Six months after my corporate job ended, I wrote my last You Don’t Have to Stay article. I didn’t know it would be my last, but the shift I felt—the thought in the back of my mind that said to move on—couldn’t be ignored. I took a couple of weeks to examine what was going on, and I realized that chapter of my life was complete. I went through the experience, I wrote about it, and now it was time to move on.
I still feel strongly about the importance of doing work that lights you up, which is what the original You Don’t Have to Stay newsletter was about. But I’ve come to realize that it’s not the message I’m meant to keep telling beyond the experience I lived through.
My message is one of growth and possibility through experiences that enrich our lives. For me, that has always been—and always will be—travel. I was a travel agent for eleven years, and recently I’ve felt the pull back to that part of my life. Not as an agent this time, but as a storyteller. I want to share my love of travel, the experiences that have shaped me, and the places that have stayed with me long after I returned home. Most of all, I hope to inspire others to get out there and discover this big, beautiful world we live in.
This past year, I’ve poured countless hours into my historical serial novel When the Sea Was Still, researching the Titanic, Olympic and World War I along the way. The research took me on a transatlantic cruise retracing the Titanic‘s intended route, to Paris wandering its beautiful streets to learn more about where my book’s characters live, and soon, back to Europe tracing the upcoming WWI chapters.
Somewhere in the middle of all that, I became “Traveling Author Amy.” It started as an Instagram handle I chose a year ago—a nod to my roots as the “Traveling Travel Agent”—which then became my website and Substack handle too. I’ve come to see that it’s no longer just branding, it’s who I am.
The corporate exit, the part that drained me, was just the beginning of this story. Now I’m moving on to the fun part, and walking into the career that truly lights me up—combining my love of travel, writing, and history.
So starting today, my Tuesday newsletter is beginning a new chapter.
Instead of continuing You Don’t Have to Stay, I’ll be sharing the places, people, and moments that inspire me and my writing. I will share insights I’ve learned over my past decades of travel to over 30 countries and counting. I will share research discoveries that are too strange, too good, or too surprising to keep to myself. All of this centered around inspiring destinations, from Paris to Brussels, to the middle of the North Atlantic.
You Don’t Have to Stay isn’t going away. It will remain here as an archive of the journey that brought me to this point. In many ways, this new series is its continuation. After all, leaving something behind was never the destination. It was simply the first step toward building a life I couldn’t wait to wake up to.
The travel adventures will start next Tuesday with an island in Greece that changed my life.
Welcome to Traveling Author Amy. I’m so glad you’re here for the journey.