Meet Sherry Ott

Today we’d like to introduce you to Sherry Ott.

Sherry, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
At 36 years old, I quit my corporate IT job in 2006 and said goodbye to blackberries (no smart phones yet in 2006!), meetings, and New York City. My original intention was to simply take a career break and come back after a year and determine next steps. I traveled around the world to 23 countries, finding a new exciting world outside of my office walls. I captured all of this on my little website Ottsworld.com. My eyes were opened to possibilities and the beauty of simplicity; I didn’t want to go back to my old corporate existence. Instead, I sold my possessions and relocated to Vietnam for one year in order to keep traveling. To make money I taught ESL, sold photography, and started really working at building a blogging and writing presence.

Since leaving Vietnam in 2009, I have stayed on the road and have built up the Ottsworld Travel Blog to be one of the top travel blogs. I also do freelance writing and photography, do public speaking, and consult/participate on social media marketing campaigns as a travel influencer. Last year I was named a top influencer to follow in OprahMag.com. While doing all of this, I continued to travel around the world solo without a home and spent 11 years living out of a suitcase as a digital nomad.

In 2017, I finally settled into a home base again in Denver; my nomadic lifestyle needed to come to an end. I continue to travel from my home base in Denver. I probably travel 75% of the year. And when I am home, I foster kittens! Now during COVID Quarantine I finished an eBook called Where to Go and When giving people inspirational ideas on unique places to travel each month of the year.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Since I was one of the original travel bloggers starting way back in 2006, it’s been a long road. In the beginning blogger wasn’t even in our vocabulary. We never imagined that we could have made a career out of it! I had to hold on for a long time before I ever even saw a penny from blogging! As budget slowly started to move from print to digital, I finally started getting work. The industry though is constantly changing because it is so young yet. But I’ve been able to roll with all of the changes and still remain relevant.

Ottsworld.com – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
I am best known for doing adventure travel. I hiked the Annapurna Circuit with my father, drove 10,000 miles from London to Mongolia in the Mongol Rally, walked across Spain on the Camino de Santiago, kayaked in Antarctica, and drove an auto-rickshaw across India for charity. I seek out epic adventures to intriguing places in order to challenge me and inspire people to overcome their fears and reap the benefits of travel.

I am also known for doing a travel series called the Niece Project. As a woman who never wanted kids, I wanted to form bonds with my six nieces. After all, they would be my lifelines as I age. I decided to stop getting them gifts for their birthdays or holidays or even graduation. I didn’t want to bring more meaningless stuff into their world, but instead I wanted them to see the world. I wanted to awake their wanderlust and thirst to experience new cultures and ways of doing things. I would give them the gift of travel. I told each of them that once they turned 16 years old, I would take them anywhere in the world they wanted to go. Originally my thought was that it would give them something that I never had – a passport and a chance to travel internationally. However, once I announced this mission and it settled in, I realized that it was giving them more than that – it gave them the chance to make their own decision. It got them thinking about the world and considering their own desires. I traveled with each of my six nieces over the course of the last ten years and wrote about each trip and what I learned from it. I have inspired many other women who don’t have children to do the same; that makes me incredibly proud!

If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
I’ve would’ve learned more about the technical pieces of running a blog such as SEO (search engine optimization). Blogging isn’t just about writing, it’s about running a website, marketing, networking, and writing!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.ottsworld.com/
• Email: [email protected]
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ottsworld/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OttsworldTravel/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/ottsworld
• Other: https://www.pinterest.com/ottsworld/

Suggest a story: VoyageDenver is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.