I was raised free-range in the mountains of Lake Tahoe, California, by parents who love outdoor adventure. I spent much of my childhood road tripping, camping, hiking, doing ALL the sports, and exploring all the national parks we could manage to squeeze into family vacation time.

When I was about 10 years old, we traveled to Montreal. It was my first time out of the U.S., and it was the first time I learned that part of Canada spoke French. French. So foreign to me, yet so unbelievably and dazzlingly within reach.

I became insatiably obsessed with everything so “foreign” to me. (I even saved a grocery bag with French words on it, along with some of their cool foreign coins, keeping them in a secret drawer in my bedroom until I moved out and went to college.)

At age 11, I started helping my older brother with his Spanish homework, and that was all it took for me.

I was hooked.

I completed all the Spanish grammar studies available to me at my high school and declared Spanish as my major before going off to college at age 17, knowing I wanted to study abroad and become fluent.

Also of note during my senior year of high school, we invited a German foreign exchange student to live with us for the year. Lydia and I became sisters in so many ways, and it was her experienced advice to me that became the first cornerstone of my travel foundation: “Wherever you go, go for a year. Don’t think twice.” 

As an 18-year-old sophomore in college, I fulfilled my goal of studying abroad for a year to become fluent in Spanish. I chose to go to Costa Rica, where I got swept up in the culture, the food, the dancing, the people, the beautiful places, and, of course, the language. Spanish rolled off my tongue so easily that people started mistaking me for a local.

I lived with an incredible Costa Rican family that I clicked with from day one. I excelled in my studies. I became an expert street salsa dancer. I had a permanent tan. I dated guys who taught me how to talk on the phone in Spanish (much harder than in person). I befriended entire groups of people who didn’t speak English. I traveled every weekend. I wrote my journal in Spanish. I thought and dreamt in Spanish.

For possibly the first time in my life, I felt absolutely in my element.

When that school year came to its inevitable end, I couldn’t accept that it was simply “over.” When I left, my entire world turned upside down, the rug completely pulled out from under me. I’ve never been so upset to take a flight “home.”

When I got back to the U.S., I knew at once that I couldn’t stay. That I wasn’t “home” anymore. That things simply couldn’t just go back to “normal.”

My normal had changed.

Within a month of returning to the U.S. after Costa Rica, I moved to Montana for the first time to live with my brother. It was in Montana, of all places, that I started learning Italian, and where a new language goal took hold.

I set off for Italy at age 20 for a second study abroad. Another full year of immersion in a new culture, another new language, with new food, people, sights, and activities. This entirely new life was so easy and so natural for me, I was even offered a bartending job (in Italian) on my first night in town.

I fell completely in love with Italy, and I knew I wouldn’t stop there.

I came out of that year with an existence wholly divided. I had a life in Italy, I had a life in Costa Rica, and I had a life in the States, with friends that I kept in touch with in multiple languages, all across the world.

What could I possibly do but keep adding experience and adventure to this path? I already knew then that I wouldn’t, that I couldn’t, ever, have it any other way.

After Italy, I began studying both French and German in college, and after graduation I went to Brazil for a third study abroad to learn Portuguese. I planned to continue my French and German studies in France and Germany “someday,” because I want to become fluent in both.

I want those lives, too.

I let the cycle of long-term travels that I had built become my lifestyle. I’d find work for a season in the U.S. to earn enough money to leave again, and then off I’d go exploring, collecting languages, friends, and memories from all over the world. I kept growing, and my passion for travel grew with me.

I’ve jumped at every chance I’ve had to exercise my adventurous free spirit by seeing the world, all with my own resources, my personal efforts, my hard-earned scholarships, and my own empowering decisions.

And then in 2013, after a decade of traveling independently all over this globe…

I learned that blogging (professionally) was a thing. Mere months AFTER I quit my very last job ever, without a plan.

Mind = blown. I was made for this. This was made for me. #byebyeblogspot

I did a deep dive into online business (thank you DIY Pete and Pat Flynn), learning everything I could about blogging professionally, and launched my niche travel website The Budget-Minded Traveler, already armed with a decade of international travel expertise/content to carry me forward.

Also of note during that year, just six months after launching the blog, I self-published my first book The Aspiring Traveler’s Handbook (no longer available).

Taking the advice of a man who is now my business coach, I launched my podcast under the original name The Budget-Minded Traveler. It landed front and center on iTunes “New & Noteworthy” within four days, catapulting me onto a trajectory I could never have anticipated. The BMT podcast was the first stepping stone towards what is now JUMP with Traveling Jackie, which since its inception has consistently ranked among the top travel podcasts worldwide, been nominated for Best Travel Podcast by various outlets, and is the longest-running female-hosted travel podcast in existence.

Amidst a *major* life change, not to mention simply growing and furthering myself and my career, I realized I had more to say than would fit into a niche of budget travel. In pursuit of true adventure and personal expansion, the Traveling Jackie website and personal brand was born. It has since become my home base for everything I do.

A decades-long dream of inviting people to travel with me became a reality when I welcomed my first-ever group to Patagonia in November of 2016. Since then, I’ve designed over 25 trips for over 300 participants with over 40% repeat rate, but that first adventure in Patagonia will always have a special place in my heart.

As I continue to grow and change and my business grows and changes with me, the content of my show also organically evolves. The time came to put The Budget-Minded Traveler name permanently behind me. At episode 100, I introduced the next season of the show JUMP with Traveling Jackie.

Also of note that year was that I finally went to France and immersed myself in a language program, becoming conversational in my 5th language. 

After having worked with Osprey Packs for four years already, I landed an official Ambassadorship with them and partnered to create a short documentary about me against the backdrop of my beloved Patagonia. That film went on to win Best Documentary Short at the Bozeman Film Fest 2021.

After six years of designing and leading group trips, which my participants lovingly referred to as “Jackie trips,” the brand JUMP Adventures was born. The name “JUMP” is an invitation in itself and a reminder that it is YOU who takes the leap.

Eleven years into this podcasting journey, iHeartRadio has nominated us, along with four other nominees, as the Best Travel Podcast out there. To say I am honored is an understatement, and no matter the outcome, this is a win for all of us who’ve been part of this show for the past decade plus. It takes listeners, it takes support, it takes a village to have a podcast. Thank you to my village, you know who you are.