Chloe's Birthday Adventure Fund!

I feel like if you're looking at this you probably know who I am but I'll go ahead and introduce myself anyway.

Hi! I'm Chloe. I'm a nanny, hopefully a future librarian, an artist, and a full time student. I'm turning 30 this year on November 15th, and I'm trying to celebrate this momentous birthday with a momentous trip. I've spent most of my adult life scraping by, and genuinely been pretty gutted by how little I've been able to travel. I think about it constantly and sadly. I went to Mexico as a small child before you even needed a passport to go, and haven't been able to leave even the continental US since then.

Especially the last few years (since I got engaged and went back to college) I have been scraping and struggling, selling blood for groceries kinda broke, and am finally on stable footing again, but not "going to Europe won't be a financial strain" stable.

I've lived through a lot these 30 years. I've lived through my mom dying, through moving cross country, through serious mental health issues. I've lived through being a queer preteen being bullied in middle school, and a sleep deprived and suicidal teenager. I've lived through failing out of college on my first try due to what turned out to be VERY untreated ADHD, being the sole breadwinner for almost a year and a half (in ludicrously expensive Denver!) while being a full time student, and recently been watching with terror as the politics of this country shift to a hellscape. My fianceé is a trans woman, I'm a gay Latina, it's bad out there! I've also lived through really wonderful stuff. I've helped teach more kids than I have fingers how to walk, talk, and play. I won a merit award in Japanese studies and fought my way to a 3.72 GPA. I've made some art I'm really proud of. I've met the love of my life. I'd like to honor all these things both terrible and wonderful with something I've wanted for a long time, finally getting out of the US for a bit!

It has already been a MASSIVE ordeal (ask me about how awful getting passports has been sometime), and I need a little help. I hope you'll help me.

My hope is to be able to fund a week and a half trip over my birthday/Thanksgiving week to Reykjavik, Iceland and Amsterdam, The Netherlands, taking advantage of Icelandair's generous stopover program. If I'm not able to raise enough for both I can drop Amsterdam and just focus on Reykjavik, but I'm really hoping for both! The stopover program means the airfare is the same, so I'd only be paying for hotels and expenses.

I don't really have anything tangible I can offer in return (my eternal gratitude is unfortunately not something I can mail you, it just lives in my heart) but I am offer you the most powerful currency the Internet has: an opportunity to watch someone suffer mildly in a comedic fashion. Iceland is (in)famous for an infamously stinky and intense delicacy: fermented Greenland shark, called Hákarl. (https://www.atlasobscura.com/foods/hakarl-shark-iceland) It's ammonia heavy and often causes gagging in first time consumers. If you are kind enough to help me afford the trip, I will send you a donators only video of me (and Morgan!) trying the challenging food, for your viewing pleasure.

If I'm asking for your dollars it also only feels fair to share with you my exhaustively researched cost breakdown, so here goes:

$1,320 - Icelandair round trip Economy Standard tickets for 2

≈$400 - hotel room in Reykjavik for 4 nights

19,000 kr (or $156 USD) - two 72 hour Reykjavik city cards (free entrance to many museums, all the local hot springs, and the public transit!)

≈$500 - hotel room in Amsterdam for 4 nights

$293 - two 96 hour Amsterdam city cards (free museum entrance, canal cruise, public transit usage, and even free and discounted food opportunities!)

≈$225 estimated cost of daily meals for 2 for 5ish days in Reykjavik, based on travel blogs and reddit frugal traveling community estimates

≈$250 estimated cost of daily meals for 2 for 5ish days in Amsterdam , based on travel blogs and reddit frugal traveling community estimates

≈$150 to cover the estimate GoFundMe fees

Total (not counting souvenirs, the cost of getting passports, Morgan's luggage that we've got to buy, and incidentals): $3,394