First Solo Vegan Trip | Australia & New Zealand Bound | Kiara Sylvie Durbin

Link for the show notes

In today’s episode, we’ll be talking to Kiara Sylvie Durbin, an artist, adventurer, content creator, and proud vegan who is about to embark on her first big solo trip.

Kiara shares what inspired her to finally “just book the trip,” how she is preparing for Australia and New Zealand, and how travel can help us build confidence, move through uncertainty, and open ourselves up to new possibilities.

This is also a special “before the trip” conversation, as Kiara will be joining us again in a future episode to share what actually happened after her adventure.

We also talk about vegan travel anxiety, using travel planning tools like Apple Maps Guides, sharing travel experiences on social media, and why sometimes the best thing you can do is take the leap before you feel completely ready.

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Transcript

Brighde: [00:00:00] Hello, Kiara, and welcome to The World Vegan Travel Podcast.
Kiara: Thank you so much. I'm so honored and excited to be here.
Brighde: Oh, that's so sweet. I'm pleased to have you on here too, because we're going to be talking about getting ready for your first big trip. I wish I was in a position to have those exciting feelings, because my first big trip was quite some time ago now. So I'm really excited to feel those feelings again, or at least hear those feelings again.
So, Kiara, before we dive in, can you please introduce yourself in your own words? Who you are, what you do, and your place in this vegan travel space?
Kiara: I like to describe myself as an artist, adventurer, and human. I have a theater background, so that's why my brain went actor. But that's my email signature. I am a multi-hyphenate, so I do a million things, but it's easier to say that than actor, singer, dancer, talker, poet, a million bajillion things all at once, which we all are. [00:01:00] But yeah, I'm a proud vegan of almost six years, and there couldn't be a better space for me than The World Vegan Travel Podcast.
Brighde: Oh, that's so sweet. Thank you so much. So, you are about to embark on your first large-scale solo trip. What inspired this leap?
Kiara: I graduated school in ’24. I've been home a couple of years. I keep tabs on all of my friends in foreign countries. So I have two friends in Australia right now, and I met a friend last year when I was traveling in Sedona, Arizona, who lives in New Zealand. So a bunch of things came together.
I got a flight alert for Brisbane, and I had never gotten one before, and I had been tracking it for a couple of years. So I got the alert, I have the [00:02:00] friends, and it just kind of dawned on me last December: I’m going to Australia in 2026. I don’t know how, I don’t know when, but I’m going to do it. So I knew I was ready for that international shift. Something clicked.
Brighde: Fabulous. And how was life going for you before you decided to do this? Was there something that inspired you, apart from obviously the flight alert? Was there something going on in your life that made you feel like you needed a change or to swap things up a little bit?
Kiara: Yeah, so I came home from school because my mom was sick. So she passed, and there’s that whole thing going on.
I feel so inspired by my mom every day. She was a big traveler. I have a great job. I’m very lucky to have the job that I do, but I’ve been doing it every day for a year or so, and I’m just [00:03:00] ready to step into trust, into what my life can be if I really open that door and take that step. And that excites me so much. So I’m just ready to shake it all on up a little bit and hop on a plane and see what happens.
Brighde: Awesome. So when is the trip actually going to happen?
Kiara: Yeah, so the trip is March 20th. I have eight more days at my job and—
Brighde: Oh.
Kiara: —20 more days existing in the US for a while. I’m only going to be gone a month and a half. I don’t have my flight back, though. But it feels so big. It feels huge.
Brighde: For listeners, we are recording this on the 28th of February, so maybe by the time it airs, you will already be in Australia. But right now, it’s in that really crazy, exciting time for this big [00:04:00] first trip.
Kiara: Yeah.
Brighde: So, you decided to do it, and by the sounds of it, you’ve just, like, gung-ho, going to do it. But were there any kind of feelings that you had that made you have doubt or fear that you care to share with our listeners?
Kiara: Leaving my job, for one thing. I think for a lot of people, we just get comfortable, and that’s okay. I have been making a stable income. I’ve been seeing my friends that I grew up with. But I try to focus on the good rather than the anxieties, because if I open that door, it’s almost overwhelming.
I have a partner in the US, and she graciously is like, “Heck yeah, dude. Go. Go travel the world. I know you want to do that, and I’ll be right here when you get back.”
Lots of anxieties. But I feel like if me, anxious girl [00:05:00] from Ohio suburbia, plus vegan, can travel, anyone could do it.
Brighde: Fabulous. So what do you actually have planned for this big trip coming up?
Kiara: Yeah.
Brighde: Or maybe you are just going to throw caution to the wind and let it all unfold, or something in between?
Kiara: I really wish I was the type of person who could just book a plane and figure it all out. But I do have a rough outline.
I am staying with a friend in Melbourne for two weeks, and then I’m staying with a friend in Brisbane for about a week. She is working on Tangalooma Island, so I’m going to—
Brighde: Oh.
Kiara: —go out to the island.
Are you familiar with Tangalooma?
Brighde: Yes, I am.
Kiara: Oh my gosh. You’re from Australia, or you lived in Australia for a while, right?
Brighde: Yeah, I moved to Australia when I was 18 with my parents. [00:06:00] We immigrated. I thought I was going to stay there forever, but I ended up getting itchy feet and traveling. But my brother lives in Brisbane, and my parents moved to Brisbane about five years ago to be closer to my brother and his family.
So whenever I go back home, I go to Brisbane. I’ve spent lots of time there, and it’s a lovely city.
Kiara: Yeah, we’ll have to chat. You’ll have to give me all of your spots.
Brighde: Sure thing. And so you are going to be in Melbourne. I’m curious if your friend in Melbourne happens to be vegan, because there are amazing vegan restaurants in Melbourne. Do you know about this?
Kiara: Yeah, Melbourne is actually the place I’m the least worried about. I feel so chill going to Melbourne. She was vegan and then transitioned out of it, but she’s used to cooking vegan.
I feel pretty good about Australia. I’m going to [00:07:00] fly into Auckland. I’m going to take a bus trip from Auckland to Wellington through Kiwi Experience, which I have my bus booked for, but no hostels or any experiences booked. But we’re kind of floating, seeing what happens. Then I have a friend from college who is going to join me in Wellington, and we are going to road trip the South Island, fly back to Wellington, hang out with my friend who lives on the east side of the North Island of New Zealand, and then go back to Auckland and fly back to the US. So the rough outline is here. That’s all I’ve got.
Brighde: I love that you have friends living in all of these different places. It makes a huge difference, especially when you are young and maybe on more of a budget.
If you can stay [00:08:00] with a friend, that is a huge expense saved.
Kiara: That’s the bulk of it.
Brighde: It’s probably about $50 a night these days in a shared room in a hostel, for example. And then, as long as we are being good guests to our friends, you can save a huge amount of money. It’s awesome. I did that all the time when I was younger.
Kiara: It’s so smart.
Brighde: As we were preparing for this podcast, you shared with me a quote that really resonated with you. I think it was from the Instagram handle @awaken_one_: “Travel breaks the illusion that your current life is the only possible one.”
Why did that resonate with you so much?
Kiara: I feel that travel is such a gift. Especially where we’re at in 2026, you can hop on a plane and be on the other side of the world in [00:09:00] 25 hours. I’m going to be there in 25 hours, and I’m going to gain a day. I feel that you can live multiple lifetimes in one lifetime in that way. And why wouldn’t we want to take advantage of that?
When you feel comfortable, when you feel run down, when you feel stuck, there is always another life waiting for you if you want to open that door. And I think that’s a really beautiful thing. That post also mentioned that taking a huge trip is sometimes as helpful to you as being in therapy for 10 years, because you just encounter so much. It broadens your horizon so much, and I think life’s all about expansion. So that’s the number one thing you can really do to expand your brain, your life [00:10:00] for sure.
Brighde: It’s interesting that you say that, or you mentioned that quote. I went to have a look at the whole post before we jumped on this call today, and it definitely is a beautiful post. And I agree with most of it, all of it. I have had similar experiences. I always find when I travel, I have a lot more clarity and motivation to do things when I get back home.
And you’ve obviously experienced terrible grief in the past few years. Seb and I have also experienced some grief in the past couple of years as well. It’s interesting, we were talking about this the other day as we come up to the anniversary of the passing of Seb’s father.
Every time that we have traveled following a period of grief, it’s kind of pushed us along that grief process a little bit. I don’t know what it is. I don’t know whether it’s just because you’re so distracted, because there’s so much stuff going on, [00:11:00] or just because you are experiencing life, but it feels like you’ve just sort of taken a fast track through the grief process.
So, like a two-week trip is the equivalent to, I don’t know, three months if you were staying at home. I don’t know if that’s true. I don’t know whether there are other things at play, but definitely getting out there and traveling and experiencing the world has helped us go through the grieving process for sure.
Kiara: Yeah, and I didn’t even really think of it like that, but that’s totally true. My mom, when she was my age, she was teaching English in Ecuador. She was teaching English in China, and then she was teaching in Berlin, and my dad joined her in Berlin, and they got engaged, and then they moved to Okinawa.
So them being abroad, and I just feel their magic sprinkled all over the world, me doing what they did pushes me [00:12:00] through that grief as well.
You feel those people just kind of smiling down on you, like, “I’m so proud of you. I’m so glad that you’re experiencing the world and you’re actually getting to live.”
Brighde: Oh, that’s very, very lovely. Very profound. So, you mentioned that you do have a few fears, maybe in the lead-up to the trip or fears of something that might happen while you are on the trip. Have you got a plan for how you might try to manage those fears or the things that might go wrong? The things that could happen, not just the fears.
Kiara: My favorite thing to do, which I haven’t quite done yet, is the Guides feature on Apple Maps. So, sorry, Android users, but I have shared this hack so many times.
Researching absolutely everything you want to do, researching every single vegan food place you can find, putting it all in a guide, and then every time you click on, [00:13:00] for example, my New Zealand guide, at any point where I am in the country, I will be able to see what’s close to me and what I want to do, and lead from there. That’s what my dad and I did in Ireland together, and that I’m probably going to employ first when I get time to make my guide.
Brighde: Can you tell me a little bit more about this Apple Guide feature? I’m not an Apple person, but I thought I knew a lot of travel kind of things, regardless of whether they’re Apple or not. Can you tell us about this feature?
Kiara: So if you go to your Maps and you go to your library, there’s a place where you can click on your guides. You’ll tap Guides again. Then you can press the plus button in the bottom right corner and create your own list.
And every time you go to a new place, let’s say I really want to go to Hobbiton in New Zealand. [00:14:00] I will type Hobbiton, or whatever I want, and I will add it to my guide, and it will show up as if it’s in a folder. And then once you click on that folder, it will show everything on a map for you. It’ll show your location.
Brighde: Ah, okay. So I think that’s similar to starring in Google Maps, maybe.
Kiara: Yeah.
Brighde: That is a really great hack for trying to collate all of the places that you want to go and see where they are in relation to you. We use that a lot. It’s very cool, and it’s great for restaurants that you want to make sure you check out and sites that you want to see.
Kiara: I think it gives you a little bit of permission to be messy. I have a very disorganized brain, so I say, “Here, guide, here’s my disorganization,” and the disorganization ends up being helpful on my trip.
Brighde: Yeah. [00:15:00] Sounds good. So, I believe you are excited about sharing your trip on social media. Is that correct?
Kiara: Yes.
Brighde: Okay. So why are you going to do that, and what are you going to do?
Kiara: Recently, I’ve been finding so much joy in making collages of my photography on my trips. I have always loved photography. I’ve always had an eye for things. I had nowhere to put them, so I took a step and have just started posting.
I’m inspired by people like you and other people who just post what they want to post. And I hope to find the vegan places for other people and inspire other people that it is possible to travel as a vegan and to eliminate some of that fear. I will experience some of that fear for you all so you can be less [00:16:00] anxious.
Brighde: I love that. Yeah. I mean, it’s quite hard to create content as you are traveling. So if you manage to figure it out, I’d love to have some tips from you, because I have so much help with our social media and our content creation, and I’m grateful to be able to get that help.
But it’s very hard when I’m on the road. Maybe you are younger and you’ll have an easier time of it, but yeah, it’s really hard.
Kiara: Was that stressful to you when you didn’t have a marketing team, when you were fully responsible for building your brand?
Brighde: Yeah, we definitely get a lot of help with social media, both with the creation and then the posting. I still do some of it, and I can’t just completely hand it over to somebody else. I still have to find footage and approve all of the posts. Maybe there isn’t the optimal clip that—
Kiara: Yeah.
Brighde: We’ve come a long way, I think, in about 18 months or so, and I’m very [00:17:00] grateful to Alina and Rochelle, who help me with that.
Yeah, I mean, it’s always difficult, I think, at the start of your business journey, this whole marketing thing. So frustrating at times, but it’s worthwhile, even if it just feels like a total slog.
Is there something that you would like to do with your Instagram audience, if and when you get into a groove and it becomes something that you are excited about and you are getting a lot of engagement with?
Kiara: Yes. I 100% would love to start doing group trips. I feel like that’s something a lot of people are interested in, but I’m so inspired to do a group trip to Ireland. So many people, after I went to Ireland, told me, “I want to go. I want to go.” And I’ve become their point person for that.
So I would love to explore more, so I feel like I can [00:18:00] confidently lead people through a foreign country. I just love community spaces and girlhood. I would love to curate some women’s retreats. Yeah, I’m just dreaming right now.
Brighde: Amazing.
Kiara: I would love to ask you, as kind of a veteran of vegan travel, do you have any anxieties anymore, in general or about finding vegan food options? And what would you recommend to people who are kind of fighting through that?
Brighde: I don’t really worry too much that I’m going to go hungry. As somebody who has traveled quite a lot in the many, many years I’ve been vegan—like 15 years or 16, 17 years, or something like that—I’ve never actually gone hungry when I travel.
I’ve had some less-than-inspiring offerings sometimes for up to a few days at a time, but I’ve never really gone hungry. I mean, of course I want to have delicious food, but that’s a bonus, really, compared [00:19:00] with the fact that many people in the world don’t even have enough to eat.
I use most of the resources that everyone has to find food: HappyCow and Facebook groups and things like that. But for me, I very rarely have to do much because my partner, Seb, who I travel with most of the time, is very food motivated. So if there is something good to be found, he will make it happen.
So that’s the food part of it. Anxieties about travel: I definitely feel like, in the lead-up to the trip, I get a little bit anxious. I mean, very often when we travel, it’s because we are running our luxury vegan group tours, and there are so many extra things that I have to remember and do compared with when I’m just traveling by myself.
But I will say that checklists have become huge. And in actual fact, people watching or listening to the podcast won’t be able to see, [00:20:00] but I print out one of these sheets for every trip that I do. Some of them are for when we are actually running a trip, or when we intend to run a trip, and sometimes they’ll be for just personal travel, making sure I’ve got my travel insurance figured out.
Have I downloaded the travel emergency contact and insurance information for our travelers? Have I checked the allergies or food preferences? Have I done all of the printing that I need to do? Have I got the relevant transport cards, like my PASMO pass for Japan, and any leftover currency from the last trip?
So I have it all in here, and this is helpful. And then I even have one for after the trip. Most of these are connected with running our group tours, but they’re also things like just some house and home logistics that I would need to do when I come home.
And just by having it written down, I just [00:21:00] feel like I am not ruminating all of the time. “Oh my goodness, I’ve got to make sure I take that person off our lock to get into our house when we get home,” for example, so we can increase the security in our home. Or, “I have to make sure I’ve got it written down that I take off this international plan on my card.”
Just having it written down, and I can just look at it and think, “Okay, it’s written down. I don’t need to worry about it. Just breathe.”
Kiara: So lists are your friends.
Brighde: Lists are my friend. There’s nothing revolutionary, but I’m always adding to this list and taking things off it and optimizing it so that it gets better and better. And I think I’ve got it pretty dialed in now.
Kiara: Awesome.
Brighde: Kiara, you and I have talked about the possibility of having you back on the podcast when you get back from this trip Down Under, and we are going to try to do that. If people would like to follow your journey and see [00:22:00] how you are changing through this big solo travel trip, how can people connect with you and keep in touch with what you’re doing?
Kiara: Absolutely. My handle on pretty much everything is @kiara.sylvie.durbin. I’m the most active on Instagram, so if you want to come follow along on my journey, you can find me there.
Brighde: Kiara, thank you so much for taking the time to be on the podcast, even though you are getting ready for this big trip. I’m so thrilled for you to do this trip, and I’m going to be thinking of you, and I can’t wait to hear how it went on your return.
Kiara: Thank you so much for the well wishes. I’m so excited, and I will see you soon.