After feeling burnout from the pandemic and her full time job, and getting her driver’s license at 30 years old (when you live in NYC you don’t need one!) chef and traveler Alex Giel decided with her boyfriend to pack up their new car, quit their jobs and drive from New York to Costa Rica! And back! Alex says her road trip of a lifetime was a liberating investment in her happiness, and allowed her to shake things up in order to find a new perspective on life. Born in Peru, raised in Manhattan and now living in Philadelphia after her ultimate road trip, Alex who has been a vegan for 13 years began to veganize some of the traditional Peruvian dishes she loved as a kid, and her catering business The Vegan Lama or La Llamita Vegana was born.  Inside the episode we talk about: How a joke around a crazy idea actually came to life How to plan and save in order to spend months traveling on a budget How Alex opens people’s minds up to a new way of eating How the Philadelphia food scene has been welcoming and given her a sense of community  How it’s possible to take traditional recipes and make them more healthy How you’ll never regret taking a risk or going on an adventure and she wishes everyone could experience what she did during her travels Here’s where you can find Alex Giel: IG: @la.llamita.vegana Website: https://lallamitavegana.com/ Connect and Work with Courtney Follow @goliveyourstory and @thecourtneyelko on Instagram! Want to receive my stories and words of wisdom in your inbox? Join my email community here.  Are you on the content struggle bus? Join the waitlist here for my content-focused membership, the Content Collective. Drop your email here if you’d like to know more about my 1:1 business coaching! Do you want to tell better stories? Click here to receive a free, recorded webinar in your inbox on How to Tell a Better Story.