I thought I'd feel at home in Washington, DC, but I didn't love the culture and wanted more nature.

To find my next home, I visited Taos, Santa Fe, Denver, and Long Beach and spent a month in each.

As soon as I visited San Diego, I knew that the balance of nature and community was perfect for me.

Last year I drove across the United States solo and spent six months exploring the outdoors. I hit many of the outdoor classics in the West – Bryce Canyon, Zion (the “adult Disneyland” for adventurers), Moab, and Arches in Utah; Red Rock Canyon State Park in Nevada, Joshua Tree and Anza Borrego in California.

Of all these places, Death Valley was quite the unexpected gem. Coming out of crowded parks in Utah and Colorado, Death Valley is blissfully quiet. Death Valley is the largest US national park outside of Alaska, encompassing over 3,000 square miles of desert in California and Nevada. You can drive for hours without seeing a single car or human, just endless expanses of sand and rock with nothing man-made in sight. Bouncing up and down on these desert roads, you can imagine yourself to be a space explorer, or perhaps an extra in “Mad Max: Fury Road.”

Journalist Natashya Gutierrez has done field reporting from the frontlines of Afghanistan, scam centers in Cambodia and drug trafficking routes in Colombia.

She shares her wildest travel story and how she stays optimistic in a difficult industry in this interview.