Noranda Smith: solo-roadtripper & travel nurse
When people ask if I’m afraid, my answer is,
“I’m afraid of not living.”
When chatting with Noranda Smith, it’s easy to be inspired by her exuberance for life and confidence in where her journey has taken her. Originally from Canada, Noranda is currently serving as a pediatric nurse in Madison, WI, working as a travel nurse. She strategically takes contract jobs in areas where she can travel and explore, making choices that enrich her life and suit her current goals. When asked, “What is the brave, intimidating thing you’re known for or currently doing?” it was difficult to narrow down a response. Noranda is a winter camper, ready to brave the frigid temps in a tent or hammock on the Lake Superior shoreline. She has also made the brave change to leave a steady nursing career for the idea of travel nursing - one where she doesn’t land every contract she goes for and doesn’t have a guaranteed job. But these brave things really are parts of who Noranda is as a confident solo traveler.
Taking on the idea of solo travel is one that many women will shy away from - or work to talk each other out of. However, it is exactly the thing that many women today are turning to in an effort to prove to themselves that they can do brave, intimidating things. Noranda was first open to the idea of traveling on her own when a friend in Texas, US, who was working as a travel nurse, invited her to come down from Ontario to visit. She found the “feeling of freedom and control” that comes with solo road-tripping and the empowerment that it brought for her to move forward into her own career change of travel nursing.
Noranda hasn’t always been a camper or traveler. In fact, she was a single parent raising four children and was 37 years old when she first took on a nursing career. She was 40 when she decided one day, “I’d like to try hiking.” She googled “what do I need to go backpacking,” went to Walmart and bought what she could, and then just tried it. Her attitude was, and still is, “Pick one little thing that’s outside of your comfort zone, and just do it.” And this “will do” mentality is the very thing that later gave her the motivation and inner strength to reconnect with a friend she hadn’t seen in 35 years. This visit, though, meant a 9,000 km trip to Whitehorse, the capital of Canada’s Yukon territory. She knew she wanted to go, so she made a plan and just went for it.
And that mindset will register with a lot of determined women who might be hesitant to try something new and outside of their comfort zone. She says that to start a new thing, you have to make the decision first. Make it. And then set a plan to see it happen. Need to do some research and educate yourself on how to move forward? Considering a slight (or drastic) career change in order to meet this new goal? Noranda’s choice to move from living in one city to travel nursing allowed her room to make her schedule work for what she wanted instead of feeling trapped in a job where she needed to wait for approval for time off. Think about what you really want your life to look like, and then make intentional changes to make it happen.
Noranda has a strong mindset that keeps her driven from the decision-making step to the reality of that decision. And she recognizes that there has been a learning curve along the way. When asked about hurdles she faced in the beginning of her journey, she remembered that she could not start out hiking 30 miles right away. She did not fully understand how important it was to pack smart. Her physical body needed training and experience in order to do what she wanted to do. “I was slow and got tired at first,” she remembers. “But now I have it pretty dialed in.” That reminder can help all of us who want to try something new, but get frustrated when it doesn’t work out perfectly the first time. Change requires effort, but the effort is so worth it when we see our dreams convert into our reality.
Are you considering solo travel for yourself? Noranda gives us some experience tips to help make our own goals happen. She reminds us that we are bound to hit some obstacles along the way. But we have to work for it and not be afraid to keep going. People often ask her, “Aren’t you afraid?” Noranda’s typical response is, “You know what I’m afraid of? I’m afraid of not living.” She reminds us, too, that we can just do it. “We’re too often making excuses for not doing the things we want,” she says. As women, this rings true. Family, career, and commitments often take precedence over what we want for ourselves. But we can branch out of that comfort zone, carve time in our calendars to pursue our own interests, and make safe, smart efforts to create our new reality. Noranda suggests joining Facebook groups to gain knowledge and motivation from other like-minded women. Seeing what others are doing can often provide us with the motivation to move. And above all, she says, “Follow your gut.” Women have strong intuition for a reason. Don’t be afraid to make life choices that can move you in a different direction, but trust your gut if anything feels off. Whether it’s an uninvited chat from a stranger on a solo trip, an unwelcome conversation in a job interview, or a comment from an online presence - trust your instinct and make the move to safety that you need to make.
While you’re seeking to make your own goals for your journey, you can watch Noranda’s journeys on her Facebook page. She is planning a move toward Alberta, CA soon, as well as a backpacking trip to Europe with her son. You may find her soon working as a travel nurse from her camper van in the Pacific Northwest. And within the next five years, you’ll definitely be able to follow her journey as she hikes the entire Pacific Crest Trail. We at Strong Girls Travel love that Noranda Smith is living proof: setting one small new challenge for yourself can lead to a lifetime of change and a life of really living.
