Off the Grid

Stefanie, a feisty, risky, young professional, has three main passions in life: altruism, adventure, and international travel. She lives her life by pushing her boundaries and engaging her passions as much as possible. Despite working lucrative jobs that pay a whopping $12/hour, Stefanie managed to fund travels spanning six continents, all fifty states, and over 80 countries by her late twenties. She slept on train station floors, worked on a farm in Australia in exchange for food and accommodation, and lived as a volunteer in a roach-infested shack in Dominican Republic. Stefanie's love for adventure has led her to participate in exciting, thrill-seeking activities from swimming with great white sharks to bungee jumping over Victoria Falls. Her love for adventure has also led her to sitting bottom-less and spread eagle on a hospital bed in Thailand covered in third- degree burns after a failed attempt to jump through a burning ring of fire. But that's okay- Stefanie is used to being the Murphy's Law of traveling. She has encountered severe dehydration on a New Zealand road trip, been chased by bed bugs in Australia, set off a bomb scare at LAX after a battle with a skunk, experienced altitude sickness hiking to the basecamp of Mt. Everest without training (after she fired her guide ), survived a deadly, 8.0 earthquake in Peru, sprained her ankle hiking an active volcano in Guatemala, and fended off leaches and rats in Malaysia. Stefanie, always the adventurer, finds herself studying serial killers in Pretoria, starting her own disaster relief campaign to provide aid to earthquake victims she interviewed in Haiti, and winning a naked cliff diving competition in Greece. She encounters many foreign men along the way, often acting like a reckless, drunken college sorority girl. Off The Grid is a collection of short stories detailing these travel adventures.