap between farmers and consumers with her blog, Farm Babe.
Sass has since gotten a passport. They now travel together, usually somewhere tropical when the farm is covered in winter snow.
She’s been to every continent, but that doesn’t mean her bucket list is all checked off. An avid scuba diver, Miller hopes to cage dive with great white sharks in South Africa.
Traveling still invigorates her, even 56 countries later.
“The feeling you get within your soul and your spirit, the warmth and the happiness and the calm, the zen of being in different places — I think it's so great,” she said.
“Especially if you don't speak the language — then you're forced to be submerged in this culture and eat new foods and talk to people through broken languages, and then you laugh, and you're just unplugged. I dread the day when telecom is too far advanced that we can't unplug.”
Her advice to other aspiring explorers?
“Don't delay! Do it while you're young and it's cheap,” she said. “It changes you.”
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