Hello!
My name is Maria DiManna and I am a nature, adventure and travel photographer, and content creator. I am currently based in New England while I build out my van, and plan on hitting the road in 2023.
Growing up I always thought it was so cool that my grandparents were nomads, traveling the country in their fifth-wheel since before I was even born. Me and my siblings used to spend summers with them exploring the country, and looking back I can remember how much I loved living on the road. Every morning we would squeeze in around their small dinette and make cinnamon sugar toast before opening the door to wherever was home that day.
My desire to travel far and wide never left me as I got older, and was the driving force behind my decision to pack up my belongings after graduating high school and move to Spain for college. I lived in Madrid for a year and was lucky enough to have the opportunity to travel around Europe, exploring places like, Portugal, Italy, Holland, and France.
When it was time to come home, I wasn’t ready to move back to the New England area. I decided to transfer to the University of Colorado at Boulder and attend their College of Media, Communication and Information. I had always wanted to be a journalist and make a difference in the world through storytelling, and I couldn’t image a more beautiful place to pursue that dream than the foothills of Boulder.
When I graduated in 2012 the job market for newly graduated journalists was less than ideal, but since I was in a relationship at that time I decided to stay in Colorado. It was up to me to find a different path to storytelling and I found that in marketing. I have spent the better part of the last decade building a career for myself in marketing, heading up marketing for companies in both the legal and SaaS spaces.
Around the end of 2019 I found myself looking within, after spending years spinning from anxiety and OCD. I was working so hard to build my career, but I never took any time to do the things I wanted to or to be present in my life. I made a vow that New Years that I would get back to traveling, being outside, and focusing on finding ways to ground myself, be more present and alive for lack of a better word. I had felt hollow for a long time before I made that decision.
It didn’t happen overnight. It took making deliberate choices and a lot of hard work to make that come true. I found an amazing therapist who taught me the importance of your career serving you as much as you serve your career - before then I was finding myself burnt out, and now I have balance and get to still build an awesome career I’m proud of while also building a life I’m proud of.
Over the last two years my life has transformed in so many ways. I have learned the importance of drinking enough water and meditating every morning. (Seriously, I am a better human being when I do it.) I have discovered I am strong enough to deal with my anxiety by naming it and facing it head on so it can pass over me. I have rediscovered my passion for photography and creation, something that truly puts me in a state of flow unlike anything else. I started going outside again, and traveling, and now I can’t stop - and why even try to? Instead I’m self-converting a van and hitting the road so I can continue to travel, hike, camp, explore, and experience new things.
I’m definitely not sure where this road will take me, but something I’ve learned to embrace in the last few years is the unknown path before you. It’s full of endless opportunity and all it takes is to begin.
