Lost & Found with Karmen Wiid

In this episode, we explore identity in the age of aesthetics, algorithms, personal branding, and late-stage capitalism. From clean girl culture and curated online selves to Socrates, Marx, bell hooks, Kierkegaard, this is a conversation about who we become when we are constantly perceived.  ________________________________________ ✨ Let’s Stay Connected: 📹 Watch The Lost & Found video episodes on YouTube 📝 Read my blog on Substack 📕 Buy my book — Untethered: A Beginner’s Guide To Solo Travel  📸 Follow along on Instagram  💌 For collabs email: [email protected]

Bridgerton, Fifty Shades of Grey, the new adaptation of Wuthering Heights… oof are we getting into it. On the surface, it looks like we’re living in a moment where female desire is more visible than ever.  But are we actually getting closer to understanding it… or have we just found new ways to package it? In this episode, we take a journey through the strange, complicated history of female desire, from sirens and witches to corsets, hysteria diagnoses, and Hollywood censorship. At the heart of it all is one question: What happens when women stop being the object of desire, and become the subject of it? _________________________________________________________________ ✨ Let’s Stay Connected: Read Substack post: The Feminisation of the Supernatural Grotesque:  Read Substack post: On Writing What I Wasn’t Raised to 📹 Watch The Lost & Found video episodes on YouTube 📕 Buy my book — Untethered: A Beginner’s Guide To Solo Travel  📝 Read my blog  📸 Follow along on Instagram  💌 For collabs email: [email protected]

A few weeks ago, I got on a boat with a stranger from the internet and somehow ended up living on a sailboat in one of the most remote parts of Indonesia. There were storms, there was a diabetic captain, a near-emergency evacuation, and a stretch of days where we were completely alone on the ocean with no fresh water and no working toilet. Naturally, I wrote about it. What started as a simple Substack post turned into a 10,000-word, three-part story that I couldn’t stop writing. And instead of trying to summarise it, I decided to do something different for this episode… I’m reading it to you. Settle in, this one's a wild ride.  ______________________________ ✨ Let’s Stay Connected: Read my Substack 📹 Watch The Lost & Found video episodes on YouTube 📕 Buy my book — Untethered: A Beginner’s Guide To Solo Travel  🌴 Join my Thailand wellness retreat June 2026 📝 Read my blog  📸 Follow along on Instagram  💌 For collabs email: [email protected]

Breakups are fucking brutal! There's no getting around that. But what makes them even worse is that we don't just lose another person, we are also left with the realisation that we might have abandoned ourselves in the process of trying to keep them. And now they've left, and you have to learn to trust yourself again and reclaim your individual identity outside of an "us" dynamic. This one is about coming home to yourself. _____________________________________________ ✨ Let’s Stay Connected: 📹 Watch The Lost & Found video episodes on YouTube 📕 Buy my book — Untethered: A Beginner’s Guide To Solo Travel  🌴 Join my Thailand wellness retreat June 2026 📝 Read my blog  📸 Follow along on Instagram  💌 For collabs email: [email protected]

When did “being healthy” become so exhausting? After completing a year-long health coaching diploma and unlearning everything I thought I knew about discipline and dieting, my perspective shifted completely. In this episode, we talk about: – The concept of “crowding out” instead of dieting – How to actually nourish your body (without under-eating) – Moving in ways you genuinely enjoy – What the Blue Zones teach us about connection, purpose and longevity You deserve to feel strong, clear, capable and awake in your own life. __________________________________ ✨ Let’s Stay Connected: 🌴 Join my Thailand wellness retreat June 2026 📹 Watch The Lost & Found video episodes on YouTube 📕 Buy my book — Untethered: A Beginner’s Guide To Solo Travel  📝 Read my blog  📸 Follow along on Instagram  💌 For collabs email: [email protected]

In this episode, we’re asking the biggest question of all: What is the meaning of life? I’ll talk you through how different theories and philosophies have tried to answer it, from evolution, hedonism, religion, existentialism, nihilism and more.  This episode isn’t about giving you a neat answer. It’s about helping you examine the philosophy you’re already living by. Because even if you don’t consciously choose what you believe life is about… You’re still living as if something matters. And that “something” is worth investigating. ________________________________________ ✨ Let’s Stay Connected: 📹 Watch The Lost & Found video episodes on YouTube 📕 Buy my book — Untethered: A Beginner’s Guide To Solo Travel  🌴 Join my Thailand wellness retreat June 2026 📝 Read my blog  📸 Follow along on Instagram  💌 For collabs email: [email protected]

In this episode, I’m joined by Leon Harant, a long-term hitchhiker who has spent nearly two years travelling across Europe, the Middle East, and Asia without relying on traditional backpacking routes, flights, or money-driven travel. From hitchhiking through the craziest countries and camping in the desert, to being welcomed into strangers’ homes across Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, and beyond, Leon’s journey isn’t just a collection of wild stories. It’s a radical rethinking of how we move through the world. We talk about why and how you can travel this way too, what truths about human nature emerge across cultures, and why it’s easier than you think. If you’ve ever felt called to travel more slowly and more openly, or you simply want to see the world without much money, this episode is for you. _____________________________________ ✨ Let’s Stay Connected: Follow Leon on Instagram 📹 Watch The Lost & Found video episodes on YouTube 📕 Buy my book — Untethered: A Beginner’s Guide To Solo Travel  🌴 Join my Thailand wellness retreat June 2026 📝 Read my blog  📸 Follow along on Instagram  💌 For collabs email: [email protected]

RELATIONSHIPS DON’T NEED TO BE CONSTANT HARD WORK! That’s a myth we tell ourselves to normalise shitty behaviour towards one another. In this episode, we confront the toxic habits that erode trust, intimacy, and self-respect, and keep us stuck in relationship patterns that feel heavy, confusing, and exhausting. This isn’t just a list of red flags or a guide to diagnosing other people. It’s an invitation to take responsibility for our own emotional maturity. Because relationships should feel like support, not survival. This one is for anyone who wants to do relationships better… with others, and with themselves. _______________________ ✨ Let’s Stay Connected: 📹 Watch The Lost & Found video episodes on YouTube 📕 Buy my book — Untethered: A Beginner’s Guide To Solo Travel  🌴 Join my Thailand wellness retreat June 2026 📝 Read my blog  📸 Follow along on Instagram  💌 For collabs email: [email protected]

+ Free downloadable PDF with reflection prompts You probably have a laundry list of goals for 2026. But how many of those goals are the same ones you had last year, and the year before that? Why haven’t you achieved them yet? And what makes you think this year will be any different? I want to invite you to try something different. Instead of rushing into new goals, habits, and resolutions, what if you looked back, intentionally, at the year that was? What if the most powerful way to move forward isn’t by doing more…but by understanding more? In this episode, I guide you through 10 reflective questions to help you understand last year and step into 2026 with clarity and intention. We’ll talk joy, fears, relationships, insecurities, dreams… and I also share a deeply personal story about trust, jealousy, and healing, and what it taught me about learning to tell the difference between healthy boundaries and old, unhealed wounds. Because this podcast has never been about having it all figured out. It’s about figuring it out in real time, together. _________________________________________ ✨ Let’s Stay Connected: 📕 Buy my book — Untethered: A Beginner’s Guide To Solo Travel  🌴 Join my Thailand wellness retreat June 2026 📝 Read my blog  📸 Follow along on Instagram   

It’s been a wild few months, and this episode is the full catch-up. There was a passport situation that had me low-key committing administrative crimes. Bali, where I hosted my first-ever group trip, learned to scuba dive, and swam with manta rays. Then I hitchhiked through Thailand with a bunch of friends, slept in abandoned hostels and lost resorts, went wild camping on a deserted island, didn’t touch my phone for days, and had the most insane moment of my life. And then… I turned my phone back on and got news that changed everything. We’ll also talk: - Is Bali overrated now? - What I learned about environmental conservation - How to talk your way out of being detained at the airport for passport fraud - And what happens when grief shows up in the middle of magic So yeah. There’s a lot to cover. Let’s catch up. ____________________________________ Watch the Bali group trip video Watch the deserted island camping video Find out more about my upcoming Thailand group trip ____________________________________ ✨ Let’s Stay Connected: 📕 Buy my book — Untethered: A Beginner’s Guide To Solo Travel 📸 Follow along on Instagram 📝 Read the blog  

Today I’m sitting down with Eileen Botes, chief cosmetic formulator for Willa Krause Skin Care and DC Laboratories. Eileen has a background in molecular biology and biotechnology, decades of experience in the industry, and a rare ability to talk about skin with both scientific rigour and deep nuance. We get into: Why your skin barrier is the real non-negotiable and how to protect it How climate and environment change what your skin needs How to tell the difference between science and marketing hype  How diet, sleep, stress and joy literally show up on your face And why your twenties are the “puberty of adulthood” for your skin (and how to deal with it) _____________________________ Find your nearest Willa Krause Salon or Consultant  Buy Willa Krause Skin Care Online Become a marketer and start selling Willa Krause Skin Care! _____________________________ Let’s Stay Connected: 📕 Buy my book — Untethered: A Beginner’s Guide To Solo Travel  📸 Follow along on Instagram  📝 Read the blog  Join The Lost & Found Book Club      

+ Free episode workbook In a world of hot takes, rage-bait, cancel culture, and instant certainty, thinking slowly has become an act of rebellion. In this episode, we talk about what we lose when we trade nuance for noise, how binary thinking flattens our depth in politics, in love, and even in the way we see ourselves. We’ll talk about how algorithms reward outrage over understanding, and how AI is training us to outsource our thoughts instead of forming them.  And because awareness isn’t enough, I’ll walk you through a 7-Day Mind Gym (free PDF included!)... a simple, reflective practice to start rebuilding your attention, your curiosity, and your capacity to think for yourself again. With help from Hannah Arendt, James Baldwin, Kierkegaard, and bell hooks, we explore how to hold more than one truth at a time, how to listen without rushing to defend, and how to stay human in a world that keeps asking us to react. This isn’t about neutrality. It’s about resistance. ____________________________ Let’s Stay Connected: 📕 Buy my book — Untethered: A Beginner’s Guide To Solo Travel 📸 Follow along on Instagram 📝 Read the blog 🌴 Join my group trip to Bali Join The Lost & Found Book Club Get the free episode workbook  

Your twenties come with a lot of noise. Everyone has an opinion on who you should be, how you should love, how fast you should grow, and what your life should look like by now. But what if most of that advice… was never actually true? In this episode, we get into some of the biggest lies we’re sold about love, identity, success, healing, and what it means to “get your life together.” If you’ve ever felt behind, overwhelmed, heartbroken, or unsure of who you’re becoming, this one’s for you. ________________________ Let’s Stay Connected: 📕 Buy my book — Untethered: A Beginner’s Guide To Solo Travel 📸 Follow along on Instagram 📝 Read the blog 🌴 Join my group trip to Bali Join The Lost & Found Book Club

My first FAQ episode!  We’re talking everything: solo travel, love, work-life balance, loneliness, heartbreak, creativity, and what “home” even means when you’re constantly leaving it. This one’s honest and a little chaotic. Kind of like my life. If you’ve ever thought about packing your bags and building a life on your own terms, I think you’ll find a piece of yourself somewhere in here. _________________________ Let’s Stay Connected: 📕 Buy my book — Untethered: A Beginner’s Guide To Solo Travel 📸 Follow along on Instagram 📝 Read the blog 🌴 Join my group trip to Bali Join The Lost & Found Book Club    

From angry teenage feminist, scowling at boys who opened doors for me, to my misandry era, to now. In this episode, I trace how my thinking about feminism, and about being a woman, has changed over the past 12 years. We’ll talk about casual misogyny, bad sex ed, double standards, feminist theory, Anaïs Nin, and why I now believe feminism is about the freedom to decide what femininity or masculinity looks like for you. This isn’t a prescriptive episode. I’m not here to tell you what to believe. I’m here to offer you my story as an invitation: to explore what feminism, femininity and masculinity mean to you, and how to live them out in a way that feels completely, unapologetically yours. __________________ Let’s Stay Connected: 📕 Buy my book — Untethered: A Beginner’s Guide To Solo Travel 📸 Follow along on Instagram 📝 Read the blog 🌴 Join my group trip to Bali Join The Lost & Found Book Club  

One little decision “for the plot” landed me behind the bar of a hostel in Hoi An, Vietnam. In this episode, I’m sharing the real story. From five-hour night shifts and crazy pool parties to found-family friendships, I’ll take you inside the chaos, the laughter, and the hidden curriculum of bartending. I’ll also answer some of the questions I get most often in my DMs: How I landed the job in the first place + what it entails  Day-in-the-life: full-time remote work by day, bar shifts by night (was it worth it?) Patterns you notice in hostels  “For the plot” vs “for the résumé” decisions Why I’m staying another month in Hoi An (and retreating to a beach bungalow to recharge) Come sit with me, let’s catch up. ____________________________ Let’s Stay Connected: 📕 Buy my book — Untethered: A Beginner’s Guide To Solo Travel 📸 Follow along on Instagram 📝 Read the blog 🌴 Join my group trip to Bali Get $$s off Worldpackers  Join The Lost & Found Book Club

What happens when a woman refuses to be likable, palatable, or contained? In this episode of Lost & Found, we sink our teeth into Chelsea G. Summers’s provocative novel A Certain Hunger, a literary thriller about Dorothy Daniels, a glamorous food critic with big appetites: for food, for sex, and for human flesh. Far more than a cannibalistic shocker, this book is a biting commentary on female desire, hunger, power, and storytelling itself. We unpack its themes one by one - female villainy as feminism, appetite as rebellion, consumption as intimacy, culinary satire, and the voyeuristic complicity of readers.  Along the way I will draw on feminist theory, cultural criticism, and my own reflections as a reader who laughed, cringed, journaled, and sometimes even craved espresso while turning the pages. Polarizing, visceral, and unsettling, A Certain Hunger refuses to leave readers unchanged. 📚 Plus, the big reveal of the Lost & Found Book Club pick for September: Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri. ✨ Join the book club and keep the conversation going!  _____________________________ Let’s Stay Connected: 📕 Buy my book — Untethered: A Beginner’s Guide To Solo Travel  📸 Follow along on Instagram  📝 Read my blog  🌴 Join my group trip to Bali  Join The Lost & Found Book Club

Why do I solo travel? It’s the question I get in my DMs more than any other. The truth is, it isn’t always easy. Yes, it can be lonely, intimidating, and even a little chaotic at times. But it’s also the most liberating, perspective-shifting, and life-affirming thing I’ve ever done for myself. In this episode, I’m making the case for why everyone should take a solo trip, whether it’s a weekend getaway or a year-long adventure. I share the 12 biggest lessons that travelling alone has taught me: from breaking free of the “blueprint,” to learning self-reliance, deepening emotional resilience, opening yourself up to unexpected connections, and becoming the kind of person who trusts themselves fully. If you’ve ever dreamt of booking a trip but felt too scared, or if you’ve been wondering whether solo travel is really worth it, this episode is for you. I’ll also leave you with a few journal prompts to help you uncover whose blueprint you’ve been living by, when you feel most like yourself, and what dreams you’ve been putting off. Because once you experience the freedom of solo travel, you’ll never settle for a life that feels small again. PS… this episode is based on a chapter of my book, Untethered: A Beginner’s Guide to Solo Travel. Check it out here. __________________ Let’s Stay Connected: 📸 Follow along on Instagram 📝 Read the blog 🌴 Join my group trip to Bali Join The Lost & Found Book Club

This is the second instalment in our two-part Getting Out of a Rut series. It’s for those moments when you look around at your life and think, How did I end up here? When the spark is gone, the days feel copy–paste, and you’re mourning something you can’t quite name. In this episode, I’m sharing the tools, experiments, and uncomfortable (but freeing) truths that have pulled me out of my own deepest ruts. This isn’t about surface-level fixes, this is about getting to the root. Stripping your life down to the base, figuring out the values you actually want to live by, and building something real from there. If you’re ready to stop waiting for life to happen and start feeling like yourself again (or maybe for the very first time), this is where we begin. __________________ Let’s Stay Connected: 📕 Buy my book — Untethered: A Beginner’s Guide To Solo Travel  📸 Follow along on Instagram  📝 Read the blog  🌴 Join my group trip to Bali  Join The Lost & Found Book Club

This is the episode I needed this week, so I made it for both of us. If you’ve been feeling off… low on energy, creatively flat, stuck in a loop of procrastination and you just need something to shake you out of it, this one’s for you. In part one of this two-part reset, I’m sharing 9 powerful, practical shifts to help pull yourself out of a rut and remind you who the hell you are. We’re talking: how to shake off stagnant energy, work hacks that spark momentum instead of guilt, and tiny tweaks that break the loop and make you actually want to show up again. Part two drops Monday, and yes, we’ll go deeper into the psyche, the philosophy, the identity stuff. But this episode is the reset. The beginning. The spark. Let’s get you feeling like yourself again. ________________ Let’s Stay Connected: 📕 Buy my book — Untethered: A Beginner’s Guide To Solo Travel  📸 Follow along on Instagram  📝 Read the blog  🌴 Join my group trip to Bali  Join The Lost & Found Book Club

Our first Lost & Found Book Club episode is here and we’re starting tender. In this deep-dive discussion of Thirst for Salt by Madeleine Lucas, we explore the slow ache of a relationship that never quite breaks, but hollows. We talk love and longing, emotional whiplash, age-gap relationships, unequal power dynamics, aestheticized sadness, and the fantasy of becoming someone through someone else. Why do we stay in relationships that hurt so much? Is it love or just projection? And what does it cost to be the one who feels more? If you’ve ever looked back on a past relationship and realized you were building a life out of longing, this episode is for you, whether you've read the book or not.  Plus: our August book club reveal (it’s sharp, feral, and unforgettable). __________________ ✨ Let’s Stay Connected:   📕 Buy my book — Untethered: A Beginner’s Guide To Solo Travel  📸 Follow along on Instagram  📝 Read the blog  🌴 Join my group trip to Bali  Join The Lost & Found Book Club

What if beauty wasn’t something soft and sweet… but something vast, dangerous, and soul-shaking? In this episode, we dive deep into the Romantic movement - not dating apps or romcoms, but the 19th-century revolution of artists and poets who believed that awe, longing, terror, and wonder were not distractions from life but the very point of it. This isn’t your high school English syllabus. The Romantics were obsessed with danger, desire, melancholy, and the sublime… that dizzying, breathtaking feeling that reminds you you’re still alive. It was an art movement that inspired revolutions - the French, the American, the Haitian. Because to feel deeply in a disenchanted world is political. And today, in an age of algorithms, apathy, and endless scrolling, it might be exactly what we need. This episode is your reminder that feeling is a form of resistance. And aliveness is an art. ___________ Let’s Stay Connected: 📕 Buy my book — Untethered: A Beginner’s Guide To Solo Travel  📸 Follow along on Instagram  📝 Read the blog  🌴 Join my group trip to Bali  Join The Lost & Found Book Club

A bottle of whisky, a palm reader, a prophecy. And a night that unfolded like silk around the hips. Slow, hot, dangerous. In this episode, I'm reading you my latest short story, "The Fifth Lover." From rooftops in Northern India to the dark dancefloors where we lose ourselves, this is a story about what we remember and what we rewrite. About possibilities and dead ends. About the high of being young, untethered, and briefly, beautifully, unbroken.  Until it all unravels.  Is it a story or a memory? Real or constructed? You’d have to listen to figure that one out for yourself. __________ Let’s Stay Connected: 📕 Buy my book — Untethered: A Beginner’s Guide To Solo Travel  📸 Follow along on Instagram  📝 Read the blog  🌴 Join my group trip to Bali  Join The Lost & Found Book Club

In this episode, I’m sharing the mindset shifts I return to when I feel lost, tired, or just trying to ground myself in something deeper than a to-do list. We’ll talk about: The underrated art of trusting detours (and the psychology of hedonic adaptation) What discomfort actually means, and why it’s a good sign How to stop squeezing every moment for meaning Why empathy might actually be selfish and what that means for real connection (according to philosopher Edith Stein) These are the beliefs that have held me through heartbreak, solo travel, reinvention, and becoming someone new, again and again. If you’re somewhere between the breakdown and the breakthrough, between who you were and who you’re becoming, then this one’s for you. Come sit with me for a while... ________ Let’s Stay Connected: 📕 Buy my book — Untethered: A Beginner’s Guide To Solo Travel  📸 Follow along on Instagram  📝 Read the blog  🌴 Join my group trip to Bali  Join The Lost & Found Book Club

At 21, I walked into a philosophy class on Critical Theory, not because I was particularly curious about Marxism, but because the professor radiated something I couldn’t explain. Calm. Clarity. Joy. I didn’t know that one elective would unravel everything I thought I knew about ambition, success, freedom, and identity. Two years later, I was living in a hippie commune in rural Nicaragua, showering outside, swearing off money, and trading work for food, trying to figure out what I really wanted when nothing familiar was there to define me. In this episode, I explore the philosophy that radically changed my twenties, and might just shift something in you, too. Drawing on the Frankfurt School’s Critical Theory, we talk about how capitalism doesn’t just shape what we do - it shapes how we dream, how we think about happiness.  But we also explore the nuance: what it means to be a content creator and a critic of the system. What it means to hold ambition and awareness. And how to navigate all of this without self-abandonment or moral purity. This one is deeply personal. It’s philosophical, yes, but more than that, it’s an invitation. To question what you’ve been told is normal. To hold space for paradox. And to begin imagining freedom on your own terms. _________ Let’s Stay Connected: 📕 Buy my book — Untethered: A Beginner’s Guide To Solo Travel  📸 Follow along on Instagram  📝 Read the blog  🌴 Join my group trip to Bali  Join The Lost & Found Book Club  

In this episode, we explore the cultural phenomenon and philosophical roots of main character energy, both its empowering promise and its dark underside.  Sparked by a moonlit conversation in Hanoi, this episode unspools into many threads.  We talk about: What main character energy really means (and why it matters) How to find joy and agency even in the absurd… yes, we’re talking The Myth of Sisyphus The dark side of performance and Western privilege Travel, language, culture, and why no one is just a “side character” Martin Buber’s I-It vs. I-Thou, Simone Weil on attention, and how to live with radical presence And the ultimate plot twist: But you’ll have to listen to hear this one This episode is both an invitation to live boldly and a gut-check on ego and empathy. Plus, a beautiful little cameo by some of my friends on what makes them feel like the main characters in their own lives. Thank you to Annie, Maatai, Claire, Tiaan, and Henry. ____________ Let’s Stay Connected: 📕 Buy my book — Untethered: A Beginner’s Guide To Solo Travel  📸 Follow along on Instagram  📝 Read the blog  🌴 Join my group trip to Bali  📕Join The Lost & Found Book Club

You know how sometimes all you really need is something that shakes you by the shoulders and gets you so fired up you can’t not do the scary thing? And other times, you’re craving a deep, heart-expanding, soul-softening chat about life and meaning and why any of this matters. And then there are those times when all you want is an unhinged conversation with a friend that reminds you how young, dumb, and wildly alive you still are. Yeah. This one is all of that - in one conversation. In this special episode of Lost & Found, I’m sharing a deeply personal conversation from when I was a guest on the Kindred Roads podcast — a show I’ve long admired for its soul-filled stories from travellers, creatives, and people building beautiful, unconventional lives. We talk about: – The winding road of solo travel and digital nomad life – How I went from broke and burnt out to building a life with freedom – Navigating grief, identity shifts, and family expectations – Why your 20s don’t need to make sense to anyone else – And how I became the youngest published author in South Africa at age 12 (and what writing has meant to me ever since) This episode holds stories I’ve never shared before - from romances in Argentina to motorbike crashes in Nicaragua, to what it really feels like to chase freedom and find belonging around the world. Whether you’re mid-breakdown, mid-reinvention, or somewhere in between, this one’s for you. Listen the original Kindred Roads podcast episode here Follow Kindred Roads on Instagram _______ Let’s Stay Connected: 📕 Buy my book — Untethered: A Beginner’s Guide To Solo Travel  📸 Follow along on Instagram  📝 Read the blog  🌴 Join my group trip to Bali  📕Join The Lost & Found Book Club

You’ve heard the rumours, right? Seen the movies with chaotic streets, overflowing trains, and spiritual awakenings. Heard the warnings: it’s too much, too unsafe, too overwhelming. Well, I heard them too. And I went anyway. This is what three months travelling solo through India as a woman really looks like. It was messy. It was heart-achingly beautiful. And it changed me in ways I never expected. In this episode, I speak honestly about the magic I experienced, the discomfort I leaned into, and the lessons I learned the hard way - from Mumbai’s creative chaos to Udaipur’s quiet grace, from trusting strangers to learning how to say no, from falling in love with food again to remembering what awe feels like. India unraveled me. It made me braver. Softer. Louder in all the right ways. I always reflect in my journal at the end of a country - what I learned, what I’m taking with me. So consider this your peek inside my journal. ______ Let’s Stay Connected: 📕 Buy my book — Untethered: A Beginner’s Guide To Solo Travel  📸 Follow along on Instagram  📝 Read the blog  🌴 Join my group trip to Bali  📕Join The Lost & Found Book Club

Ever felt like you're surrounded by people, but still weirdly alone? Like you're just... not quite you lately? Like something’s missing, but you can’t put your finger on what? This episode is about that feeling. The kind of loneliness and disconnectedness that leaves you feeling depleted and lost.   In this one, I get into: The different types of loneliness (and how to tell what yours is really asking for) How to go from craving connection to actually loving your own company What philosophers and poets teach us about solitude And how to attract authentic, intentional and meaningful social connection I see you. I’m here. Let’s figure it out together. ____ Let’s Stay Connected: 📕 Buy my book — Untethered: A Beginner’s Guide To Solo Travel  📸 Follow along on Instagram  📝 Read the blog  🌴 Join my group trip to Bali  📕 Join The Lost & Found Book Club

Recorded during a monsoon evening in Delhi with chai in hand and the world quieting outside my window, I read you one of my favourite short stories - a piece I wrote when I was 22, while riding Greyhounds across the American South with an uncharged phone and a journal in my lap.   Where the Women Go is a story about grief, sisterhood, memory, and the spaces that live between dreams and forests, life and afterlife. It’s lyrical and strange and vulnerable. And it matters to me deeply.   This isn’t my usual advice session. It’s a moment of creative connection, the kind I hope reminds you that storytelling is one of the oldest, truest ways we figure ourselves out.   So wherever you are - walking through a park, stirring something on the stove, or curling up in bed - I hope this story wraps around you like a blanket. And maybe stirs something you thought was long buried.   And if you're up for it tonight: write something. Dance a little. Doodle in the margins. Let something creative move through you.   _   ✨ Let’s Stay Connected:   📕 Buy my book — Untethered: A Beginner’s Guide To Solo Travel 📸 Follow along on Instagram 📝 Read the blog 🌴 Join my group trip to Bali 📚 Join The Lost & Found Book Club

Tonight, I’m recording from a tiny apartment in Delhi, a little dazed after surviving what might’ve been the wildest overnight bus of my life. But also feeling grateful. Because I’m reminded, once again, that travel doesn’t have to be expensive to be extraordinary. In this episode, I’m answering a question I get all the time: How do you actually afford to travel long-term? The answer? It’s not a trust fund. It’s curiosity, courage, and a willingness to get your hands dirty. I share the exact tools, platforms, and stories that have helped me travel the world nearly for free. From volunteering in jungle hostels in Costa Rica, to couchsurfing with strangers and trading small skills for a warm bed and a hot meal… this is the real, unglamorous, magical side of slow, meaningful travel. We’ll talk: How to use platforms like Worldpackers, Workaway & TrustedHousesitters The power of work exchanges (and how they changed me) Trading your talents for stays, meals, and unforgettable memories Creative ways to travel on zero budget And the real reason “I can’t afford to” is often just fear in disguise Plus, a journal prompt to get you moving toward your own adventure. This is not just a guide to free travel. It’s an invitation to get a little lost and find the version of you that’s been waiting at the edge of comfort. 🪴 Read the full chapter (and more) in my book Untethered: A Beginner’s Guide to Solo Travel — now available on Kindle or as a PDF download. ✨ Want to join me in Bali this December for a group trip and marine conservation project? Find out more here. ➤ Get $10 off your Worldpackers membership with the code KARMEN ➤ Read the blog ➤ Check out my Instagram 📚 Join The Lost & Found Book Club

📚 Some very exciting news: my book Untethered: A Beginner’s Guide to Solo Travel is officially available for pre-order on Kindle! It’s part handbook, part workbook, part travel memoir. Check out the preview on my website or pre-order on Amazon Kindle to be the very first to get the book when it goes live on Sunday, 29 June. ____   Do you feel like you have so many ideas but never follow through? Sick of making plans, setting goals, getting excited… and then somehow abandoning them halfway through? Then this episode is for you. We’re talking about how to actually finish the projects that matter, especially the personal ones no one’s holding you accountable for. Whether it’s starting a blog, writing a book, running a marathon, or just showing up consistently for yourself, I’m sharing the mindset shifts that helped me stop quitting on my dreams. And no, we’re not going to be talking about the self-help fluff that you find everywhere… “build tiny habits,” “find an accountability partner,” “celebrate the small wins”… blah. If that worked, you wouldn’t be clicking on this episode, would you? 🎧 If you’ve ever felt stuck, scattered, or secretly scared you’ll never finish the thing that matters most… this is your sign to start again, differently. _____   Want more? ➤ Read the blog ➤ Check out my Instagram ➤ Join my group trip to Bali ➤ Pre-order my book

Our desires, our turn-ons, our ideas of sex… where do they come from? And who benefits from them?   Because sex isn’t just an act. It’s an archive of cultural conditioning.   This episode is a crash course in feminist philosophy, critical theory, and the tangled relationship between sex, power, and culture. From shitty sex ed classes to porn culture, internalized scripts to embodied autonomy, we’re asking the uncomfortable questions we’re usually too afraid to voice.   We’ll talk consent beyond the yes/no binary, porn as both a mirror and a script for the world, self-objectification, BDSM, beauty standards, and what it means to actually be empowered, not just perform it.   I weave in insights from thinkers like Amia Srinivasan, Simone de Beauvoir, Nancy Bauer, Audre Lorde, and bell hooks, and try to offer a new language for those of us who’ve felt confused, ashamed, or alone in our questions around desire.   This is for the curious. The conflicted. The ones unlearning in real time. If that’s you, then you’re in the right place.   📚 Mentioned in this episode: The Right to Sex by Amia Srinivasan The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir Works by bell hooks, Audre Lorde, Nancy Bauer, and more   💭 Three questions I leave you with: What shaped the way you see sex, power, beauty, and desire? What does empowerment feel like in your body and how do you know it’s yours? What cultural scripts have you internalized and which are you ready to rewrite?   If philosophy teaches us anything, it’s this: We have a responsibility to ask the hard questions, especially the ones without neat answers.   📚 Want more? ➤ Read the blog ➤ Check out my Instagram ➤ Join my group trip to Bali 📚 Join The Lost & Found Book Club  

I just came out of one of the most inspiring conversations with a friend and had to hit record. So today, we're talking about the kinds of lessons that shake your worldview and leave you wondering how no one told you this sooner. Some of what we cover: The breakup question that answers itself How bitterness is often just blocked creativity Why your “cringe” phase was necessary What it means to want more without lack What real luxury is The power of curiosity and letting yourself evolve If you're in your twenties (or feel like you're re-entering them emotionally), this episode is a love letter, a wake-up call, and a gentle shove all in one. 📚 Want more? ➤ Read the blog ➤ Check out my Instagram ➤ Join my group trip to Bali

What do you need more right now — to remember who you are, or to remember you're not alone? In this episode, we dive into the real differences between solo travel and group trips — not just the logistics, but the soul of the thing. From rooftop dance parties in Udaipur to quiet solo moments that changed me, I explore how each kind of journey offers its own kind of magic. Whether you’re craving deeper self-trust, new friendships, a break from routine, or the courage to finally book that one-way ticket… this one’s for you. Plus: I’m officially inviting you to join me from 6 - 16 December 2025 for something extraordinary — a group trip to Bali that blends marine life conservation, meaningful adventure. You’ll leave with a diving license, a community, and a story worth telling. 🎟️ Book your spot: → Join as a certified diver → Join as an unqualified diver (we’ll train you!) → Still got questions? Join the group chat 📖 Curious about solo travel? You’ll get my new travel handbook Untethered: A Beginner’s Guide to Solo Travel completely free when you book the trip. 📸 Come hang out on Instagram: @karmenwiid 📝 Read the latest blog posts: www.karmenwiid.com/blog And if you loved this episode, share it with someone who needs to hear it. Because sometimes, the right journey starts with a voice in your ear saying: Go.

We’ve forgotten how to rest and it’s costing us more than we think. In this episode, I dive into what it means to actually feel restored after the weekend, not just distracted, numbed, or hungover. Let's redefine what intentional rest looks like (spoiler: it’s not just doing nothing), we talk nervous system repair, dopamine menus, and why scrolling isn’t a hobby. This isn’t your typical productivity pep talk. It’s a reminder to treat your time off like a ceremony, not an afterthought. Whether you’re burnt out, in need of a gentle reset, or just looking for ideas that actually make you feel alive again, this one’s for you. 💛 Share it with someone you’d plan a soft Sunday with. ✨ Come say hi over on Instagram 📝 Read more stories and follow my along for my travels on the blog  🌍 Bookings are now open for my Bali group trip! Join the WhatsApp Group Chat for all the info! 

We think closure is a conversation. A final text. An apology. But more often than not, it’s silence—and confusion. In this deeply personal episode, I talk about the kind of closure I never got, what I learned from it, and why waiting for someone to explain their confusion might be the thing keeping you stuck. From messy endings to aisle-seat breakdowns to unexpectedly falling in love again—I take you through the real, raw, unfiltered journey of trying to heal when there’s no clean goodbye. You’ll hear: • Why they probably left you confused on purpose • What you actually need instead of closure • The quiet rituals that rebuild your self-trust • How to stop rehashing a story that no longer serves you This one’s for the person still waiting to understand. I hope it gives you what they couldn’t.

You can’t build a life that feels truly your own if you’re carrying things that don’t belong to you. In this episode — a part two to How to Build a Life That Feels Like Yours — I explore the emotional clutter we need to let go of: resentment, guilt-tripping, over-explaining, comparison, victimhood, fear of loneliness, and more. This one’s about radical self-responsibility. About learning to be unapologetically yourself without becoming bitter, about making choices that fill you up so your love and energy can flow outward, not get drained away. If you’ve ever found yourself people-pleasing, stuck in jealousy, or feeling like you owe the world an explanation for your dreams — this episode is for you. Spoiler: being “selfish” might be the most generous thing you do. Want to know more about my travels? Check out my blog or follow me on Instagram. 

What if the version of success you’re chasing isn’t actually yours? In this episode, I talk about throwing out the blueprint, redefining your values, and choosing a life that makes you feel lit up, not burned out. I’ll walk you through: Signs you’re living on autopilot How to re-evaluate your values and beliefs My own turning point that made me question what I really wanted from work and life Why joy is not a luxury, it’s your compass Let’s get a little lost, so we can find something better. 🌍 Check out the Bali group trip & join the group chat for all the details 💻 Read more about my travels on my blog  Get $10 off your Worldpackers membership using the code: KARMEN

It’s 3AM in a tiny Airbnb in Rajasthan, India. I have a full travel day ahead, a 7AM meeting on the books—and yet here I am, recording the first episode of a podcast I’ve been dreaming about for months. Welcome to Lost and Found, a space for anyone navigating the beautiful, confusing mess of their twenties. In this raw, unscripted debut, I talk about what led me here—from solo travel to heartbreak, creative restlessness to radical joy. There’s no niche, no filter—just a deep desire to connect and make sense of the chaos alongside you. If you’ve ever felt untethered, on the verge, or like you're building a life from scratch—this one's for you.