We were lucky to catch up with Kasey DellaPenna recently and have shared our conversation below.

Kasey, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

In 2016, I graduated from business school with an idea that I was going to find a role in corporate America, work 9-5 my entire career, and travel as much as I could during my small vacation periods. In 2018, after 2 years of this and some awful experiences working for a large corporate company, I quickly realized my passion for travel was more than just a hobby I could fit into 2 weeks a year and decided to try backpacking for the first time. I spent 6 months traveling without a job before I realized it was an unsustainable way to travel if I wanted to continue long-term. However, those months were invaluable to me because they showed me that this was my passion in life. That time gave me so many skills and the knowledge to travel on a budget, all of which I continue to share on my travel pages today. I now work as a freelancer in social media, amongst other side jobs and continue to travel full-time, 4 years later.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?

Hi I’m Kasey, a full-time solo budget traveler that wants to help you travel for longer. About 4 years ago, I quit my job and bought a one-way ticket to Europe. I haven’t stopped traveling since. When I was starting out, I thought this life I live now was only something people that have money could do. Yet over the years, I have found numerous resources that can help you travel the world for less than you spend a month at home. I realized that if I was having these thoughts, there must be thousands of others out there just like me that want more than a traditional 9-5 life and have no idea where to start. I started sharing my journey on social media and have gained an incredible community of like-minded friends and followers since then. My favorite thing about all of this is receiving a DM or email from someone that’s taken my advice or felt inspired by my solo travels. If I can help just one person find the courage to live their life the way they want, I am happy.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Social media does a great job of glamourizing individuals’ lives. Yet behind every picture, there’s a story and sometimes a struggle. I knew that I wanted something more than a corporate job where I wasn’t valued, doomed to only make money for someone else my whole career. However, I had spent four years of business school being taught that this was the only way. Once I started traveling full-time and making money online I got a lot of questions about how I do it and how they could do something similar. Most people think that my life is “lucky” and while I have certain privileges that allow me to live this life, an extreme amount of hard work and resilience was poured into it. I left home in 2018 and was back in my parent’s house, broke by Christmas (one of those privileges I mentioned is being able to move back in with my parents when things didn’t go right). I left to travel again in 2019 after saving some money and decided to move to Florida in 202o to make more money after running out a second time. I was 26 years old with no career and little money when the pandemic hit so I spent a year and a half serving at a local restaurant during that time. I worked whatever extra jobs I could take, I took online courses, I researched and taught myself skills that I knew could be done from anywhere in the world so I could take my job with me, and more. It wasn’t until 2021 that I found a job that gave me a stable enough income to travel without stopping. Around that time my personal social media channels started monetizing and I have been freelancing ever since.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

My social media audience is one of the best things to come out of my travels. After years of trying, 2020 was the first time I really found success and that was with TikTok. I started posting for fun on the app just like everyone else during the pandemic’s start and quickly fell in love. I decided to document my time at Disney World (Florida) since I was living so close to the parks at a time when most fans weren’t allowed to visit or couldn’t due to covid. My account started growing slowly and when I left to start full-time traveling again in June of 2021 I started documenting my travels every day. I had a few videos go viral and realized people loved hearing about my travel stories and how I could help them travel too. I still consider myself a small creator but I have been able to monetize my platform in the last year and it’s been an incredible journey. I would say that anyone that wants to build an audience, you have to start putting yourself out there. You’re going to look back and realize a lot of your content wasn’t the greatest but that’s how you learn from it and grow. Consistency is huge, I post every single day and I batch content for the days I don’t feel like or have time to film. Know that this is a marathon and not a sprint and if you want to have a successful career in social media, you have to be okay with the highs and lows. A lot of creators blow up quickly and then burn out. It’s super easy to do. So really decide if this is a passion for you and something you could see yourself doing for years to come.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kaseymeetsworld/
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@kaseymeetsworld This is my most successful account. It is the main one I give when I am referencing my social media.

Image Credits
Caroline Cunningham Pic of Waterfall and City with orange and white buildings