Last Updated on June 7, 2023 by Christine Kaaloa

About Me

I’m a female solo travel blogger and YouTuber, who left her life in New York, as an actress and reality TV camera operator and producer to live/work abroad in South Korea. From there, I launched into a 7+ month solo backpacking trip through Asia and Southeast Asia. Since, I’ve returned to the U.S. and am currently re-designing my lifestyle towards travel.

GRRRL TRAVELER is a travel survival and solo travel site inspiring others to find their GRRR for travel at any age! It’s about navigating cultural diversity while experiencing the bizarre, foreign, frightening and often times, funny. I started GRRRL TRAVELER, a solo travel blog in 2008, when a trip to India with friends went awry and I was forced to go it alone.

I film, blog and Instagram my solo adventures to take you into my adventure, where I demystify the ‘scary’ in solo travel. You can see first hand how an ordinary person like me– who doesn’t have it all together all the time, who gets lost and makes mistakes– can enter the unknown and still have a fun time.

Not all solo beginnings start on a happy note…

In 2008, I was on a backpacking tour through India and Nepal with a group of friends. We signed up for a scam tour and midway, I decided I wanted off (…you can read my gory details here).

While I am 100% in love with India, anyone who’s been there knows that traveling it for the first time, can feel challenging.

Thrown into a crazy world, beautiful, different and dizzying. There were moments I felt uncertain, vulnerable and “a little chicken” of a sheltered Hawaii girl. The only thing I knew I’d never do, was give up!

When there’s little safety net, you have no choice but to pull through. I pulled every self-survival trick I could think of to flip my rupee into positive change and I made what could have been the worst trip in my life, into the greatest!

What had gotten me through it all was my GRRR!

GRRRL TRAVELER was born.

I used to think that traveling alone started with courage. I was afraid to travel alone and it took a trip abroad going awry, for me to jump into the freefall of solo travel unprepared.

In that instant of survival, I also felt an exhilarating freedom. Flying felt easy and freeing, so much I didn’t want the journey to end.

You don’t start point zero with courage. It’s something you develop with time and experience like confidence.

Thus, a vacation begins after you survive it.

To be honest, I don’t think the fear ever goes away. At least not with me.

I’ve been traveling solo for over seven years and I still encounter moments of reluctance of booking a new destination. There’s always a bit of self doubt and it’s all mental. Each destination is unique with different challenges. Between traveling alone or with partners, I actually prefer solo travel. Each trip makes me more confident I can manifest anything I desire.

I work and save for my travels. No magic wand.

I grew my blog from my experiences when I used to Teach English in Korea .

While I make money from blogging and YouTube, I still need supplemental income to afford a lifestyle in the U.S., so I take part time jobs and freelance in video production. I also occasionally work with sponsors, hotels and tourism boards that help me travel (or extend my travels) as I create content for GRRRL TRAVELER. Either way, I work hard to do what I do and these days, I travel for GRRRL TRAVELER.

Yes, you can. But starting and getting to the point where you can make money, it’s as easy as some bloggers paint it. You have to do a lot of work, take additional employment when you’re starting out and to find other ways to diversify your blog services. What’s helped me significantly is Travel Blog Success. You can read more about it here. It taught me in one month, what it took over six years to learn on my own.

If quick money is your aim, it’s definitely easier to get a job and get paid an hourly wage. The joy of travel blogging has to be your passion before all else.