Lauren David is a Chilean-American freelance writer. Born and raised in the SF Bay Area to a Chilean father and Canadian mother, she’s accustomed to different perspectives and ways of approaching life. As an adult, she is continually uncovering the cultural components, their undercurrents ,and how growing up with immigrant parents from different cultures has shaped her, her family and how she relates and interacts in the world.
She lived in Basque Country in Northern Spain for six years. She has since traded incredible gastronomy and gray skies for blue skies most of the year and warm yet humid weather in Catalunya.
She has a B.A. degree in Cultural Anthropology from San Francisco State University. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, HuffPost, Allrecipes, Better Homes & Gardens, Budget Travel, Business Insider, Fatherly, Foodprint, Fodor’s, Greatist, HowStuffWorks, MindBodyGreen, Oyster, The Healthy, The Kitchn, Reader’s Digest, Simply Recipes, SmarterTravel, Southern Living, The Spruce Eats, Verywell Fit and more.
She prefers slow travel and enjoys having a better cultural understanding of a place rather than merely checking destinations off a list. She’s visited around thirty countries and counting.
At nineteen years old, she took off on her first solo trip to study abroad in London, which inspired a trip to South Africa. Five years later, after saving money and gaining courage, she embarked on an incredible adventure- traveling by local transport from Tanzania to South Africa with a one-way ticket. Leaving with a 60-liter backpack, a guidebook, and her first night accommodation booked, she arrived in Tanzania overwhelmed and excited by the possibilities. Eight months later she made it to Cape Town and added another month of exploring before flying home. She chronicled her experiences on her blog, Roamingtheworld, to share her life on the road with family, friends, and strangers. Note: This was long before everyone had smartphones and social media was just beginning.
Her previous jobs have included: Farmers Market Manager, Content Writer for a Non-profit food organization, Garden Educator for K-12th grade youth, and an international English as a Second Language Teacher.
She enjoys leisurely road trips, spending time by the ocean, chilling in hammocks, experimenting in the garden and tending to her growing houseplant collection and her balcony garden.