By Kelsey FullerFounder's Note5 min read
Why I Started Likeminded Travel — And Why Travel Has Always Been My North Star
A note from Kelsey Fuller, Founder of Likeminded Travel
There's a moment I keep coming back to.
I'm standing on the deck of a liveaboard dive boat somewhere in the Coral Sea, the Great Barrier Reef stretching out beneath me in every direction. The water is impossibly blue. The world is completely quiet except for the sound of waves. And I remember thinking — this is it. This is what life is supposed to feel like.
I'd booked that trip alone. Flown to Australia alone. Showed up to that boat knowing nobody. And somewhere between the first dive and the last sunset, I felt more like myself than I had in years.
That trip didn't just check a bucket list item. It cracked something open in me. And it's a big part of why Likeminded Travel exists today.
It Started Long Before Australia
My love of travel goes all the way back to a post-college decision that probably seemed a little crazy to the people around me at the time. Instead of settling into a traditional career path, I packed my bags and moved to Chile. I spent months working in hostels and bed and breakfasts across the country — immersing myself in local life, learning the rhythms of a place completely different from anything I'd known, and meeting people from every corner of the world.
It was my first real solo travel experience. And it changed everything.
Ten Years in Hospitality
After Chile, I built a career in hospitality — specifically in hotels — nearly a decade of learning what it means to make people feel truly welcome. Then the company I was working for went bankrupt. And as destabilizing as that was, it gave me something unexpected: a moment of stillness in which I had to ask myself a question I'd been too busy to sit with.
What do I actually love most about this work?
The answer came quickly. It was never the buildings. It was the people.
The Trip That Showed Me What Was Possible
Around the same time, I found myself at a significant crossroads in my personal life. I needed something. Then I saw it — an Instagram travel influencer I'd followed for years was hosting a group trip to Morocco. Something about it called to me. I didn't know anyone going. I just knew I needed to be on that trip. So I booked it.
What happened in Morocco I can only describe as soul-nourishing. But more than the destination — it was the people. A group of strangers who showed up individually and became, over the course of just a few days, something that felt remarkably like community. I came home with a renewed sense of self, friendships I still cherish, and absolute clarity: this is what travel can do. And I want to help other people experience exactly this.
And Then There Was Australia
If Morocco showed me what was possible in a group, Australia showed me what was possible alone. I booked a week-long liveaboard on the Great Barrier Reef and made that dream a reality. Then I made my way to Melbourne — a city I fell in love with almost immediately. I made incredible connections there and felt completely at home. Australia holds a very special piece of my heart. And I have every intention of going back.
Why Likeminded Travel
All of these experiences — Chile, Morocco, Australia, a decade in hospitality, years of creating personal experiences as an Airbnb host — led me here. I believe we are all so much more alike than we are different. We just have to create the conditions to find that common ground. Travel creates those conditions beautifully.
Because life is meant to be lived fully. And I can't wait to help you do exactly that.
— Kelsey Fuller, Founder of Likeminded Travel
By Kelsey Fuller
Solo Travel
4 min read
Why You Keep Almost Booking It — And What That's Really About
You are not afraid of travel. You are afraid of what it would mean to actually go.
Because taking a trip — a real one, by yourself, for yourself — requires something that feels surprisingly vulnerable: putting yourself first. Saying that what you want matters enough to act on. Trusting yourself to handle whatever comes up.
That is not a logistics problem. That is a permission problem.
The trip you keep putting off is not really about the destination. It is about the version of yourself waiting on the other side of it.
Here is what I hear from people like you, over and over again:
"I don't have anyone to go with."
So you wait. For a friend to be free, a partner to be interested, a schedule to align. And the waiting becomes its own kind of life sentence.
"I wouldn't even know where to start."
The research rabbit hole is real. One tab becomes forty. You close the laptop more confused than when you opened it. The overwhelm feels like a sign that you're not ready. It isn't. It's just a sign that you need help.
"What if something goes wrong?"
The what-ifs are loud. And they are almost entirely about one thing: being alone with a problem and no one to turn to. I promise it is smaller than it sounds — and I will be a message away the entire time you are traveling.
"I'll go when things slow down."
They won't. Not in the way you mean. There will always be something. The timing will never be perfect. The question is whether you are willing to go anyway.
"Am I really the kind of person who does this?"
Yes. You are. The fact that you are reading this is proof enough.
None of these are really about travel. They are about self-trust. About permission. About believing that you are someone who gets to have experiences that are entirely, unapologetically your own.
You are. And I am here to help you remember that. You deserve this. Let's book your adventure together.
Let's Book My Adventure →
