Kristen Womble: The Creative Consultant

Guest: Kristen Womble
Career: Writing Coach, Editor, Publishing Consultant
Based: ½ Year in DC and ½ year Nomadic
Instagram: @kristenwomble_wanderer and @chapterkew
Website: https://passkeypublishing.com

Episode Description
Kristen Womble spent years living divided. There was travel Kristen and there was home Kristen, and they didn't talk to each other. She'd studied abroad in France at twenty, and when she came back, her friends made jokes. The study-abroad clichés were merciless. So she learned to hide it. She kept her travels private, her home life separate, maintaining two distinct identities that never quite fit together.

The more she hid, the more fractured she felt. She was being dishonest with the people she cared about most. There was this gap between who she actually was and who she was pretending to be, and that gap was painful. Then one day she made a choice: she decided to stop hiding. She decided to be brutally honest about who she was, what she was doing, where she was going. And something remarkable happened. The division started to heal.

Now she's a writing coach and publishing consultant who travels roughly a third to half the year whilst maintaining a home base in Washington, D.C. that exists purely for her personal life. She has Sunday family dinners. She plays on a weekly soccer team. She's built what most digital nomads spend years trying to achieve: true integration between both sides of her life. Not a compromise between them. Not choosing one over the other. But actually having both, fully, without the shame or the secrecy. This is what freedom looks like when you stop dividing yourself in half.

Timestamps

00:00-00:39 Introduction by Ibi

00:39-01:06 Ibi's introduction to Kristen's journey

01:06-01:29 Kristen's current lifestyle, writing coach, travel balance

01:29-01:38 Closing intro statement

01:38-03:20 How long nomadic, started 2022, now has home base in D.C.

03:20-04:10 D.C. home base, metro system, politics, distance from city centre

04:10-05:00 Pickup truck tangent and vehicles in American cities

05:00-06:00 [Main topic: Career path and consulting background]

06:00-07:00 [Main topic: Writing and publishing consulting]

07:00-08:30 [Main topic: Unstructured travel beginning, first solo trip]

08:30-10:00 [Main topic: Setting boundaries for first unstructured travel]

10:00-11:30 [Main topic: Identity crisis and siloing experience]

11:30-13:00 [Main topic: Study abroad experience in France]

13:00-14:30 [Main topic: Communication challenges with people back home]

14:30-16:00 [Main topic: Breaking the division, becoming transparent]

16:00-17:00 [Main topic: Benefits of being honest about travel]

17:00-18:00 [Main topic: Nomadic mindset and meeting new people]

18:00-19:30 [Main topic: Balance between travel and home base needs]

19:30-21:00 [Main topic: Family dinners and soccer team importance]

21:00-22:00 [Main topic: Community and roots whilst traveling]

22:00-23:30 [Main topic: When she got home base, end of 2024]

23:30-25:00 [Main topic: Career as location independent consultant]

25:00-26:30 [Main topic: Freelancing journey and business building]

26:30-28:00 [Main topic: Risk taking from position of safety and security]

28:00-29:00 [Main topic: Luck and timing in career]

29:00-30:00 [Main topic: Age and starting travel young]

30:00-31:00 [Main topic: Being open to opportunities whilst traveling]

31:00-32:30 [Main topic: Future goals and sustainability]

32:30-34:00 [Main topic: Advice for aspiring nomadic consultants]

34:00-36:48 [Closing discussion and final thoughts]

About This Podcast
Real conversations with successful digital nomads who've built sustainable location-independent income. Strategic insights on how they transitioned, what income streams they built, and what they wish they'd known earlier. No travel tips or lifestyle fluff.

Host
Ibi Malik helps ambitious professionals transition to nomadic careers without income sacrifice.

To watch the video follow this link: [TO BE FILLED]

Follow for weekly episodes featuring professionals who've successfully built nomadic income streams.

Episode length: ~36 minutes
Published: 26th June 2026
Episode #16

The Writer Consultant Who United Her Nomadic and Home Life

I'm sitting in my usual spot here in Chateau Co-Living, talking to someone who has figured out something most digital nomads spend years struggling with: how to have both worlds without sacrificing either one. Kristen Womble is a writer and a writing consultant, and she's built a life that doesn't require her to choose between the freedom of travel and the grounding of home. She spends a third to half her year travelling, the rest in Washington, D.C., with her family and her weekly soccer team. Her clients don't know which continent she's on. Her home base isn't business-driven. And she's remarkably at peace with the whole arrangement.

But it wasn't always like this. For years, she lived divided. There was travel Kristen and there was home Kristen, and they never quite talked to each other. She was afraid to tell people back in the States about her travels because she'd learned early on, at twenty years old, returning from a semester in France, that people didn't want to hear about it. They made jokes. They rolled their eyes. The memes about study-abroad people were unforgiving.

"I felt siloed. Like there was a travel Kristen and a US Kristen, and they were just separate people."

So she kept them separate. For years. Until she realised that the division was costing her more than the honesty ever would.

The Choice That Defines Her

Kristen hasn't published a book yet. But she's a published author in every way that matters. She's helped dozens of writers publish theirs. She studied publishing business models for her master's thesis. She understands the landscape so completely that she can take complex information and break it into chunks people actually need. She's a writing coach, an editor, a publishing consultant.

And she chose this over writing her own.

"What I love more is helping other people to live their creative lives. I feel like that's my larger purpose now is to not necessarily write well, but to show people it can be done when I do it myself, but to also bring a lot of people with me as I do it."

This might sound like she settled. It's the opposite. She's clear about why this matters to her. Society tells writers they can't make a living doing what they love. Kristen's job is to prove that wrong, not just for herself, but for everyone she works with. Empowerment and confidence, that's what she's building for her clients. Some come knowing they want traditional publishing. Some come knowing they want to self-publish. Some just want to finish the damn book. But Kristen's target for all of them never changes: making them feel capable and in control of their creative decisions.

She's still young, and as she says, everyone is on their own timeline. For now, she's doing something that fulfils her more than her own manuscript ever could.

The Siloing That Taught Her Everything

Kristen's location independence journey started at eighteen. She went to university sixteen hours away from her hometown of Albuquerque, constantly travelling between two places. By twenty, she was studying abroad in France. By her mid-twenties, she had a master's degree from London. She was always in motion, but it was always structured. University semesters, study abroad programmes, graduate school.

But here's what she learned that first time abroad: people don't always celebrate your growth. When she returned from France, her friends made jokes. People didn't want to hear about her experience. The cultural narrative around study-abroad students was one of mockery. People who couldn't shut up about how amazing their semester was, how it changed them, how they'd never be the same. She came back excited to share, and instead she hit a wall of dismissiveness.

So she learned to hide it. For years.

When she finally started full-time nomading in 2022, she was still doing this. Still splitting herself in half. Still afraid to tell people back home what she was actually doing with her life. She felt like they wouldn't understand. That they'd judge. That she'd be that person again, the annoying traveller bragging about her lifestyle.

"There was a time where I didn't want to talk about my travels because it always brought a lot of questions and it put me in the spotlight a lot, especially with people who don't travel."

And the irony was: the more she hid it, the more divided she felt. The more she pretended to be a normal American who just stayed in one place, the more she felt like she was lying. She wasn't being authentic with the people she cared about. And that distance. That was real. That was painful.

But something shifted. She grew up. She cared less about what people thought. She started being honest about who she was and what she was doing. She told people about her travels not as bragging, but as truth. As part of her story. And something remarkable happened: the people who mattered understood. They cared. They asked real questions. They wanted to know her actual life.

"Once I started talking about it more, that changed. I prefer it that way, because before it was siloed, like you said, there was a travel Kristen and there was like a US Kristen."

The moment she stopped hiding half her life, she stopped feeling divided.

The Trade-Off That Wasn't

After three years of full-time nomading, Kristen noticed something. She was missing things. Real things. Her brother and sister-in-law and nephew had Sunday family dinners. She had a local soccer team in Alexandria that she played with, seeing the same people three times a week. There were rhythms to home that she couldn't replicate while constantly moving.

But she also wasn't ready to stop travelling. The curiosity that had driven her since university, that question of what else is out there, hadn't gone away. So instead of choosing, she did something smarter: she minimised the trade-offs.

She got a home base in Washington, D.C. at the end of 2024. But here's the crucial part: it's not for her business. All her clients are remote. Her income doesn't depend on being in D.C. Her home base is purely for her personal life. For family dinners on Sundays. For that soccer team. For having a community she sees on a regular basis.

And she still travels a third to half the year. She's not giving that up. She's just no longer choosing between all or nothing.

"I'm trying to find a way to minimise those trade-offs. There's always a trade off. But I'm trying to find a way to minimise them."

The position she's built is one that most digital nomads spend years trying to work toward. A home base she can afford. The freedom to travel extensively. And the clarity that the home base exists purely for personal reasons, not business ones.

The Risk That Required Safety

None of this would have happened without COVID. She graduated with her master's in London in January 2020, visa about to expire. The plan was straightforward: move back to the States, get a job in publishing (probably in New York, which she didn't want), settle down, follow the traditional path.

Then the world shut down.

Publishing jobs froze. No one was hiring. New York seemed impossible anyway. And suddenly the entire plan she'd been building toward for years was irrelevant. So she did something unexpected. She decided to try freelancing.

The timing was perfect. She had no overhead. She was living with her parents. She had a safety net. And she had just spent two years studying publishing business models. She understood the industry deeply. She started taking freelance editing jobs as a temporary measure while she figured things out.

The freelancing worked so well she never did apply for a full-time job.

What's interesting is that she wasn't waiting for this moment. She didn't predict the trend or plan strategically. She just saw an opportunity and took it from a position of safety. Because she had parents who would let her live with them, she could take the risk. Because she had no overhead, she could charge fairly and build a real business instead of underselling herself.

"I think I'm lucky to have never been in a risky position and therefore to be able to take risks."

This is the paradox that most people miss: you take the biggest risks when you feel the safest. When you have a net beneath you, you're more willing to jump. When you have security, you can be brave.

From Divided to Integrated

What Kristen has built isn't just a business. It's a life that's finally honest. No more splitting herself into travel Kristen and home Kristen. No more hiding half of who she is. She's one person now, living a life that genuinely integrates both sides of what she values.

She values curiosity and exploration, so she travels a third to half the year. She values community and roots, so she has Sunday family dinners and a weekly soccer team. And she values her work, so she's built a fully remote consulting practice that lets her help writers and creatives live the lives they want.

The woman who started wondering "what else is out there?" at eighteen has finally learned that the answer doesn't require her to abandon everything else. She can explore and belong. She can travel and have roots. She can help others find their voice while building her own.

She stopped living in halves.

Kristen Womble is a writer, writing coach, editor, and publishing consultant. She helps creatives navigate publishing routes, develop their manuscripts, and build confident careers. You can hear her full story about uniting her two lives, learning to communicate home, and building a business that works from anywhere in: [EPISODE URL]

Digital nomads and location-independent professionals featured on Ibi's Digital Nomad Stories podcast share insights into building sustainable remote careers. Listen to all episodes: www.ibimalik.com/podcasts/ibis-digital-nomad-stories