The World Became My Teacher: My Story of Travel, Freedom and Life Abroad
People always see the pictures. The different countries, the hotels, the flights, the experiences. They see me going from one place to another and probably wonder how I ended up living this way.
So, I figured I'd tell you.
Quick facts
Grew up in Maryland
Moved abroad from the US in 2014, at 24, flying out of Los Angeles
Paris: 5 years (2 as an au pair, 3 working in French tech)
Barcelona: home since 2020
Languages: English and French
What I do: emcee, public speaking coach, events
Where my love of travel started
My love for traveling started when I was young. I come from the Braxton family, and my aunt is Toni Braxton. I was really lucky to travel with my family a lot. My aunt and I were on the road all the time, and I got to visit different countries and experience things internationally, whether it was doing private shows with her or being part of the work that came with it.
My aunt was actually the person who got me my passport. I think that was the beginning of it all.
There's something about being on an airplane, going somewhere new, and not really knowing what to expect. I loved that feeling. Back then, there was always work to do, so the experience was a little different from how I travel now. These days, I get to explore more. I show up somewhere and work it out as I go.
I've always been curious about life. When I was around 15 or 16, I worked in a library, and I was obsessed with books and reading. I wanted to know things. I wanted to understand people. I wanted to see more and try new things.
That curiosity has always been a big part of who I am. Traveling just gave me another way to feed it.
Becoming an au pair in Paris changed my life
In 2014, when I was 24, I decided I wanted to leave the United States.
I didn't have some big, detailed plan. I didn't know exactly where I wanted to go or what I wanted to do. I just knew I wanted to get out and experience something new.
Of course, wanting to move to another country and actually doing it are two very different things.
When you're an American and you want to live and work in another country, you have to deal with visas, work permits and how you're going to support yourself. Buying the plane ticket is the easy part.
I was doing all of this on my own, and I came across people and opportunities that weren't always what they seemed. There were scams, including people offering childcare jobs who wanted access to things like your bank account information and your passport. I had to learn how to navigate all of it and spot what was legitimate.
That's when I discovered the au pair route.
I signed up on AuPairWorld, found a family in Paris, and flew out of Los Angeles to become an au pair to three children. France has a dedicated au pair visa, a long stay visa that lasts one year and can be renewed for a second. I did both years.
It was one of the best experiences of my life.
I learned French. I lived in Paris, experienced everyday life there and built a life outside of everything I had known before. Paris stopped being a city I was visiting and became the city I lived in.
When you actually have to live somewhere, you start to understand the little things. You learn how people do things differently. You become more comfortable with the uncomfortable.
Paris gave me that.
After two years, I knew I needed to start working in France and building something for myself. I was lucky enough to find a company that sponsored me for a French work visa. I worked in French tech for three years as a chief of staff, which meant half events and half supporting the CEO and the C-suite. That job opened up a whole other part of my life.
I had moved abroad, learned a new language, found work and built a life in a country that once felt completely out of reach.
And I still wanted more.
[Add when post 2 is live: If you're thinking about doing this yourself, I wrote a full guide to becoming an au pair in France as an American.]
Barcelona and discovering entrepreneurship
In 2020, I moved to Barcelona, and that's where I discovered this whole other world of entrepreneurship.
I knew entrepreneurship existed. I had my aunt and my family around me, so I'd seen people build things for themselves. What I didn't have was someone to sit down with me and teach me how. I had to work a lot of it out myself.
And I tried EVERYTHING. I had so many failures, so many things that didn't work out the way I thought they would. But somewhere along the way, I realized that everything was a skill. Even the things that didn't work out were teaching me how to talk to people, how to create opportunities and how to keep going.
I never really wanted to niche down. I didn't understand why I had to choose one thing and stick to it when there were so many things I wanted to try.
I also had this extreme belief that if I just kept trying, life would show me a way forward. And every time life opened a door for me, I said yes. Even when I had no idea where it would lead me.
Sometimes I knew what I was getting into, and sometimes I absolutely didn't. But I trusted that there was something to learn from the experience, and I was willing to find out what that was.
That's how I started to understand freedom in a completely new way. I always knew I liked traveling and didn't want to feel stuck in one place. But being able to build a career, try different things, get on a bus or book a flight and go somewhere new? That was something else.
I could have a career and see the world. I could keep learning, keep working and keep exploring, even if my path looked nothing like anyone else's.
So, what do I actually do?
A little bit of everything, honestly.
I work in events. I'm an emcee. I'm a public speaking coach. I take on different contracts and projects, and sometimes I create content or do photography.
My work doesn't always look the same from one month to the next. I take the opportunities that make sense, build relationships, try new things and make it all work.
There are good parts and hard parts to working this way, and I'm going to be honest about both.
But I love what I do. I love having different things to work on, meeting people from different backgrounds and experiencing the world through my work and my own travels. It's given me a life that feels like mine.
The world became my teacher
I've always been someone who wants to learn. I crave teachers. I want to understand things, hear people's stories and learn from experiences that are different from my own.
My relationship with my parents hasn't always been easy, and I think that has shaped some of this for me. They're good people. There are just things I've needed that they haven't always known how to give me.
So I've found some of those things elsewhere. In a lot of ways, the world has become that place for me.
I've learned from the people I've met, the conversations I've had, the places I've lived and the situations I've had to handle on my own. Travel gives you access to so much of that. You can see a different way of living. You can meet someone whose life is nothing like yours. You can hear a story that makes you question something you've always believed.
There's so much out there you don't know until you go and experience it for yourself. And you get to decide what you take with you.
That's what I love about traveling. You learn about the world, and you learn about yourself.
What you'll find here
I want more people to experience that feeling.
Traveling can look a hundred different ways. You can do it without five-star hotels or thousands of dollars on every trip. You can go before you have everything figured out.
Sometimes you just need to know where to start.
Maybe you're a college student trying to travel on a budget. Maybe you work full time and want to see more of the world without quitting your job. Maybe you want to move abroad and have no idea how to make it happen. Or maybe you're just curious about a place and want to know what it's really like.
That's what I'll share here. The real experience: how I find places to stay, how I save money, how I decide where to go and how I make travel work alongside my career. What works, what doesn't and the things I wish someone had told me earlier.
I remember being that person who wanted to leave the United States and didn't know where to start. If something here helps you take that first step, I'll be so happy.
I'm still learning. I don't have all the answers, and I don't think I need to. I just know the world has given me so much, and I feel incredibly lucky that I get to keep learning from it.
So if you've ever wanted to travel more, live somewhere new or see a little more of what's out there, I hope you find something here that helps.
And if nothing else, maybe I'll give you a reason to book that flight you've been thinking about.
You never know what you might find when you get there.
Want the next story first? Join my newsletter [link] and follow along on Instagram at @ashleebraxton.
