A Literal Vegan Journey

Kim and I met several years ago on the Vegan Festival circuit. She often exhibits while I often attend or host. This means that several times a year in the USA Southeast we’d cross paths and have time for just a short chat. So it was wonderful to sit with Kim for an extended hour from her tiny home near Asheville, North Carolina to learn more about her vegan journey, how she built a career from it, and what it means to her today.

Carla: What has it been like sheltering in place for COVID19 in a tiny home?

Kim: It’s been great. I’m in a tiny home village with wonderful neighbors and the beautiful North Carolina outdoors with trails and outdoor firepits. There’s been a lot of sharing of resources and checking in on one another. I don’t want to leave! (laughter) I love to travel but my village has grown by about 30 tiny homes since last September and there are so many new people I’ve been able to meet – from a safe distance, of course. It’s like traveling in place.

Carla: In the world of lifestyle vegans and plant-based eaters, where do you land?

Kim: Extreme lifestyle vegan. Vegetarian since I was 22, vegan 30 years later, and I’ve been vegan for 5 years now. Shortly before I became vegetarian, whenever I ate meat it would disgust me. It seemed so unnatural. I didn’t know any other vegetarians, so I wasn’t influenced by anyone around me. It was an innate reaction. It wasn’t about animal cruelty because I was clueless about that horrible reality. First I avoided meat that had bones and then slowly got away from all meat together especially when I was living on my own and attending school in Boulder, Colorado where was very easy to find vegetarian food.

Before I became vegan it also felt unnatural for me to have leather handbags or clothing. I still had leather shoes and I had this gorgeous wool cardigan that I bought in Sweden. Eventually I let them all go after I became vegan. Nowadays the only nonvegan items in my life are the cat’s food and two Turkish rugs from a special trip I took a long time ago that I keep in storage.

Becoming vegan for the animals was my objective. Health wasn’t as much my priority but thankfully I’ve never been much into processed food. But I do have a sweet tooth! I’m pretty much whole food, plant-based with no oil. Some of my favorite recipe websites are Shane and Simple, Cheap Lazy Vegan, Mrs. Plant in Texas.

I am very concerned about the environment and that’s a nice benefit to being vegan. Under non-pandemic conditions I do travel a lot but I feel that I offset much of my footprint by being vegan, living in a tiny house, and not commuting to a workplace daily. I’ve made a huge dent in getting rid of plastic in my purchases and belongings.

Carla: Was becoming vegan a natural continuation of your journey through vegetarianism or did you pause at vegetarianism and then something happened which then propelled you into veganism?

Kim: It took me about 5 years to becoming fully vegan. When I was vegetarian, I didn’t know the truth about the dairy industry. While I was still living in Massachusetts, one of my friends invited me to a vegan potluck which happened to be on my birthday. I told her I would go with her if she promised not to tell anyone that it was my birthday. So she showed up with a vegan chocolate birthday cake so everybody knew! (laughter) It was a wonderful community of people and that’s all it took. I was vegan within three weeks. At first I gave myself permission to cut corners when I ate out but that backfired because I fell into a bad habit of making excuses for not being a consistant vegan. Having a supportive group of people made becoming vegan so much easier than trying to do it on my own.

Carla: How did your becoming vegan morph into you establishing a vegan travel agency?

Kim: At that potluck I met Laura who would become my partner. She was vegan and also loved tiny houses. For my birthday the following year she surprised me with a trip to Vermont one weekend to stay in two tiny homes, dine at vegan restaurants, and visit 10 food co-ops which is another passion of mine. It dawned on me that I could design fun trips like this for other like-minded people!

At the time I had a corporate job for 18 years with the government of Singapore. It was a great job and I was treated very well but, as my values evolved with veganism and the food co-op culture, it began to not be a great fit for me. I was located in Boston, Massachusetts and my boss was located in New York City, New York. Every year the company would offer to transfer me to New York City. I didn’t want to live in New York City at that point in my life, so the company continued to rent the Boston office space for me. Four years ago when I declined the offer to relocate to New York City, I was told that the Boston office would close within several months. Luckily I had started my travel business Veg Jaunts & Journeys in a small way on the side just taking people on vegan trips during my own vacation time. As the Boston office closed, I knew living expenses would be much lower in North Carolina which was a tiny house friendly area. I lived on my severance pay for the first two years while getting my business running at full speed. That’s how I came to be a full-time vegan tour operator and travel agent just outside of Asheville, North Carolina.

Carla: What a perfect transition from a corporate job to entrepreneurialship! How ideal! Why Asheville?

Kim: It’s so tiny house and vegan friendly! As soon as we got here we became very active in the vegan community. After about a year I realized that I didn’t know anyone who wasn’t vegan. No lie! About all 150 people I had met since arriving were vegan. It’s so easy to be vegan here and I’m so lucky. I did not meet a nonvegan here until I moved to the tiny house village. Now 10% of us in the village are vegan.

Carla: So you’re primarily whole food, plant-based at home. When you go out, do you enjoy some of the processed vegan foods?

Kim: I tried the Beyond Burger but I couldn’t eat it. It reminded me too much of the meat I never really enjoyed eating so long ago. When I travel, of course I’m going to indulge in the local vegan fare. It’s not as wholesome or simple as I may cook at home, but it’s delicious and part of the traveling experience for me.

Carla: How has self-discipline played a role in your journey to veganism?

Kim: In the first 6 months of being vegan, if I was tempted to eat something nonvegan, I would replay a short clip in my head of a video I’ve seen about what is done to cows or chickens. That’s all it took for me to stay committed to this path. Now I don’t even think about it because I’m never tempted.

Self-discipline plays a stronger role in what I say or don’t say in my travel agent community. Like most people, they are not vegan and I have to be very careful to not offend people who are advertising trips to Sea World, to ride chained elephants in Bali, to swim with dolphins, or to ride ostriches in South Africa. I don’t personally or professionally support the exploitive practices of these types of businesses. You will not find them on any of my tours. Sometimes I find it challenging to not speak out and I have to weigh very carefully the pros and cons of staying silent.

Carla: You have a big vegan community in Asheville and your business is vegan oriented. Do you have any area of your life where people give you a hard time for being vegan?

Kim: If I know that I’m going to be the only vegan person at a food-provided event, I’ll just not go. It’s not worth it. I pretty much eliminate situations in my life where I might the only vegan in the room. Potlucks are great because I can bring something delicious that everyone can enjoy that just happens to be vegan.

Carla: You must have so much fun discovering, enjoying, and sharing vegan food around the world.

Kim: I really do! The people and the food are simply delightful. There are so many cities that are super vegan friendly like Lisbon, Warsaw, Prague, Budapest, Florence, Rome, Venice, Barcelona, Madrid, Edinburgh, London, and Berlin. It’s so much fun to explore international cities while maintaining compassion for animals. And it’s quite rewarding to show my clients how this can be done without sacrificing any pleasure or adventure. And I love to showcase my very vegan hometown of Asheville so I do tours here too.

Carla: Thank you Kim for this time together! Enjoy your time at home in your lovely village and I hope you’ll be able to get back to your travels soon!

Readers, to access all the posts in this interview series, please click HERE.