Hola! Hallo! Bonjour! Hello!
I’m a college-grad chica who likes to backpack (see: blog title). I’ve spent my whole life traveling and have so far lived in six countries, and visited many more. I am bilingual (German and English), and am a triple threat citizen (UK, USA, Germany). Following graduation from university in December of 2009, I decided to spend fifteen months trekking through the greater part of Africa. What started as a three-month job as a biologist in Equatorial Guinea, evolved into a complex series of career-oriented jobs by day and amazing cultural experience by night. By working by way around Africa, I was able to learn so much about the places I visited, and for much less money than a regular tourist might have spent.
I am currently living in Philadelphia. I am here working on a PhD (yes, it’s a lot of reading) in Biology, and using the city as a base for my future travel to Africa, where I am doing charity work for the non-profit I started called The Ladybug Project (www.theladybugproject.com).
I have always traveled alone, but not because I’m some sort of weird anti-social person. Why, you might ask? There are several reasons:
1) Many people cannot go on a 15 month hiatus…
2) I can do what I want, where I want.
3) If men can do it…women should to! 
Specifically, I wanted to prove to myself and to others that a young woman can travel alone and have a great time.
The snowboard looks deceiving. I actually fell down the mountain, and just happened to live to tell the tale! (North Carolina, USA)
As I travel around, I will be trying to raise awareness about the local social and biological situations that I encounter. I will also try to connect you (my readers!) directly with the places I encounter, by raising money for local projects using my charity (The Ladybug Project). For more information on how you can help my charity, please email me!
Anyway, whatever the case/reason you have found yourself reading this, I hope you find my blog interesting/funny/enlightening/downright amazing…be sure to navigate around a little bit and maybe leave me a comment or two!
The latest and greatest on my planned itinerary (if you can call it that) can be found here! I am also writing for my hometown newspaper as an online blogger – to read my articles for them, just click here.
Thank you (again!) for visiting my blog. I love, love, love to hear from readers…please email me at kim.e.reuter@gmail.com
Much Love,
Kim…The Backpacking Chica
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