In 2015, Ashley Kaye’s father died and she inherited her childhood home in Waterford, Wisconsin. At the time, she was 27 years old, working in corporate healthcare and transitioning to a consulting job, where she worked 80 to 100 hours a week.
“I worked from home, so I just walked from my bedroom to my office to the kitchen and repeat,” Kaye, now 36, tells CNBC Make It. “I was a zombie in those times,”
While traveling, Kaye met someone on a scuba diving trip in Honduras who helped her realize what she wanted was to leave her career behind and travel full-time.
“We just hit it off and chatted the whole time I was there. We spoke about the worst of the worst, the best of the best, and financials, too,” Kaye says.
“He told me he wished he had done it sooner because it’s so much easier and cheaper than you think. That changed everything for me. I went home and worked more and more until I quit the next year.”
