Is this a travel blog or a sustainability blog?

It’s both! Wanting to see the world and caring about keeping it in good shape? I think those are pretty compatible interests.

As it turns out, I’m not alone. A lot of you, my readers, have written to say that you found me via one topic and then stuck around for the other. Thank you for that!

Here’s what I’m not about:

I write about sustainability, but I don’t believe in trying to be perfect, or preaching down to people. While most of the Italian recipes I share are meatless (and damn tasty), I’m not vegan. And when I cross the ocean, I don’t do it in a sailboat.

What I do believe in is trying to do the best we can, while still living our lives and getting out and seeing this beautiful world. 

Trying to do better is what most of my sustainable product reviews are about. I believe it’s vitally important to find ways to reduce our individual environmental footprints, and I’m passionate about supporting the businesses (usually small businesses that real people pour their lives into) that makes that possible. 

Why I Started Tilted Map

I suppose it started because I’ve always loved to write, and to travel. I earned my Bachelor’s in Journalism, then moved to China, where I started my first, very personal, blog.

So I had already been living abroad and travel blogging for years when I went back to school in Italy to get my masters in Sustainable Business and Energy.

When I finished, I wanted to combine the two – travel and sustainability. That’s how Tilted Map began.

To me, “sustainable travel” isn’t just about eco-lodges in the rainforest. There are more sustainable ways to do every type of travel.

A lot of dollars flow through the travel industry. One of my biggest goals is to help readers spend their travel budgets with companies that operate ethically, and do their best to protect the environment. (Because in every industry – airlines, hotel chains, cruise ships and beyond – not all companies are the same.)

If you have questions or suggestions, I’d love to hear them!

Whether it’s a brand to test, a book to read, or a destination that’s doing something uniquely sustainable. I might not have the answer, but I spend a lot of time testing products, calling experts, and tracking down answers for this blog, so I love to hear what’s on readers’ minds. (It is my full-time job, after all.)

The China & Italy Angles

So, far I’ve lived abroad for five years of my life, including three in Italy. (In fact, I started blogging when I was living in China for a year. I left after college, with a job teaching English to 300 university students, a side-hustle as a freelance magazine writer… and just one word of Mandarin. If you want some simple, fun reading, my old posts about China are some of my favorites.)

But when I was in Italy, I fell in love with a lot of aspects of Italian culture. (And fell in love with an Italian! We got married in Milan.) So in addition to sustainable living and sustainable travel, I love to write about cultural differences between the US and Italy, which, of course, includes a lot about food culture.

But since I’ve found ways to travel to more than 40 countries since college, what you’ll find here isn’t all about Italy, China or about eco-friendly travel. It’s about exploring the world! You’ll find stories and photos to scratch your wanderlust, tales of adventure and of culture shock, joy, frustration, love and, hopefully, inspiration. (Even for when you can’t travel.)

More About Ketti

I grew up in the mountains of Northwest Montana and have always been a nature lover – that’s part of why I’ve been writing about sustainability and the environment, as well as travel, ever since I started this blog.

Along with having lived in Italy and China, I’ve also briefly held down a desk job in France (during which I time I wrote only one post about the France, and it’s about the toilet paper). Before all that, I spent a semester studying about in Spain, and some summers guiding students around Nicaragua and the Caribbean. And had healthy stints as a nomad with a backpack in between.

(My tips for how to move abroad are all in this post.)

Finally, what’s with the name?

Tilted Map means a different way of looking at something familiar.

I’ve loved staring at maps for as long as I can remember, and in my my apartment in Milan, I had a huge, wooden map of the world that took up an entire wall. It was handmade by a friend, and I spent hours looking at that thing. But no matter how many times I tried to straighten it, it was always… Tilted.