Published: April 24, 2008 02:29 pm            

Kelly Stevens: Traveling the world because she can

She once aspired to work in politics. Instead, Lockport native Kelly Stevens turned herself into a free-spirited globetrotter.

Earlier this month, Stevens was enjoying an extended stay in Australia. Before that, she’d been to Fiji, New Zealand, the Cook Islands and, before that, took a six-month road trip through the United States and Canada.

Stevens and her longtime companion, Allentown, Pa., native Billy Zellner, started their journey in August 2007 and they won’t end it until they’re satisfied it’s time to go back to their “normal” lives, she said by e-mail.

“We don’t have kids yet, we have the money and we’re relatively young. The timing was good because you can never tell what the future holds,” she wrote.

Stevens, 31, grew up on Price Street and made a name for herself locally in the early 1990s in three Lockport High School sports, soccer, basketball and track. She went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in history from the University of Pennsylvania and originally set out to work in politics or keep studying history.

Life didn’t turn out like Stevens planned. The hard reality of her Ivy League education — no scholarships — meant she faced a mountain of debt to pay off after college, so the studious young woman took a job in sales.

Stevens went to work for Internap, an Internet technology company with clients including MySpace, Disney and Activision, and made enough money to pay off the debts and then some. She and Zellner, last a travel coordinator for FOX Sports, built the nest egg that’s afforded them the chance to quit work and criss-cross the globe.

“I really loved my job and it was hard to leave,” Stevens said. “Fortunately (Billy and I) made wise investments and saved enough money that we don’t have to work along the way and can take our time figuring out ... what we want to do when we get back to the states.”

Stevens and Zellner are chronicling their travels online, at twoglobalnomads.blogspot.com, and their blog is written like a casual conversation with friends. It’s sometimes revelatory and frequently hilarious.

Of a scene on a tour boat in Milford Sound, New Zealand, at the point when riders huddled to reach for the splash of a coming waterfall, Stevens wrote, “They were huddled so close together and so close to us, that we can’t imagine anyone possibly being closer unless they were having sex with us. When they all dispersed, Billy needed a cigarette and Kelly has been walking like John Wayne ever since. We weren’t sure if his particular waterfall is what made them act like this or if that happened at every waterfall. ...”

In six months around North America last year, Stevens and Zellner logged 30,000 miles in 44 states and four provinces, and reported “(no) accidents or tickets along the way.”

One of the rules of traveling, she says, is to partake of local dining whenever possible. That’s meant trying cioppino in San Francisco, salumi in Seattle, pasties in Michigan — and rigatoni at DeFlippo’s Restaurant in Lockport, where she and Zellner spent a “whirlwind” visiting family and friends last fall.

Stevens says her global journey is dedicated partly to the late Jo Anne Stevens, her grandma, whose grace and worldliness always impressed her.

“I always looked up to my grandma because she was so intelligent, well-read, confident, thoughtful and loving,” Stevens said. “She would do anything for her family and friends and often put their needs in front of hers. It’s rare to find someone that altruistic.”

While they’re traveling, Stevens said, she and Zellner are on the lookout for volunteer opportunities that might plant them somewhere for weeks, months or longer. They’re especially interested in Nepal, Africa, Central and South America. They have no fixed date for ending their world tour.



• Who: Kelly Stevens

• Where She is now: Australia

• Reconnect with HER at: www.twoglobalnomads.blogspot.com or e-mail kelly12@gmail.com

        

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