Hi there, I’m Cathy. I’m from Kansas City, Missouri, and I’m a traveler and digital nomad/expat/immigrant living in Spain.
Traveling was introduced to me at a young age in the form of my family’s annual road trips and the license plate game. Those trips are a special kind of unforgettable. Seeing the beauty of our national parks; my sisters and I getting sick as our green minivan careened down curvy roads in the Appalachians; the trip to D.C. that we christened the “Dead Presidents Tour.” My dad nearly starting an elk stampede at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. Giant, dive-bombing snow mosquitoes at Crater Lake. I’d been to 47 states by car before I ever set foot on an airplane to travel across the ocean for the first time.
For 3 years after college, I worked as a traveling technology consultant at Fortune 500 company. But I started to realize I wanted something more out of life. I’d had quite a few international adventures in the prior five years, including a study-abroad semester in London during fall 2013. I always joked that my biggest regret was coming back to the U.S. after that, but part of me meant it.
So in fall 2018, I took the plunge. I quit my stable, corporate job in Kansas City and moved to Madrid, Spain, to work as an English teacher through the Auxiliares de Conversacion program. I loved it so much that I decided to stay for another year.
But after two years in Spain, the coronavirus pandemic forced me to change all the plans I had, so I went back to Kansas City for a year and a half without traveling abroad.
While I had envisioned myself staying in Spain longer-term, I tried to see the pandemic as a chance to do something different for a while. So my husband, Matt, and I decided to live the digital nomad life for a few months in Quito, Ecuador. We’re lucky we’re able to work remotely, and we’re trying to continually take advantage of that. Our 2+ months in Quito were just the beginning for us! We went on to also travel and work remotely from seven different countries in 2022.
In September 2023, we got approved for the new Spain digital nomad visa and are now part-time residents of Spain… for the next five years! We moved over here in January 2024 and got married at a 9th-century Spanish castle in August.
We still have full-time jobs, but I’m focused on making The Girl Who Goes the best it can be. The only guest posts you’ll find on this site are from Matt and my real-life friend Sarah. I promise to disclose all affiliate links, and I double promise to never use AI to write my posts. Everything you read here will always be 100% written by a human.
Also, I was recently diagnosed with celiac disease in June 2025. I’m not planning to make this a “celiac travel” blog, but there will definitely be mentions here and there, and that’s something I’m still learning how to navigate — especially as it pertains to travel.
Thanks for stopping by and sharing my corner of the internet for a bit. 🙂
Contact me:
cathy.thegirlwhogoes@gmail.com
Upcoming trips:
- Lyon, France (December 2025)
Recent trips:
- Naples, Italy (October 2025)
- Honeymoon: Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea (August/September 2025)
- London (July 2025)
- Ireland + Northern Ireland (June 2025)
- Paris, France (March 2025)
- Granada, Spain (February 2025)
- Cardiff, Wales (January 2025)
- Wroclaw + Prague + Bratislava Christmas Markets (December 2024)
- Dublin, Ireland (August & November 2024)
- Amsterdam + Haarlem, the Netherlands (April 2024)
U.S. states visited: 49/50
Countries visited: 34/197