When I was a child I had a bucket list that stretched from the ceiling to the floor of my lime green tropic-inspired bedroom. This bucket list contained items from around the world, even though I only knew two people who had ever traveled outside the United States. I grew up raised by two of the most incredible parents - but my mother struggled with addiction and my father lost his job in the 2008 crash.

By the time I was 18, I sat in my empty childhood room, days away from losing our house and becoming homeless, and stared at the tattered bucket list still hanging loosely on the wall. Oh, how far those dreams seemed.

But my father saved everything he could to help me afford a plane ticket to Australia that winter to visit a friend who was a foreign exchange at my high school. We got my passport, vastly overpaid for my airline ticket, and I flew to the other side of the world for the first time by myself in the winter of 2011.

I started attending community college and working a couple of jobs to save money for travel. At first, all I could afford were road trips to the Great Lakes, sometimes rolling quarters for gas money and living off ice cream cones and pizza. But it was travel & I was exploring for the first time on my own, loving every moment of these new experiences.

Shalee Wanders was born in 2014 when I transferred to Michigan State University. After learning to travel on a budget and frequently getting asked by friends on Facebook how I could afford to travel, I began posting budgeting blogs to show that travel didn't have to be expensive and only for the middle and high class.

Ten years since my maiden trip, I've knocked off 39 countries and 49 states and live in my favorite little mountain town of Cody, Wyoming, with my husband, Josh, and our two adventure cats, Maverick & Aspen. I still pinch myself at this life I live. Thank you for being here long enough to read this little section about me. It's this incredible online community that has allowed Shalee Wanders to take me to places I never dreamt of.

I don't remember everything on the bucket list that hung in my room for so many years, nor do I care. Because this life, this right here, no list could compare.