Before COVID struck in 2020, Morgan MacDermaid was living her best life in the U.S. Virgin Islands. What had started as a three-month long visit had turned into a two-year stay.
“I had a wonderfully bad habit of buying a one-way ticket,” she recalls about life after college. With “little money and few plans,” she spent the first five years after graduation from Central Michigan University traveling the world.
But the more she paid attention to the news in late 2020, the more she knew it was time to get back to the mainland, and look for steady work.
And, “thanks to a pandemic, a road trip and Indeed,” she landed her first corporate role with Steam Logistics in Chattanooga. At 28, she was hired as a sales coordinator, and was quickly promoted to talent acquisitions manager.
“Steam is really where I learned about recruiting,” she says. “I did recruiting, worked on LinkedIn, reviewed resumes, and collaborated with human resources. That’s really how my skills, experience and interests came together.”
But when, years later, she had the opportunity to go sailing off the coast of Croatia, the offer was too much to resist. MacDermaid resigned from her position at Steam, took the trip, and then stayed another three months traveling Eastern Europe by car.
In January of 2024, she accepted her second position in logistics, as a senior recruiting advisor for a Chicago-based startup called Journey.
“I’ve thrown myself into the remote lifestyle,” she says.
Contributed photo / Morgan MacDermaid in the desert in Arizona.At 31, MacDermaid has visited more than 50 countries. Since starting with Journey in January, she has traveled to nine states, and continues to add more destinations to her itinerary.
In June of this year, she accepted a second job in Alaska, where she’ll be working through the summer — with plans to stay for an additional month and explore the state once that position ends.
But Chattanooga is home, she says. The city has a lot of what she’s looking for: abundant outdoor activities, a small-town feel, excellent restaurants and proximity to major airports.
As she travels and works, she shares her journies and interests with more than 33,000 followers on LinkedIn.
Her audience grew organically over the years, she says, starting with “Throwback Thursday” posts featuring travel and budgeting tips. These days, she’s added logistics and remote work to topics she likes to talk about.
But social media is literally life through a lens, she says; and balancing work, life and travel isn’t always easy. The reality is that she saves money where she can, shopping mostly at thrift stores and rarely eating out, opting instead to buy groceries and prepare meals wherever she stays.
And while the freedom to travel is a great benefit, work must take top priority.
“I am actually extremely disciplined,” says MacDermaid. “One of the things I do when I travel is maintain the time zone that I’m working in. I wake up at the same time every day. Everything I do in a day is scheduled.”
About Morgan MacDermaid
* Age: 31
* Job: Senior recruiting advisor
* Hometown: Greenville, Michigan
* Education: Degree in integrative public relations from Central Michigan University
* Interests: Reading, crosswords, puzzles, cooking, creative writing (murder mystery plays)