Welcome to Chasing Candice!
Chasing Candice is a blog for travel lovers, who are paving their way and creating a life that lights them up!
Here we explore international travel and van life through photography and storytelling. As a retired wilderness guide & tour guide, I can’t help but weave history, culture, and travel tips throughout the site.
The foundation of Chasing Candice is travel but it is about more than that. It is about being more mindful to be your best self, travel consciously, and purposely create your life.
You are totally capable of creating the life of your dreams, one that lights you up and you’re excited about.
Work with Me
I’m a photographer specializing in storytelling through travel.
For me, storytelling is about capturing a moment, an experience, and a feeling. Over the years, I have been lucky to do a little bit of everything: from commercial photography for a raw gold artist in Alaska, mountainside weddings in Washington, to branding photoshoots in Guatemala. Working with various mediums and clients has challenged me to get out of my comfort zone. It has also allowed me to add drone photography and videography to my bag of tricks.
I work with brands that share a sense of wonder for nature, inspire their communities, and highlight their products and services in a beautiful, special way.
Let’s create together.
My story
My name is Candice, I’m a storyteller, photographer, and drone pilot. But it has been a long and winding road to get to this point.
Ever since I can remember my mom has called me her little fart in the wind.
I’ve been nomadic since the age of 8, bouncing between Washington State and Texas. Flying solo or with my sister for most of our childhood. My love for travel was realized at 12 years old. I had fundraised for 2 years to send myself to New Zealand for a foreign exchange program. This was my first taste of adventure-driven travel.
Fast forward to my 20’s, when I attempted to follow the “American Dream”. It started with getting into the health and wellness industry. I did the western thing – achieve, achieve, achieve. I juggled multiple jobs: Wilderness Guide, Personal Trainer, Fitness Instructor, Yoga Instructor, and Olympic Weightlifting Coach. This is where I learned public speaking and started my journey toward storytelling.
During breaks from school, I would travel and play but I was dead set on becoming a Physical Therapist. I was set on following the American Dream Checklist. Get a good job, picket fence, family, blah blah blah. I pushed with everything I had to get into grad school.
Once I got in.. it took me a little over a year to burn my life to the ground. I had never felt so suffocated, like a caged animal that just wanted to run wild.
I broke up with my partner, left grad school, and sold all my belongings. FINALLY, I was free! I traveled around the west coast in my Toyota Corolla for a few months just hitting the reset button. There were a lot of tearful nights wondering if I did the right thing. But there were waaaayyyyy more moments of breathing fully for the first time in years and smiling like it was the best day of my life.
Then a fateful call changed everything. A friend from college told me to call her boyfriend’s older sister. What did I have to lose? I was already broke as hell, living in my car haha so I made the call. Within 15 minutes I had a tour guide job and a flight to Alaska. At this point I had been a wilderness guide for 8 years, so a guide job in Alaska!!! This is what dreams are made of!
To say I was shocked would be an understatement, I learned when I got to Alaska that I was going to be driving 55 passenger motor coaches. As the snow was melting in Skagway Alaska, I was training to get my Commercial Drivers License. This was the pivotal moment. That summer I toured my little heart out, made incredible friends, and saved for a winter retirement. I started unlearning those arbitrary social rules, kicked the idea of the American Dream to the curb, and began creating a life of adventure that lit me up.
My mantra became “Respond to every call that excited your spirit” by Rumi.
For 5 years I worked hard all summer tour guiding in Alaska. Then I retired to play hard and travel in the winter. During that time I circled the globe twice, went to nearly every state in the U.S., and grew into the person I am today. There is nothing like travel to strip you of all the socialized beliefs and teach you that you are fully capable of creating the life you want.
Traveling sets my soul on fire and is my best teacher! The freedom of touring Central Vietnam on a motorcycle is unreal. My faith in humanity was firmly planted by the kindness of others while hitchhiking around Hawaii. Embracing the strength of my own body and FINALLY listening to my body to avoid injury while trekking to Mayan Ruins in Guatemala. Overcoming my fear of deep dark waters by becoming an advanced scuba diver in Thailand. I was able to tap into my creative potential as a storyteller and photographer in Alaska, you try to take a bad photo of incredible snow-peaked mountains along the alpine lakes – it’s impossible.
By 2020, honestly, I was burnt out, 5 years of working hard/playing hard had caught up with me. I needed a reset, then the world stopped.
I was able to slow down, and rebuild the ’88 camper van that I bought in 2019. My best friend and I built it with all recycled materials and very little prior experience. It was one of the most frustrating and rewarding things that I have ever done.
The pandemic forced me to slow down for the first time since 2015. I finally quieted enough to listen to the inner voice that was struggling to be heard. I had wanted to build my travel blog and start my photography career in 2015 after my first trip to South East Asia. In this slower period, I was able to deconstruct my fears of judgment and tap back into myself.
Filling myself with light and love to stand strong and speak up.
This blog is my love letter to my life with the hope that it inspires others to create the life that they love.
