Episode 1: Amelia Rayno, Independent Journalist | Life Off the Beaten Path: Stories From Underserved and Underreported Communities of America, Solo Nomad Adventures in El Salvador, Mexico and Beyond

I could not have had a better opening guest to launch this podcast than Amelia Rayno. Amelia is a seasoned journalist in the middle of a truly epic adventure traveling through North America in a van for the past year. Her travels brought her through LA for a few short days that revolved around her work serving and documenting stories from Skid Row, which is home to the largest population of people without homes in all of the United States.  I was lucky to catch up with her before she left and we sat down to discuss her experience in El Salvador prior to the start of the pandemic and her work as a traveling nomad reporting from and serving the forgotten communities of North America. We discussed how she manages to weave insightful storytelling while also providing for the immediate needs in those communities through "flashfunding" mutual aid from her fairly large following on instagram.  Through modern digital storytelling, Amelia is helping us see beyond the beaten path of our comfort zones while exposing us to the crises in our own backyards but giving us the ability to play a small contributing part.  Follow and support Amelia here: twitter.com/ameliarayno Instagram.com/ameliarayno patreon.com/ameliarayno