Born and raised next to the ocean in South Florida, Kelly’s childhood was filled with boating and fishing trips, days in the sun, and weekend Disney World adventures. When she was diagnosed with severe scoliosis at age 13, her doctor recommended yoga as an alternative therapy and unknowingly changed her life.
Kelly both healed her scoliosis and found a new passion. She attended her first yoga teacher training at age 19 and moved to Miami shortly after for college, where she continued to teach and manage a yoga studio for the next 4 years.
Most of her new Miami friends were Colombian or Mexican, so she also pursued learning Spanish as a second language. Kelly even won the Foreign Language Student of the Year award, crediting most of her success to conversation practice in her Latino neighborhood.
She also took a couple of solo trips to Colombia and lived with locals, practicing Spanish and the fine art of living out of a backpack. Upon return to Miami, the stage was set for planning a long term adventure through South America.
As you can tell… Kelly makes friends easily.
Currently, Kelly makes her home base in Ecuador and frequently travels to other Central and South American countries. She still loves practicing and teaching yoga, exploring the surrounding nature, and haggling relentlessly for fruits with the local ladies. Lately Kelly has discovered an interest in birding and has seen condors, eagles, toucans, and even quetzales in the wild!
She enjoys spilling her thoughts on her personal blog, which reflects her belief that travel is as much an inner as an outer journey. She loves being on the Ecela team because of her amazing experiences in South America and understanding of how useful speaking the language is!
Hobbies: yoga, AcroYoga, cooking (especially local hot sauces), trekking, fishing, writing, birding, Instagram mastery.