Born in the late 80’s into the pleasant French market town of Buis Les Baronnies, it was clear from an early age Lane Marieste was going to be a handful. Living with her elderly grandmother and ailing grandfather who, despite their boundless love and best attempts at discipline were simply unable to keep up with the tireless toddler, Lane was given almost unbridled freedom to explore the trails and tributaries of her hometown. Her earliest and indeed fondest memories are of unsuccessfully skimming stones in the town’s river or capturing bugs in the surrounding hills, becoming in the process something of a celebrity in the local area. An oft told family fable is one particularly incident when, spend a frantic six hours searching for the iterant youngster, Lane was eventually retrieved by concerned neighbors who had noticed her dangling precariously over the town bridge in pursuit of a misplaced shoe.
The spark though, had been ignited and many years later, having completed her degree in creative writing and seemingly countless hours working every odd job from seamstress to sous chef, Lane finally had enough money to embark on her first foreign adventure; a six month tour of Asia. Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam were the first ports of call before continuing further East through China, Korea and Japan. By the time she had gorged herself on the food, the people and the culture, it was time to return home with even less money than she had that long-ago morning when of her rescue from the Buis Les Baronnies Bridge.
But it was these experiences in Asia that convinced Lane of what she had always known; she was a traveler, a soul born to wander and roam and almost immediately upon return, set about the process again, working, saving and thinking only of the road ahead. When she set out again this time however, her travels took her first east through Europe and then northward to Russia and the Baltics, each and every experience remembered, recorded and meticulously cataloged in the her ever-ready notebook.
But that was all quite some time ago and now, significantly older and ever so slightly wiser, Lane still finds herself in perpetual transit, from train to plane, from border to border, forever observing but never searching, content simply watch the world roll by her cabin window. But now however, with a laptop full of experiences and accompanying advice, Lane can really call herself what she always hoped to be; a professional nomad. She still returns to France occasionally to re-center herself and to top up on her childhood favorite of pan au chocolate but with a whole world still yet to explore, rarely affords herself the luxury of awaking in the same place twice.