13 Years Strong: A Look Back on My Gluten-Free Globetrotter Adventures

It’s hard to believe it’s been 13 years since Gluten-Free Globetrotter took off!

Back in 2011, I’d just returned from an eye-opening trip to the Czech Republic, where I discovered a delicious gluten-free beer on tap. My first! This solo trip fueled my desire to share my gluten-free travel experiences with the world. After launching my first blog in 2007, I already had four years of experience in the gluten-free blogging world with Gluten-Free Fun. Starting my new gluten-free travel-focused blog felt like the perfect next step.

Gluten-Free Globetrotter has been a labor of love over the past 13 years. My blog posts may have slowed down, but my celiac disease advocacy lives on. And my social media presence is stronger than ever! I continue to connect with people around the world who are living with and traveling with celiac disease. This has always been my favorite part of writing my website.

In honor of this blog milestone, I wanted to share some highlights that I am really proud of from the past 13 years.

13 Years of Gluten-Free Globetrotter Adventures

International Celiac Advocacy

It has been an honor to be chosen as guest speaker at a number of gluten-free expos, conferences, and summits over the past 13 years. I think one of my highlights was being a featured speaker at the 2016 Canadian Celiac Association Conference in St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada. In a day of almost 24 hours of travel, I traveled from San Jose, California all the way to the easternmost point of North America for this conference.

In 2015, I organized a gluten-free blogger Meetup in Paris, France. I connected with six women over a gluten-free meal. We all met through the internet and had gluten-free living in common. I have kept in touch with some of those women to this day.

In 2018, I made gluten-free dumplings with the gluten-free Singapore Meetup group all the way in Asia. We shared food, shared snacks, and shared laughs more than 10,000 miles from my home. This was truly one of my most favorite global gluten-free experiences.

Cross-Country Celiac

I have moved across the country twice in the past decade. The first move was from NYC to California with my then boyfriend. The second move was from California to NYC with my now husband (and a soon-to-be baby on board!) Both times I moved, I drove across the country and ate gluten-free the entire time. It wasn’t always easy driving in the middle of nowhere and looking for gluten-free food, but it was worth it. We live in a beautiful country and I didn’t realize the sheer size of this country until I drove across it!

BiCoastal Celiac Support

I am the founding organizer of the NYC Celiac Disease Meetup group and have been involved with this group for 20 years. When I relocated to California in 2016, I started the Santa Cruz Celiac group. Sharing my support and lifelong personal experience with the celiac communities on both coasts has been a tremendous highlight.

I was also an active member of the Celiac Community Foundation of Northern California during my time on the west coast. During this time, I volunteered twice on check-in day at Camp Celiac at Camp Arroyo in Livermore, California. I was so excited for all of those campers and also slightly jealous that I couldn’t stay for a week of camp!

Founder of the Celiac Travel Facebook Group

I started the Celiac Travel Facebook group in 2018 as a way to connect with other gluten-free travelers from across the globe. Today, that group now has a whopping 39,000 members making it the largest gluten-free travel related group on the platform! And a special thank you to my co-admins: Paige, Laura, and Ashley! They help me keep the huge group running.

GlutenFreelancer Consulting

In 2014, I quit corporate America and started working for myself as a freelance consultant. I was feeling clever when I named my business GlutenFreelancer.

My business initially began with consulting for small gluten-free businesses and restaurants. Gluten-Free Globetrotter helped me build my network, my credibility, and my confidence to branch out on my own. I’ve had some really exciting professional opportunities over the years. My work has evolved beyond to social media management to include highlights like trade show project management, ghost writing for favorite brands, management of influencer campaigns, and more. I have expanded my portfolio beyond the gluten-free niche and have retained long-term, multi-year clients. I still cannot believe I have been working for myself for a whole decade!

Traveling Around the World

I’ve lost track of all of my travels since the launch of this blog. I’ve been to Asia twice, Europe at least three times, drove across the USA twice, the Caribbean multiple times and I still have so much more to see. To date, I have been to 38 states, 25 countries, and always 100% gluten-free. At the top of my gluten-free travel bucket list: An African safari, a trip to South America, and Greece and Croatia.

Invaluable Celiac Connections

The one thing that has absolutely not changed at all since I launched Gluten-Free Globetrotter 13 years ago is my mission to help others with celiac disease. I never started this website to get famous or to earn millions. Heck, being an influencer and TikTok weren’t even a thing when I launched this website. I simply started my website to share my lifelong experience of living with celiac disease and my love for traveling the world. If I could help just one person navigate a new celiac diagnosis and encourage them to travel, then I feel like I accomplished what I sought out to do. I can confidently say that I have reached thousands of people by sharing my story.

In the past few months, I met two women that have truly reminded me why I created this website.

Both of these women had daughters diagnosed with celiac disease at a young age and felt lost after the diagnosis, very much like my own mother in the 1980s.

Both of these women found my website and have followed along since the beginning.

Both of these women took their children’s’ diagnoses and turned it into something positive.

Andrea Tucker, founder of Baltimore Gluten-Free and the Gluten-Free News podcast, and Stacy Malinow, founder of Bliss Pastries, meeting both of you has really touched my (sometimes weary) heart in ways you could never imagine. Hearing that I not only helped you feel less alone, but also gave you confidence in the celiac world has reinforced my faith in the gluten-free community. I am so happy to have met you both and to now call you my friends.

Funny enough, I met both Andrea and Stacy at Modern Bread and Bagel in New York City on different days but with the same delicious bagels!

Authentically Me

Last, but certainly not least, I know this website has helped me develop myself as a person. I am very much a “what you see is what you get” person.

Maybe it is because I am a native New Yorker who has no time for BS.

Or maybe it is because I know what it feels like to be utterly alone in the gluten-free world from an early age.

But from day one, I have been nothing but honest and authentic on my website, through my social media, and in real life. I know I am not everyone’s cup of tea and that is fine with me. I am true to myself, I care deeply about the people that I connect with, and I am helping others navigate the gluten-free and celiac world. That is all that really matters.