Next Wednesday, July 31, 2024, marks exactly 10 years since my first ever post on this blog. On that day, I was one month out from departing US soil for a journey that took me around the world over 15 months, from Reykjavik to Tokyo, and back home again. It was my dream trip—that I fully realized with my own planning and my own travel hacked budget.
Since then, I’ve worked full-time jobs in New York and Florida while documenting continued international travels to Africa, Europe, the Caribbean, and Central America and domestic travels to AZ, LA, MA, and UT. I committed to a blog post a week for the first 2.5 years of the blog. For the last 7.5 years, I’ve stayed 100% consistent in posting every other week to this blog, even through COVID-19 when travel opportunities became primarily localized to Miami and other parts of Florida.
10 years is a lot of time. I really can’t believe it’s been that long since I took that 15-month trip around the world. I think often about returning to some of the places I visited, especially New Zealand or to visit family again in Germany. Perhaps I will sometime soon! But life shifts. Five years ago, I moved to Miami marking an important change in lifestyle, career, travel, and more. Now, after 5 years living here, a new shift is coming. While there will hopefully be other news to share sometime soon, there is one big announcement I’d like to make on this 10 year anniversary of the blog. It begins with a reintroduction to me, your blog author.
So hi. This is me, and this is what is next…
Hi. My Name Is Dr. Erica J. Friedman
I go by Rikka Jayne on my travel blog of 10 years, deviatingthenorm.com. I also go by Rikka Milan, as a part of the House of Milan in the queer, subcultural Ballroom scene. But my legal name is Erica. I have a PhD in social-personality psychology, which I earned just a few months before starting this blog.
I also experience both my gender and my orientation as fluid—they are something I experience, but don’t label. I strongly identify with the experiences of trans, nonbinary, and intersex people as well as queer people in general. I welcome all pronouns—which, for me, means you can choose whatever you want to use to refer to me (they/she/he).
Ten years ago, I started using my nickname “Rikka” as a pen name in order to keep my professional life separate from my travel blog. The reason for this was connected to an experience I had in my last few years of graduate school. I previously wrote on the blog about the cyber stalker I acquired during graduate school, so I won’t go in-depth into it here. But Rikka was a protective layer for me. It didn’t work in reality (the stalker found this blog almost immediately). What it did do, however, was provide a layer of mental protection for me. I was learning to trust people, the world, and especially online spaces again. Rikka was a way for me to protect Erica.
Keeping these two parts of me separate is no longer necessary. In fact, my big announcement requires that I merge them.
Announcement: My New Business
In January of this year, I launched my first limited liability company—Deviate 2 Elevate, LLC. As the sole proprietor, this business was a long time coming because of work I was already acquiring outside my university job. I kept getting asked to give trainings or to come speak on a topic related to my work. Others kept reminding me that this was labor that deserved payment.
Queer people and other marginalized people are often exploited for their experience and their labor goes unpaid. Accepting unpaid labor makes it harder for folks who need it most to get paid for their work, especially folks of color. And so it was time for me to make my labor official—and start getting appropriately compensated for my years of experience and expertise. My hope is and was that this will help set a precedent for others who do similar education and consulting work.
When we all charge for this work, the normative expectation becomes that this work is valuable and requires payment.
I have become a well-respected leader in South Florida and beyond over the last 5 years specifically for creating welcoming and affirming spaces for LGBTQIA+ people. I carry knowledge from over 15 years of study devoted to understanding how and why we make assumptions about and harm people who do not fit a typical straight or cisgender lived experience.
I also carry practical, applied experience in creating inclusive spaces for marginalized people and educating others on how to do so effectively, too. I’ve successfully delivered this education to some of the most conservative groups (e.g., police departments and religious institutions) who emerge more compassionate and equipped to do what is needed to ensure LGBTQIA+ people are treated fairly and with respect.
I’ve learned a lot and I keep learning. But most of all, I have learned that I love this work. Educating for inclusivity is at the core of my life’s work and passions. Even this travel blog has always been about making travel more inclusive and accessible to folks who otherwise think it’s only for rich people, and to educate through my writing about cultures and ways of thinking that disrupt our assumptions about our world and its peoples.
Launching Deviate 2 Elevate, LLC
Over two years ago, I acquired my first, paying client—a national Greek organization looking to recruit and include more LGBTQIA+ students in their chapters across the country. This jump started my motivation to start my business, but I had loads of hesitations stemming from imposter syndrome and a gap in business-related knowledge to truly get started.
Last year, my university job came under threat due to anti-LGBTQ legislation in Florida, especially directed at higher education. The uncertainty of what the future held motivated me to get serious about launching my business more officially. I imagined it could provide a safety net for me, should my salaried job blow up in my face.
My therapist at the time recommended that I speak with a career coach. I invested in 6 sessions with her, and it was all I needed to gain the confidence to hit the go button.
My coach gave me the tools and information gap I needed to legally register my LLC and feel ready to launch. So, on January 12, 2024, my website went live and I told my network that I was officially accepting clients.
Deviate 2 Elevate is my training and consulting business which seeks to elevate workplaces from checking a diversity box to intentionally including and supporting LGBTQIA+ communities.
Be it employees, patients, or customers, LGBTQIA+ people are a part of the fabric of our modern society, and all workplaces need them to thrive. That’s where I come in! :)
Why Announce This Now?
I’ve been incredibly consistent for 10 years writing on this blog. I’ve also been completely transparent with my readers about every life transition—including the ones that may impact this blog!
Over the past 6 months, I have been grateful to land several clients that led to positive outcomes for them and extra funds in my pocket. The biggest challenge? Time. With my full time job still going, I have to be very careful about how I manage my time. These are two separate jobs that I have been maintaining separately, but simultaneously. I am often working 9-5 for my university job and then working for my clients in the evenings and/or on weekends.
I’m happy to say that it’s been going well so far. I’ve received positive feedback that is consistent with the feedback I always receive in the spaces in which I educate others. And I hope and expect my client base to grow…
With growth, and other pending changes to my life in the near future, I know that maintaining this blog will become increasingly more difficult than it already has been. I also know that something else is weighing on me. It’s not easy to admit, but…
I Don’t Enjoy Travel Blogging As Much As I Used To
I realized this more fully on my second trip to Mexico a few months ago. I found myself wanting to experience Mexico for a second time without any pressures around the content I would create later. I didn’t want to feel obligated to do something exciting and interesting every moment of every day.
Sometimes I just wanted to sleep on the beach, ya know?
That’s right. I realized there was a tiny part of me that allowed my blog to dictate my travels, as oppose to my travels dictating my blog. To me, this made what I write about here feel less authentic and more curated for the specific purpose of the blog itself.
Travel, for me, was always supposed to be about adventure, change, growth, opening up my mind, and breaking out of my comfort zone while doing something different and for no reason other than it felt right and true to who I am even if that’s simply resting. This is deviating, and this has always been the meaning behind deviating for me. So the second I realized I wasn’t staying true to the entire point of this blog, I was ready to let the blog itself go, if I must.
Well, not entirely!
What I really want to write about and share with you is not every experience I have, and not every dollar I track. I’ve done that for 10 years! What I want to share with you all now is only the most iconic, epic, and authentic travel experiences I have. The ones that also exemplify deviating.
I won’t stop traveling. I won’t stop writing about it. But I will stop writing about my travels for the sake of writing about it. This blog will no longer be a bi-monthly commitment to post content because I said I would stick to that schedule. It will be the place to connect with a story that truly inspires you, moves you, and motivates you—because it has done that for me. I want it to remind you of who you are, who you can be, and how beautiful humans and the world can be.
Now that’s the kind of travel and writing I can get excited about again! And that’s the kind of travel and writing that can’t be scheduled or put on a deadline.
So I will write again—the highlights from my last trip to Mexico and the future trips I take, too. But it won’t be on a particular schedule. This will not only make the posts more anticipated and interesting, it’ll make my in-the-moment travel experiences more authentic.
Gratitude and Closing
Change is always a little frightening. I know! But it’s also what helps us grow and connect more closely with ourselves. It reminds us of what remains unwavering and true to who we are at the core and what points of growth are still possible.
I am grateful for so many of you who have consistently read this blog since it’s inception. And I would understand if this shift is the one that makes you lose interest. You gotta do you, too, right?
But if my announcement has inspired you at all, I wonder if you might pass this blog post along to someone—or maybe you’d be willing to pass along my other website deviate2elevate.com. I’ve been writing in this blog for free and at my own expense for 10 years. This would be a small way to pay forward all of the content I’ve shared.
Deviate 2 Elevate is now also linked in the navigation menu on this blog. So it’s official. Rikka and Erica are officially merged.
Thanks for being on this journey with me! Until next time…
❤️ Rikka/Erica
