Hi I’m Niki, I’m the storyteller behind Lost in a Dream.
Hey there! You probably heard I’m Niki and I’m the one running this little corner of the internet.
The purpose of this blog is to inspire travelers and adventure seekers to live passionately, to remind you that experiences/moments are far more special than materialistic things and most importantly to encourage others to make dreams a reality.
Lost in a Dream isn’t like other travel blogs.. I strive to share the beautiful, the ugly and everything in between. One of the biggest goals here besides inspiration for travel is to provide a safe place where you don’t feel alone in the world. While I do love writing about my own adventures, I also share tips on solo female travel, provide guides on how to make your own explorations happen and share a range of personal stories about mental health that fight the stigma and help those who may be feeling alone.
More about me and my story..
I was born 23 years ago in a small little town just right outside of North Cascades here in Washington. A great enough reason alone to make me fall in love with the outdoors.
But I picked up a camera when I was 15 after going on my first real hike.. And honestly I can’t imagine my life before that. I all the sudden had a new mission in life: to take photos of every little thing and not miss a single moment. And I can tell you that not much has changed since then. Once I turned 16 I got a full time job while still in high school so I could start funding my adventures. I was probably doing a hike every week at this point, exploring the mountains nearby. I took my first roadtrip the year after when I had the freedom of going in my own car and had enough money. All I had was a couple pinpoints on a map, a full tank of gas and a soul ready to endeavor on whatever journey would be ahead of me. I planned to be on that roadtrip for 5 days and well.. long story short: I turned around after the second one. I wasn’t prepared enough but I knew that it wasn’t going to be a giving up point, it was the start of what would be my whole new life. I got home later that night and searched for the best low budget camera so I could really start capturing all these new travels I had started to plan. I’ll never forget that week, it somehow felt like it was an eternity but also a moment within a blink of an eye, all at once. It was the week I found my passion in life. The week I found a fire burning inside of me. It was the start to this whole world.
Fast forward to the end of junior year and I was fully head over heels in love with travel and adventure. I was skipping school to go hike before I had to go to work. I was spending $35 a week on gas because I was going on so many adventures. It was the wildest turning point in my life. I really don’t know what my life or who the person I was before I had found that connection with nature. I’d do anything to capture those feelings and not let them slip away. Hundreds of thousands of photos on every exploration, dozens of pages getting filled in my journal, only with a desire to do so much more.. So I made an instagram and would share on there maybe once a week. It was my little corner that felt safe, a place that I felt like I had control over. I treated it more like a journal when it came to captions. Most of my posts were copied straight from my notebook to Instagram, I just loved the way that my storytelling went hand in hand with the photos I was taking. It was beautiful to almost witness a moment twice.
Senior year I decided if I were to do anything serious in life it would be to go teach abroad. I knew I wanted to travel and I knew I wanted to work with children but I wasn’t committed to the idea of going to college yet. It was the perfect thing for me but money was an issue so I’ve put it off ever since.
But sometimes I feel it was a blessing in disguise.. The past few years have been a dream. Literally I’ve just been Lost in a Dream. Road trips to a new state every couple months, hiking in the backcountry at home, checking off 5 countries that once had sat at the top of my bucketlist. Life, just feels sometimes better than a dream actually.
I started my blog to share it all with you guys. To share my own travels and encourage yours, to inspire you to live whole heartedly and to do whatever you dream of, to provide you with travel guides, to let you know you’re not alone. That we’re all one. That we’re all here beautifully, Lost in a Dream together.
I like to believe that if I didn’t do that first roadtrip my life wouldn’t be the same at all. I didn’t know it would put me where I am now: I never dreamt that I’d see as many places as I have already, that I’d also want to share those adventures as much as I do and that it would somehow become my whole life. But it is. Lost in a Dream is my own little corner of the world where I feel so humbled to have likeminded people like you here with me.
Currently, I just quit my job to focus on this world here for Lost in a Dream and to focus on my own world with mental health. I still live in Washington but I’m always seeing where my wild and adventurous soul will take me… Most of the time you can find me exploring near home.. Mount Baker, North Cascades, Mount Rainier, Mount Saint Helens or WA Coast. There’s plenty to do around here. But if I’m not in Washington I’m probably on a roadtrip cruising through multiple states and trying to see as much as I can OR I’m trying to refrain myself from buying another plane ticket after spending 2 months in 5 different countries.
Needless to say, my restless spirit doesn’t let me sit for too long.
Here you’ll find all of it the remnants of my heart and soul left along the road.
In the end we’ll all become stories.
Margaret Atwood
YOU MIGHT ALSO BE WONDERING..
WHAT IS “LOST IN A DREAM” – WHERE DID YOU COME UP WITH IT?
When I first started my blog I had a different brand (Still really love that name so I don’t want to share it lol) But I remember describing my experiences out in nature and on the road to someone.. I stumbled upon my words since I couldn’t describe it with anything in me. All the words I’ve accumulated in my 23 years of life and still not enough to describe my travels, connection with nature or the freeness I feel.. I just remember closing my eyes replaying all my own memories back in my head. Saying “It’s like I’m just Lost in a Dream out there”.. I went home that night and changed my whole blog. It’s the closest description I’ve ever come up with to explain my feelings while traveling. From backpacking the mountains in my home, to countless road trips running around other states, crossing off my biggest bucket list item of going to Thailand, getting to live out of a van not only in Iceland but Ireland too, seeing the Eiffel Tower light up and then to just appreciating the smallest moments as the clouds dancing as the sun starts to set from my apartment.. This is a dream I’m so grateful to have brought to reality. Inspiring you to do the same whatever it may be, by providing travel guides if that’s your passion too, sharing my own life experiences and talking about mental health to not feel alone, letting you read my travel diary and flip through photo diaries for inspiration. I created this to remind others and myself that we all can be Lost in a Dream.. And turn it to reality.
Have more questions? Check my FAQ
Photos of me by Turner Nelson