Sefton Bivouac Track: Best Hike in Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park (2024)

I am Sara Fondo

It’s no coincidence that Fondo means depth in Italian because my journey has always been about going deep — within and beyond.

Over the past decade, I’ve roamed across continents, chasing adventures and profound lessons in healing, resilience, and what it means to be human. Through my writing, creative projects, and personal journey, I strive to inspire others to explore not just the world, but the depths of their own hearts and minds. This is an ongoing quest for adventure, growth, and unapologetic self-discovery.

So, where did it all start?

My story is messy, raw, and still unfolding, just like the world I’m endlessly drawn to explore.

I grew up in a storm. My mother’s battles with mental illness meant the walls at home were thin, and my soul learned to fortify itself. Love felt conditional, chaos felt constant, and I became hyper-independent—a master of survival, but a stranger to myself. On the outside, I looked strong. On the inside, I was unraveling.

At 19, I escaped. I didn’t just want to see the world; I wanted to run from everything that had built me. That first one-way ticket took me to Spain, armed with nothing but a desire to parlay español. Spoiler:  I didn’t quite master the language because I ended up living in a shed on a mountainside with German nudists.

But I learned that I could do a lot of cool stuff on my own.

By 24, with a journalism degree in hand and no plan, I jetted to Mexico. In the suffocating heat of a temazcal — an ancient ritual, symbolizing a journey of spiritual and emotional rebirth — I felt light for the first time. I didn’t know it at the time, but this would become the feeling I’d forever chase.

For 17 months, I wandered. From Mexico to Brazil, pit stops in Canada and USA, and ending it all in Australia. I climbed mountains, sled down volcanoes, hitchhiked, couchsurfed, fell in love, and spent less than $11,000 doing it all. But more than the places I saw, it was the unlearning that stayed with me — the untangling of my past and the reclamation of my future.

Travel didn’t just save me. It taught me to love myself. It gave me ownership over a life I thought I didn’t deserve.

Since then, I’ve dived headfirst into the art of healing, exploring everything from neuroscience to philosophy, trying to understand how we rebuild after we’ve been broken. The journey inward has been just as wild as the one around the world, and I share both in the hope that my mess might help someone else make sense of theirs.

I’m also a multipotentialite, which is just a fancy way of saying I don’t fit neatly into one box. Writing, podcasting, making videos—they’re all ways I express the stories I carry. For a long time, I saw this as a weakness. Now, I see it as the best part of me: a refusal to shrink myself into something small or singular.

So here I am, chasing curiosity, adventure, and the beautiful, brutal, messy art of being human. I hope my story inspires you to explore yours.

Got questions or just curious about something? Reach out to me by hitting that little email symbol below.

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