Hey, I’m Sarah! I’m glad you stopped by. Welcome to where’s wallock, my travel blog about mountain-living, international adventures and the outdoors. If I’m not gallivanting through the backcountry or flying down a powder run, you can find me teaching a hip hop class or feasting on something delicious. I’m a storyteller, risk-taker, and over-planner.
About where’s wallock
where’s wallock isn’t your picture-perfect Lonely Planet guidebook or a glamorous Instagram influencer’s profile. I am here to be real with you. I promise to tell you about my travels and adventures like your best friend would.
If you love to travel and you’re funny, philosophical, and sometimes have travel mishaps like I do, then I think we’ll get along just fine. Thanks for stopping by!
It just takes one person to inspire us to get out there and explore. Whether that’s traveling to a new country, hiking an unfamiliar backcountry trail, or shredding it down a snowboard run, exploration is contagious. What are you waiting for?
*I pay for all my travel unless otherwise noted. All of my views and opinions are completely my own.
My Professional Background
Not only are travel, the outdoors and content creation my passions, they’re my profession and the basis of my published college dissertation on ecotourism.
I am a writer and photographer with over nine years of experience in Public Relations and Marketing. My previous work in includes: content writing, editing, photography, brand management, social media management, sales partnerships, and event coverage.
Currently, I work as a Marketing Writer at an active travel company, Backroads.
In the past, I worked as the Digital Media Assistant for Bard College’s Office of Communications and the Social Media Manager and Sales Representative for Future Bars Limited in New Zealand. Otherwise, I’ve worked as a freelancer for countless clients from international news outlets to mom-and-pop shops.
I have a B.A. in Environmental Studies from Bard College and my 80-page dissertation was about the intersection of ecotourism and environmental communications. I wrote primarily about how travel guidebooks and digital media impact ecotourism destinations.
My portfolio includes examples of my public relations writing, public relations photography and social media management.
A Little About Me
Currently, I’m based in Boulder, Colorado, but I’ve moved around quite a bit.. Let’s just say my raspy Californian-drawl usually stands out. I am constantly seeking out new experiences and surrounding myself with people from different backgrounds than me. My passion for travel all started when I went to Ecuador when I was 16.
I headed to Ecuador for a summer program on sustainability and culture. No one I knew had ever been to Ecuador. Should be sweet I thought, but deep down, I didn’t really know. The trip was a life-changing experience.
I worked on the finca, slept in a thatch hut, cliff-jumped, snorkeled and connected deeply with new friends from other parts of the US and Ecuador.
This was one of the first times in my life I realized that I could be thousands of miles from home but find community anywhere in the world. Jewish summer camp was good prep for this, but being on a remote farm in Ecuador felt like a bit more of a stretch than camp a few hours from home. Not only did I find a warm and welcoming community in Ecuador, but unbelievable adventures, magical mountains, and incredible foods I had never even heard of… Frankly, after that trip, I knew I couldn’t stop exploring and learning.
I moved from California to New York to attend college when I was 18, but after just a few months, I could barely sit still. I craved a bigger adventure. Don’t get me wrong, fall in the Hudson Valley was absolutely stunning and taking hip hop classes at Broadway Dance Center was inspiring, but I was still hungry for more.
I did what many American college kids would do: study abroad! For some reason, studying art history in Paris or Spanish in Spain like many of my friends didn’t feel like the right move for me. After Ecuador, I wanted to explore even further.
I found a multi-country program on the impacts of climate change based in Vietnam, Morocco, and Bolivia. At first glance of the program, I knew I found the one. This will be the most incredible experience to witness my study of the environment firsthand and learn about new places and people. This is where my travel blog was born and passion for blogging came to life. I can finally share this love of the world with my family, friends, and community!
On this trip, all of the feelings I had in Ecuador rushed back to me in a more extreme way. On my college study abroad, I possessed a new independence and confidence. Everyday it felt as though I was relearning how to navigate the world and I was forced to reexamine everything I thought I knew. It was so humbling. I was living in homestays, trying to speak new languages, tasting new foods and getting lost in foreign places. It was thrilling and exciting and beautiful, but also really challenging and frustrating at times. This is the section of my book I’ll call: traveling and adventuring by day, and typhoid fever by night.
After graduating college, I got on a flight to New Zealand with my long-distance boyfriend and my backpack and my Working Holiday Visa (a year-long work visa for foreigners to work and travel). Something felt so natural about leaving on a plane to a new place and diving into the next adventure. Let’s go! Hopefully I like living and working in New Zealand. Hopefully my boyfriend doesn’t become my ex-boyfriend. I did like it. And now, we’re very happily married.
We were in New Zealand for almost two years and I fell in love with the country in a way I can barely describe. I went there with the purpose to live in another culture and learn about the world from a different perspective. Like the rest of my travel experiences, I got way more than I bargained for.
Most notably, I put my 10-years of pre-professional dance training to good use and I spearheaded creating a hip hop dance community and performance group in Queenstown that is the first of its kind, Remarks Dance Crew. All in another country! I discovered my passion for snowboarding and spent 40 days up the ski mountains. I became closer with my boyfriend and formed an unshakable group of friends. I effectively got to escape Covid-19 and had the opportunity to travel to various parts of New Zealand while the rest of the world was stuck at home.
Then, I got on another plane to another new place, but this time, much closer to home. I moved to Mammoth Lakes, California for a marketing job, and of course, to snowboard and backpack. I dropped everything and went to another mountain town, not knowing what would lie ahead.
Although the backcountry access in Mammoth was top-notch, for a home base, I found it was too remote and too far from an international airport. I then got a remote job working as a Marketing Writer for an international active travel company. We packed up and moved to Colorado. Now, I live equidistant from Denver International Airport and world-class snowboarding and hiking.
And I haven’t looked back.
Want to Say Hello?
For any inquiries, please reach out below.