Today we’d like to introduce you to Emmy Burton.
Hi Emmy, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
Born and raised just north of Nashville, I knew Tennessee was special, but I also knew I wanted to see more of the world than the cattle farm I grew up on. Looking back, I suppose I have my mother and my Nanna to thank for my seemingly insatiable hunger for travel and adventure. Being homeschooled is a gift I am still appreciating to this day from my mom, Jayne. She encouraged me to see the world with my own eyes, not just read about it in a text book. Our school year consisted of field trips like the other kids my age, but also trips around the country to get hands-on experience. From local spots like the Hermitage, to traveling across the country spending hours inside Washington D.C. ‘s Smithonians, to National Parks weighed down with nature field guides. My mother supplied me with the tools of independence, curiosity and wonder that would fuel my life, long after I graduated high school.
Yet my Nanna, Betty, taught me there was more outside of the USA to be discovered. Growing up, I spent every Thursday night at her house across the cattle field, where she would tell stories of her and my grandfather’s adventures while traveling. Branded exquisitely across my mind by the paintings she picked up of different destinations they’d been. The Cotswolds in England to seemingly perfect villages in Austria surrounded by crystal clear lakes and mountains, to the untamed wilds of Australia, what I didn’t know then as a 8 year old girl, was that those paintings would shape my life as well.
I loved growing up on a farm. I spent everyday, rain, shine, or snow, outside either wandering around on the 150 acre farm in a mixture of the woods, cattle fields, or at the horse barn creating my own adventures. In the days before cell phones, my mom would make me take a large walking stick for protection (mainly from angry cows or snakes) and send me on the way.
In my own mind I was an explorer no different than Christopher Columbus (making maps on various books I carried around in a backpack about where the good swimming spot was in the creek), an artist like Botticelli (painting trees and stones and anything else I could get my hands on), a modern scientist like Galileo (sleeping outside with my mom to watch meteor showers), a musician like Andrew Lloyd Webber (I was terrible at piano), and revolutionary entrepreneurs like Thomas Edison (making my own crafts and drying seeds from my moms flower garden to sell and force my family to buy). In my mind, I was limitless.
Then came my 5th concussion and I learned what it was to be limited.I have always been accident prone, I was 5’11 at 13 years old and have spent the majority of my life being underweight. I had carbon monoxide poisoning which paralyzed half my face for a bit (I was doing crafts okay). I had a disease called costochondritis which basically left me bedridden for six months feeling like I was having a heart attack every time I moved. I grew too fast and had to have my spine realigned with magnetic shock treated every week for two years. I could go on and on, but to sum it up, we meet our insurance deductible every year.
Right before my high school graduation, ready to take on the world, I accidentally shut the trunk of my Jeep Commander on my head (in my defense, I was wearing a new pair of heels and forgot how tall I was) on the way to one of my friends’ graduation parties. I remember thinking “oh crap. I hope nobody saw that”, while everything was fuzzy. Being 18, I did what every senior girl would do, I went to the party anyway. To be honest, I can’t remember anything other than feeling funny, so I left early, drove 45minutes home, told my mom I had hit my head and went to bed. The next morning I woke up and couldn’t remember my name. My mom would say something to me and I physically could not understand her or repeat it back to her. To be honest it was one of the scariest moments of my life (and I’ve drowned in a kayaking accident). The doctors and neurologist told me I wouldn’t be able to go to college because here is the kicker, I couldn’t read or write any more, not only that, I couldn’t control my emotions. Anger would turn into rage, sadness would turn into crying uncontrollable for hours on end, happiness became hysterical laughter. To put it plainly, it was a nightmare.
But, if there is one thing about me, it is that I am stubborn. If I want something, I will not give up until I get it. A double edge sword, I learned later on. So I politely said “screw it” and after finding the right medication to help me control my emotions, I taught myself how to read and write again in three months so I could go to college. I started with a book I knew by heart, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and spent hours everyday relearning the basics. Everyone told me I should just take a year to recover, even just wait until the Spring semester, but I was determined. I was going to college and I would not be stopped. August came, painfully slow, and my neurologist was satisfied that I could go with minimal hours, 12hrs to be exact. With weekly check-ins with the university’s student disability center and a counselor.
I was going to college.
Four months into my first semester, my childhood home was sold, and the next year was sprinkled with a very eventful and violent divorce between my parents that spiced up my otherwise dull life (sarcasm).
If you’re keeping tabs here, I went to college as a farm raised homeschooler who was used to being alone and was recovering from an intense brain injury whose parents were getting divorced. So why not add in a heartbreak? I had never had a boyfriend, never been kissed or been on a date up until I was 19. All the boys I liked never liked me (I was weird then) and all the boys who liked me I didn’t like (they were weird and still are). Thus the endless hours I spent daydreaming of a boy who would sweep me off my feet and love me no matter what (don’t worry, we find him eventually guys).
He was mister popular, everyone loved him, including me. Then he chose me, ME. A homeschooled farm girl with a brain injury. We were a power couple at our university. It was amazing and everything I ever dream that love could be. It was perfect and it was awful. It’s hard to know you’re being abused in a relationship until long after it is over. Two years of my life was riding the highs and the lows of toxicity. I didn’t really understand what stress could fully do to the body until that point in my life. Three hospital trips, stress vomiting to where I weighed 90lbs, a torn esophagus, a partial collapse of my small intestine, losing almost all of my friends over lies told about me, and one very low day that I tried very hard to not continue living. I finally had the courage to let go and never look back.
I used to be so full of hate. I hated him. I hated him. I hated what my family was going through. I hated college. I hated lies. I hated men. I hated hate. I was angry at God. When was I going to get a break? A win? Something? I was so lost. Miserable and not even a shell of the person I used to be that was so full of wonder and joy. I would look in the mirror and not recognize any part of the person staring back. My mom begged me to take a semester off, but I had worked too hard to get there and I was not going to leave.
So I moved off campus and got a dog. Ivy is the only reason I am still alive today. She is my soulmate. A few months later, one day I woke up and knew without a doubt in my body I had to go to Africa.
I had been on a plane once in my life and never left the country. Sure, Emmy let’s go to Africa, great idea. But I had to go, I just knew I had to, the younger version of myself was beggin me to go and find her again. So without telling my mom (sorry Jayne), I went to the Global Missions office at my university and signed up to go to Mozambique for a missionary internship starting in May (this was in February). So many people told me I was crazy. After sending out fund raising letters, members of my own family sent me messages written on the back about how I was going to be killed and kidnapped if I went and they would not help me. But once again ladies and gentlemen, I am stubborn. So I went to Africa in 2018 and it was the best decision I have ever made in my life.
I remember the first thing I thought as we were landing in Mozambique after traveling for 82hrs was “Alright God, give me everything you’ve got.” And boy oh boy does He listen. I was stripped bare (at one point literally next to a dead python, but that’s a story for another day) down to the core of my soul. I felt as though I was a phoenix rising from the ashes and being reborn. There was so much of the world out there to see and experience outside the bubble of misery I had secluded myself into. Everything I loved as a kid came rushing back to me, curiosity, wonder, craving adventure, wanting more, the second I stopped focusing on looking at myself and turned to look at the world. I began to heal because the world is so much bigger than ourselves. God is so much bigger. I began to see the beauty in life again.
Then because just going to Africa that summer wasn’t enough, I also had to have a communications internship as well. And me being me likes to go big or go home, so I applied for an internship on an island in Greece I had never heard of with a marine biology research base thinking there would be no way they would choose me… they did. It started three days after I was supposed to leave Mozambique. Once again, everyone thought it was a terrible idea and told me not to do it, that it probably was a scam. So I went ahead anyway. I arrived on Samos Island, Greece, to work for the Archipelagos Institute of Marine Conservation without knowing a single soul or speaking any Greek. When I tell you that God answered my prayer and gave me everything He had, I mean it. I was thrown into the deep end and I loved every single second of it without hesitation. That summer not only changed my life, it saved my life. It gave me a purpose and a reason to live. The people I met in Mozambique and the friends I made in Greece and branded on my heart forever. I came back with a new found understanding of life and what it means to be alive all while knowing without a doubt who I was.
Since then, life has continued to surprise me in ways I never could have imagined. I’ve lived in more than two dozen homes, backpacked solo through 38 countries across five continents, worked everywhere from Disney World to real estate photography, married in France, celebrated my mom’s victory over breast cancer by taking her to Europe, and far too much lore for someone under 30.
Today I own my own travel photography and content creation business, partnering with destinations around the world to tell stories that inspire people to step outside their comfort zones and see the world. I have gotten to do things I didn’t know were possible alongside the love of my life, Dane, and with the support of my mom.
Every project feels like a full-circle moment for the little girl wandering on the farm with the world at her feet. Travel didn’t change my life because it was glamorous or easy or even fun
(I’ve slept on many airport floors). Nor did it erase the broken parts of my life. It taught me that even shattered things can reflect light. Today, I get to spend my life helping other people discover the same wonder that helped me find myself again.
If my story can inspire even one person to take the trip they’ve been afraid to take, chase the dream they’ve convinced themselves is impossible, or rediscover the wonder they thought they’d lost, then every difficult chapter of my story was worth it.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I am most proud of creating my own travel/tourism business that has taken me around the world! The best part of my job is showing people there is so much more out there in the world to see and do, your dreams are achievable!
Any big plans?
I am about to head to Denmark, Norway and Scotland in two weeks! I haven’t been to Scandinavia yet and I so excited, especially to be working with a food tour company there as well! It is about to be pastry central! After that, this fall I will be traveling to Oregon and Wales for the first time, as well as returning to Portugal and Italy. It is still wild to me that I get to do this for work!!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://emmyburton.my.canva.site/ugc-portfolio
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shimmy_emmy/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/emmy.burton.5/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmy-burton-832942154
