Greetings from a coffee farm in Ecuador! ☕

Wow… so much has happened since our last update—so let’s get into it.

We kicked off Year 2 of our travels just over a month ago with an iconic bucket list destination: Peru. And not only was it everything we dreamed of (and more), it also marked a huge milestone for us—our first-ever content exchanges!

We partnered with Alpaca Expeditions and Trexperience and completed three incredible treks:
• Rainbow Mountain & Red Valley (video drops TODAY at 5 CT / 6 ET!)
• Short Inca Trail
• Salkantay Trek

In exchange for these experiences, we agreed to make some social media content and a YouTube video for each!

That said… Peru humbled us. 😅

Cusco sits at 11,000 ft, the highest altitude either of us had ever experienced—and we suffered for it. Between altitude sickness and our first bouts of water poisoning, the first few days were rough. We decided to arrive in Cusco nearly a full week prior to beginning our treks and I’m VERY grateful we did as we spent the better part of our first 3 days in bed doing almost nothing.

BUT once we got over that hump, Peru itself has locked itself in our top 5 favorite countries ever—and I’m already itching to return. The people, the culture, the history—it’s all so rich and vibrant. But we’ll let our upcoming videos tell the full stories:😉
• Rainbow Mountain – live today at 5 Central/6 Eastern
• Salkantay Trek – Video drops on April 25th!
• Inca Trail – Video drops on May 9th!

Then three weeks ago, we arrived at our current home: a coffee farm in north Ecuador. 🇪🇨

This is technically our 4th Workaway, but with a twist—we’re actually farm-sitting while the owners are away visiting their college-age kids in Kansas!

While Workaways are never the most comfortable travel experiences to have, they are really good “recalibration” seasons for us. It’s been fun to learn how coffee is made and spend some time just picking berries and listening to podcasts/books/music. It’s like an emotional and spiritual “time-out” in the middle of the hecticness of full-time travel.

(Also… free lodging and food for a month saves us a lot of money 😅)

Here’s what’s coming next:

• 1 more week on the farm
• 2 days in Cotacachi, Ecuador (content exchange at a hostel + microbrewery)
• Guatemala City → Antigua
• Hiking Acatenango (to see an erupting volcano! 🤯)
• Then off to Rome on April 28 to meet my (Cat’s) parents! 🇮🇹

After that? A bit of a question mark—but loosely:
• Another month in England (pet sitting)
• Salt Lake City for TravelCon in June
• Summer in Puerto Rico working at a small inn in Vieques

This Week on YouTube:

If you were that kid looking at weird Australian fish in the science books in elementary school, then this is the video for you!

We tried to visit Hawaii... on $100 a day. It was hard, lol.

We visited the Polynesian Cultural Center! We actually didn't know it existed prior to visiting, then a friend of ours hooked us up with free tickets! It's like... the Mormon Disneyland of Hawaii.

Packing video for Year 2 of full-time travel!

The KyleCaughtaCat Shop is LIVE!

Ever wondered what supplements we use? Shoes? Gear? Now you can shop our KCAC Linktree shop! We've wanted to do this for a LONG time, and it's SO exciting to finally go live. Enjoy!!

Our Shop

Budget Breakdown:

And the budgeting continues! Even with our content exchanges, March had us over budget. Can we recover in April? Guess we'll find out...

Peru Budget Breakdown

...Now for a bit of real talk...

Our biggest focus right now is social media growth—on both Instagram and YouTube.

This past year has brought us some truly incredible opportunities (like Peru and Kiwi.com!), even with a small following. But the honest truth is we’re running out of money. A lot of the paid opportunities we apply for don’t even consider creators under 10k followers. And from a business standpoint, we get it—brands want reach! While that doesn’t mean small creators can’t land deals (we did!), it means the barrier is higher. And since we want to keep traveling, the next logical step is to make ourselves more attractive to brands in order to (hopefully!) lock in a more consistent flow of paid opportunities.

→ Year 1 was about learning to travel and improving our craft

→ Year 2 is about getting our content seen and monetizing

Our word for the year is “trust” and I’m seeing more and more WHY as the year goes on. The reality is in this industry (not unlike theatre), SO much is out of your hands. And you can do all the “right” things, but there’s no guaranteed recipe for success. You just have to keep pedaling and believe that something will stick.

If I take a birds-eye view of things, we really are making good progress. But while in the forest, it’s overwhelming to see only trees—so there’s your dose of honesty for today.

All in all—we’re doing really well. This truly is the adventure of a lifetime, and we’re learning to be more present in it. To celebrate the small wins, not just chase the next milestone.

We love you guys.
Thanks for being here and being part of this journey with us 🤍

– Cat & Kyle