Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Miguel Yga. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Miguel, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?

Truth be told, I can’t remember when I decided to become an explorer. I could point to the fateful moment in my mid-twenties when I decided to drop everything I was doing, turn pirate, and travel the world, but that was really a manifestation of something older, far more ancient. As far back as I can remember, deep in the primordial boundlessness of childhood, I’d wanted to be an explorer. In metaphysical terms, one cannot become something that one always was. Being hungry to explore the world was only natural for someone as curious and open-minded as I was. The thrill of discovering things for myself —whether that was secret knowledge contained in books, the arcane wisdom of the spiritual world, or simply experiencing the blank spots of the map for myself— was always a powerful motivator driving me into the arms of adventure. It was an inevitable outcome—just like following your nose.
But the start of this journey came at a price. I grew up in a conservative northern Mexican society that religiously valued image, status, wealth, material accumulation, and checking off all the boxes of societal expectations above all else. This was an environment that scorned anything creative, where the cult of convention prevailed.
I knew I was different from the other kids in school, that I didn’t conform to the mold of perfection of my society’s ideals. I wasn’t interested in sports or fitting into a group. I was bullied and made fun of for being “weird.” In my loneliness, I turned to books. They were my first journeys beyond the confines of the world I knew, my most loyal companions, mentors, and teachers. I read everything I could get my hands on —from classics like Treasure Island and the Count of Montecristo to the Lord of the Rings and the Harry Potter books— but I was particularly drawn to tales of adventure. The more swashbuckling, the better. The daring exploits of Caribbean pirates, the mysteries of long-lost ancient civilizations, and bold voyages of exploration like Sir John Franklin’s doomed expedition to discover the Northwest Passage or Mel Fisher’s search for the fabled Atocha treasure filled the imagination of the lonely boy who haunted the school’s library at recess with a hunger to experience the world for himself. Every book I read stoked a growing, ardent desire to write books of my own—perhaps, one day, I could even fill their pages with the stories of my own adventures.
To my chagrin, I found that discovering your life purpose is a long-drawn process of growth and personal exploration that seldom follows a straight course. Although I really wanted to study journalism or literature, the pressures the environment I grew up in compelled me to settle for a career as a corporate lawyer. It was a safe choice that garnered the external validation and approval I lacked growing up as the weird kid in school. In the deepest recesses of my subconscious, however, I knew I was lying to myself. Throughout my early to mid-twenties, I threw myself fully into my legal career, taking my first internships in my late teens, jobs in prestigious law firms throughout college, and even my own clients well before I graduated. Maybe if I found success as a lawyer, I could justify not following my true nature.
But the call to adventure returned with a vengeance. It hit me during my graduation ceremony as a Master of Corporate Law when I held my new degree in my hands and understood that I had condemned myself to spend the rest of my life in an office. The purgatory of the next decades flashed before my eyes. I saw the rest of my life play out clearly, as certain as death itself—and it terrified me.
The crippling existential crisis that followed fell on me like a sickness. I’d lie awake at night, tormented by feverish images of what awaited me on the far side of the world —of adventures in distant lands, the pleasures of exotic locations, all the characters I was destined to meet— until dawn crept in through the windows. It was increasingly clear I was living an inauthentic life and that I needed to change course. But what could I do?
The answer came from a vague childhood memory. I remembered being in kindergarten on a particular day when our teachers gave us a sheet of paper and crayons with instructions to draw who we wanted to be when we grew up. While the other children drew images of doctors, firefighters —maybe even the odd stockbroker— I drew a map of Africa, complete with rivers, jungles, and mountain ranges. A compass adorned the corner so I could always find my way. When my teacher asked me what I wanted to be, I remember how I’d told her with the purest integrity of childhood that I wanted to be an explorer.
This image haunted me. I understood that my true nature was to be out in the world, to immerse myself in the adventure of existence. I had my answer, but how does one become an explorer in an age when the edges of the map have been filled in? After much introspection, I realized that who we are as human beings is the final frontier. I would explore the human experience around the world, weaving my love for travel and storytelling to explore this moment of nowness that we share. I would embark on a personal journey of exploration to capture the spirit of the lands I traveled and the people who call them home… and who better to exemplify the richness and diversity of our world than indigenous peoples?
In pursuit of my calling, I’ve spent the past eight years on the road honing my craft and collecting stories, primarily among indigenous peoples. My travels have taken me to the remote corners of Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Ecuador, Colombia, Canada, and the United States, among other countries, where strangers in indigenous communities have welcomed me in and given me intimate, firsthand access to their world.
I’ve befriended and spent time among people belonging to over a dozen different cultures—from artists, artisans, stargazers, and shamans, to tribal elders and community leaders. By living these shared experiences, I have deepened my understanding of humanity with the rich perspectives of people from all walks of life—a rich well of creativity from which to write.
By following this path, adventure became a way of life, something that was always around the corner. I’ve hitchhiked over 2,000 kilometers of the Sonoran Desert; befriended and spent time learning about cosmic spirituality with Maya shamans; interviewed and shared the stories of the survivors of the genocide that occurred during Guatemala’s civil war; lived for a full lunar cycle among the indigenous peoples of the Lacandon Jungle, the Amazon of North America; nearly gotten eaten by sharks diving off the Exuma Cays in the Bahamas; was ceremonially adopted by a Blackfoot chief in Canada; among many, many other stories of adventure.
In the end, the greatest journey you can embark on is your own authentic path, whatever that may be and wherever it may lead you. The most rewarding voyages are those that set you free to be yourself, when the destination ceases to matter and the road itself becomes home.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I’m a Mexican travel writer and adventurer on a mission to collect and share stories that explore the human experience. By weaving travel and storytelling, my two greatest passions, I take readers into forgotten corners of the globe to live vicarious experiences that foster a sense of adventure and expand their inner and outer worlds. I manifest this mission through different creative endeavors which I can broadly categorize into three key themes: travel, bohemianism, and literature. As a nomadic creative, I spent most of my time on the road, seeking to have interesting experiences that expand my world. When I’m not otherwise wandering the world, my focus is on processing and sharing my experiences in a way that might provide value to others by broadening their worlds or otherwise inspire them to undertake adventures of their own.
Creating books has been one of my lifelong goals and passions, so most of my working days are spent laboring over my long-form writing, along with the occasional blog post. When I’m out in the world, I do travel photography, take video, or otherwise take down hasty notes that will form the basis for future books or stories.
I recently achieved my lifelong dream of becoming an author and published my first book: “The Embrace of Silence: A Story of Hope and Healing During the Guatemalan Civil War,” which details the harrowing true story of two Maya sisters whose parents are abducted by death squads during the war and their process of healing the wounds of their traumatic past. By focusing on the individual stories of real people, we can tell a much greater story about the disenfranchised Maya peoples of Guatemala.
Another one of my passions involves writing books about my adventures among indigenous peoples under the series title of “Parallel Worlds,” which is a photojournalistic project that explores the reality of indigenous peoples and connects international audiences with vibrant cultures from around the globe. Parallel Worlds has been mounted as an itinerant photography exhibition in the past, and I am currently in the process of publishing the stories I lived among these cultures —especially among Mayan peoples— as upcoming books.
Recently, I’ve found joy in expressing my creative streak through my YouTube channel “Rambling & Roving with Miguel Yga” where I use video to take audiences on visual journeys to remote corners of the world and preach the joys of living an unconventional, bohemian lifestyle. I thoroughly enjoy the idea of turning audiences into armchair travelers and explorers.
I also find great satisfaction in other forms of creative writing such as fiction and poetry. Much of my inspiration for everything I do comes from my travels as well as from following a path of spiritual growth where I find healing in actively living my life adventurously and authentically.
I believe that creativity is like spring water. It flows from the bottommost source within us and, as long as we’re willing to go deep enough, we can always tap into its power. In the end, the mission of artists is to search for new and interesting ways to express the human self, to set off on creative journeys, embark on new projects, and explore new ways of creating art that pushes the boundaries of the known, thereby bringing much-needed spice and color to our world.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

In Maya spirituality, every person is born under the auspices of a nawal or day-energy—a mix between a kind of Mesoamerican zodiac sign and a spiritual guardian. This spirit guardian guides us to fulfill the role we’ve come to play in the world, to find our own place in the rhythms of existence. My own day energy is Aq’ab’al, “the house of dawn,” so called because their purpose in life is bring light to darkness, to share new perspectives and awareness with the world. Curiously, according to Maya shamans, they make good writers. This need to bring awareness drives how I move through the world. Through the process of exploration, whether that be externally as with the act of travel, or internally through spiritual journeys, we can find fresh perspectives with which to frame the world around us, to bring new energy and movement that propels us forward both as individuals and as a broader society.
As such, the goal of my travel writing is to foster the awareness in my readers that they’re not so separate from people who live on the far side of the world, but rather that we’re all bound by our shared humanity. This is particularly evident in the stories I share about experiencing life among indigenous peoples, where I illustrate what makes a particular culture unique while also underscoring how we are all linked by our shared experience of life. Real, lasting change comes from learning to see ourselves in the other.
A different example of this same process of inner exploration is a book I’m writing called “The Working Yogi: A Mindfulness-Based Approach to Productivity,” which reframes how we work through the adoption of unconventional thinking to address contemporary society’s unhealthy work attitudes such as hustle culture and workaholism.
A big part of my mission includes sharing the spiritual and personal insights of my journey with others in a way that might enrich their lives. Having struggled to live authentically in the past, I now try to inspire others to follow their own, unique paths to self-realization. I believe that everyone has a unique gift to offer the world—a place within the tapestry of humanity—and that by exploring our heart-paths we are also rewarded with spiritual growth. I believe that to “be a bohemian” is to dedicate yourself to your “art,” your life purpose—whatever that may be.
In the end, I believe living a life filled with purpose is our birthright, our natural state of being. Meaning is what colors our experience of life, that which makes it beautiful. As such, the better and more authentically you can share your gifts, the better served the world will be because of it.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

There is freedom in creativity. Not the freedom of the road that I actively pursue in the physical world, but a freedom of spirit that expands the limits of our inner worlds and gives wings to our imagination. Creativity, much like travel, is a process of exploring the self, in all its dimensions. It’s engaging in the adventure of manifesting the divinity within us through our art, whatever we choose that to be. It’s a spiritual adventure, one where you’re free to follow your own authentic path to wherever your heart wishes to lead you. What you do isn’t as important as why and how you do it. Creativity is the brush with which we blaze our path forward and leave a trace of our journey for others to find on their own.
Expressing the fullness of our being in a way that enriches the lives of others is the most satisfying aspect of being an artist. I take great pleasure in weaving narratives that create lush worlds for readers to lose themselves in. Whether through my travel writing, where I blend lavish descriptions of the lands I walk underfoot or the spirit of the people I meet on the road with a gripping account of my travels, or through my fiction, where vivid detail becomes the spice that adds flavor to the story.
As a travel content creator, having the privilege of experiencing diverse cultures, exploring their way of life, learning about their worldview, and picking up tidbits of knowledge and wisdom to enrich my life and those of my readers is deeply rewarding. With every new experience, my life becomes fuller. As a writer, being able to live interesting adventures that highlight one aspect or another of the human experience and sharing them with others in ways that allow them to live vicariously satisfies the deepest parts of my soul in ways that no other thing can.
Being an artist takes courage because it requires us to let go of our attachments—to outcomes, to ego, or to anything really—if we’re to truly live the adventure of creativity. In so doing, we grow as individuals and expand our understanding in a way that deepens our art and better serves the world. The creative path isn’t always easy. It takes a lot of resilience to weather the hardships of the road, and its lessons can often be unforgiving, but I cannot fathom doing anything else. I feel incredibly lucky to have given myself permission to pursue this path, wherever it might lead, and I strongly recommend that you give yourself the same opportunity if you too have a passion that calls your heart.
When the creative road becomes about the journey, not the destination, there’s no limit to where we can go and what we can achieve.

Contact Info:

• Website: ramblingandroving.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ramblingandroving/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ramblingandroving/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@ramblingandroving
• Others: https://amzn.to/437GpDq