Brenna Without Borders

Hi! Welcome! I’m happy you are here. This blog is my safe place. A space for my thoughts. My corner of the internet that I can share my travels around the world and through life. You see, there are two things in life that really make my soul soar; traveling and words. So really this blog is telling two stories. The story of how I fell in love with travel AND my love story with words.

I have come to identify myself as a deep feeler. I feel all my feelings and I feel them in big ways. Words are an amazing way to process my big feels. And so began my writing journey; journal by journal. I poured out my soul into notebook after notebook. I filled the pages with my average teenager thoughts, fears, disappointments, and dreams. Writing it all down and looking at it physically made my body relax as I exhaled, the stress or the struggles of that day, left me, no longer holding power of me. I love all types of words. I love the words on birthday cards, I find excitement in text messages from friends, I adore getting lost in the pages of a good book, and I especially marvel at lyrics that break my heart (I’m looking at you, Taylor Swift). So this is the love story of me and words. They have supported me my entire life. They processed my feelings for me. They showed up to wish me happy birthday and cheer me on. Words helped me get through my first heartbreak, and my second, and third. Words, written, in music, or in a comforting tv series like Gilmore Girls, have always been there for me, providing stability and peace.

Enter travel. I come from a family of explorers, curious minds, lovers of the outdoors. My first experiences traveling without my family were mission trips. I did one every year of high school and fell in love with serving others. I always knew when I went to college I wanted to study abroad in Italy. Sure enough, in May of my freshman year, I took two classes at Duquesne University’s Rome Campus, and very quickly fell in love. I fell in love with Rome, but more importantly, I fell in love with discovering new cities. There was so much potential beyond my Pittsburgh bubble. In my junior year of college, I took a mission trip to the Dominican Republic. The travel bug had latched on and I had no interest in stopping any time soon.

Then things got crazy. I decided that after college but before starting a career, I would take a 6-month mission trip to the Caribbean. From May to November of 2016 I traveled with 5 other young adults to New Mexico, Jamaica, Belize, and Costa Rica. We lived in poverty-stricken neighborhoods, serving in the churches and the schools. We lived in host homes and learned to do daily life. We learned to live the local way. We learned to live on less. This experience stretched me. Often times I did not have service on my phone, we didn’t have internet, and so journaling became my safety net. The things I saw and experienced were overwhelming. Writing it down was not only good for me but allowed me to remember the stories I wanted to share with my loved ones back in the US.

The collision of my two loves. Words and Travel. The start of Brenna Without Borders.

Since my trip, I made the promise to myself to travel frequently. In 2018 I took a 10-day backpacking trip to Ireland. In 2019 I joined a group trip through Spain. And then in 2020, the world shut down and travel was banned. My heart aches to walk the streets of a foreign city again. To wander, to get lost, to attempt another language. Traveling reminds me that I am just a small part of a very big world. That my ways are not the right way. That different is good. Since my mission trip, I refuse to accept the status quo. I refuse to see my way as the only way. That is why I have to travel and why I have to write it down. To remind me and to share what I learn with this community here.

If 2020 has taught me anything it’s to find what you love and pursue it with all your heart. I love to write. So I am going to write as much as I can. And someday, I am going to travel again. I’m going to travel as much as I can, I’m going to write it down so I never forget how it feels. And I’m going to pray that my travels and my words are never separated again.