I Run Like A Girl

Hey there! My name is Charlotte and I’m so glad you are here!

I’m a 20-something-year-old gal currently living in San Francisco, and I lived in NYC for 6 years before that. I created I Run Like A Girl in 2016 when I was living in NYC to share my journey training for different races, and since then this has grown to a blog I update once a week to document my daily life as well as my travel adventures. Between my busy life and the roller-coaster that is my 20s, there’s never a dull moment around here!

I named this blog “I Run Like A Girl” because no matter where I am in life, my early love for running has always fueled a passion for living an active and (mostly) healthy life. I also believe the name reflects my million-thoughts-a-minute writing style and my obsession for chasing adventure.

My story

I was born and raised in the beautiful Hudson Valley in upstate New York, and so I’ve always been drawn to the outdoors and being active. 

I went to college in NYC, and during my senior year, I spontaneously decided to do a solo road trip to Northern California during my spring break. I fell in love with California and especially San Francisco.

After college, I wanted to travel more but didn’t have much money, so I worked on farms in Portugal and Ireland while backpacking through Western Europe for two months. That trip changed my life and planted the travel bug in me! 

After this trip, I lived in NYC for 2 more years. It was a lot of work, a lot of partying, and a LOT of running (6 marathons, 12 half marathons, 2 triathlons!)…and behold, I Run Like A Girl was born. 🙂

I quickly got burnt out from my work-hard-play-hard lifestyle and felt like I needed a change from NYC. I always had my love for SF in the back of my head, so in 2017 I packed my bags and bought a one-way plane ticket to SF where I started my new life! I didn’t know anyone out there or had any life plan, but it was the best decision I ever made. The people I met and the perspectives I gained have made some of the best experiences of my life. 

The following few years I continued working in SF while traveling as much as I could in my free time. Some of my favorite trips during this time: trekking through mountains in northern Thailand, riding my motorbike through rural villages in the Philippines, catching fish and cooking it over a fire with locals in Kenya, sleeping in a hammock under the stars in the Amazon Rainforest, learning to surf in Nicaragua, and climbing the tallest volcano in Guatemala.

Fast forward to 2019 – my world became even brighter when I met my current partner, Joe. We fell in love quickly and I feel so beyond lucky to have found Joe.

In 2022 – I decided to fulfill my lifelong dream of traveling the world for a year. I spent 6 months traveling solo through South and Southeast Asia, and it was the simply best thing I’ve ever done. Some highlights were: working at a hostel in the Indian Himalayas, exploring Northern Vietnam on a motorbike with my backpack strapped to the back, riding the iconic train through rice fields in Sri Lanka, chilling in a sleepy riverside town in Cambodia, camping in the jungle in Indonesia, and eating my way through Singapore and Malaysia. You can see my travel section for day-by-day recaps…I blogged everything!

After my Asia trip, Joe had a sabbatical idea of his own – so together we got an RV and road-tripped through the Southern USA for 7 months. I’m so glad we did the RV thing at this point in our lives, and I’ll always look back fondly on the time we spent together in our 23-foot trailer. 

After an adventure of a lifetime, we headed back to San Franciso to continue building our lives. I feel blessed to be back in my favorite city in the world. 🙂