About

Welcome to A Bigger World! My name is Bridget DeMouy. I first remember having the itch for travel as a little girl standing in my grandfather’s office in suburban Washington, D.C. He had a world map on the wall above his desk with colored push-pins in each of the places he had visited. “I want to go there!” I thought. There…there…everywhere.

In the years that followed, I lived abroad twice—as a young girl in Paris and as a university student in Glasgow. As an adult, I lived in several cities and towns in the U.S. When I had the money, I traveled once or twice a year, though rarely for more than two weeks at a time.

I called New York City home for more than 18 years. I loved the grit, energy, and diversity, but I tired of the concrete and crowds. And I still had that itch to experience other places both inside and outside the U.S.

I heard of people who traveled for a year or more. In March 2015, I set out to be one of them, flying on a one-way ticket to Windhoek, Namibia. That turned into 21 months of solo travel. In 2020, I will travel solo again for another six months. 

While I planned many things for that first batch of long travels, I also had no idea what would happen. I wanted to explore the two regions I was most curious about—Africa and the Middle East. I wanted the freedom to roam and to experience the world—and myself—from a different vantage point. What new ideas for my work and my life might surface in that open space?

I started A Bigger World as a way to connect with people while traveling, as well as a way to begin writing again. I had worked in journalism for a brief period more than 15 years before I left New York. Through years of reading contracts at a television network, writing lingered in my mind. The blog, I imagined, could be a path to creativity.

A Bigger World has evolved into a place for stories of people, food, art and natural spaces around the world. In particular, I have a passion for putting a human face on the parts of the globe that are either feared or simply forgotten. I also share about the honest ups and downs of traveling solo and adapting to new cultures. And I offer some of the nuts and bolts travel information that I find helpful when I am researching a place.

My goals are to offer narratives that are meaningful or perhaps just entertaining; to be a resource for fellow wanderers; and to give readers a greater sense of our shared connections with people and places around the world.

Please add your thoughts and experiences in the post comments. And if you have travel questions or suggestions for a “forgotten” place to explore, please message me. I would love to hear from you!

Until the next time —

Bridget