Lost & Found with Karmen Wiid

When Ambition Becomes Identity: On Critical Theory & The Quarter-Life Crisis

At 21, I walked into a philosophy class on Critical Theory, not because I was particularly curious about Marxism, but because the professor radiated something I couldn’t explain. Calm. Clarity. Joy.
I didn’t know that one elective would unravel everything I thought I knew about ambition, success, freedom, and identity.
Two years later, I was living in a hippie commune in rural Nicaragua, showering outside, swearing off money, and trading work for food, trying to figure out what I really wanted when nothing familiar was there to define me.
In this episode, I explore the philosophy that radically changed my twenties, and might just shift something in you, too.
Drawing on the Frankfurt School’s Critical Theory, we talk about how capitalism doesn’t just shape what we do - it shapes how we dream, how we think about happiness. 
But we also explore the nuance: what it means to be a content creator and a critic of the system. What it means to hold ambition and awareness. And how to navigate all of this without self-abandonment or moral purity.
This one is deeply personal. It’s philosophical, yes, but more than that, it’s an invitation.
To question what you’ve been told is normal.To hold space for paradox.And to begin imagining freedom on your own terms.
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Let’s Stay Connected:
📕 Buy my book — Untethered: A Beginner’s Guide To Solo Travel 
📸 Follow along on Instagram 
📝 Read the blog 
🌴 Join my group trip to Bali 
Join The Lost & Found Book Club
 

The Truth About Main Character Energy: The Beautiful, the Dangerous & the Delusional

In this episode, we explore the cultural phenomenon and philosophical roots of main character energy, both its empowering promise and its dark underside. 
Sparked by a moonlit conversation in Hanoi, this episode unspools into many threads. 
We talk about:
What main character energy really means (and why it matters)
How to find joy and agency even in the absurd… yes, we’re talking The Myth of Sisyphus
The dark side of performance and Western privilege
Travel, language, culture, and why no one is just a “side character”
Martin Buber’s I-It vs. I-Thou, Simone Weil on attention, and how to live with radical presence
And the ultimate plot twist: But you’ll have to listen to hear this one
This episode is both an invitation to live boldly and a gut-check on ego and empathy.
Plus, a beautiful little cameo by some of my friends on what makes them feel like the main characters in their own lives.
Thank you to Annie, Maatai, Claire, Tiaan, and Henry.
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Let’s Stay Connected:
📕 Buy my book — Untethered: A Beginner’s Guide To Solo Travel 
📸 Follow along on Instagram 
📝 Read the blog 
🌴 Join my group trip to Bali 
📕Join The Lost & Found Book Club

From Broke and Burnt Out to Full-Time Travel and Writing: The Stories I’ve Never Told Before (and the Unlearning That Changed Everything)

You know how sometimes all you really need is something that shakes you by the shoulders and gets you so fired up you can’t not do the scary thing?
And other times, you’re craving a deep, heart-expanding, soul-softening chat about life and meaning and why any of this matters.
And then there are those times when all you want is an unhinged conversation with a friend that reminds you how young, dumb, and wildly alive you still are.
Yeah. This one is all of that - in one conversation.
In this special episode of Lost & Found, I’m sharing a deeply personal conversation from when I was a guest on the Kindred Roads podcast — a show I’ve long admired for its soul-filled stories from travellers, creatives, and people building beautiful, unconventional lives.
We talk about: – The winding road of solo travel and digital nomad life – How I went from broke and burnt out to building a life with freedom – Navigating grief, identity shifts, and family expectations – Why your 20s don’t need to make sense to anyone else – And how I became the youngest published author in South Africa at age 12 (and what writing has meant to me ever since)
This episode holds stories I’ve never shared before - from romances in Argentina to motorbike crashes in Nicaragua, to what it really feels like to chase freedom and find belonging around the world.
Whether you’re mid-breakdown, mid-reinvention, or somewhere in between, this one’s for you.
Listen the original Kindred Roads podcast episode hereFollow Kindred Roads on Instagram
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Let’s Stay Connected:
📕 Buy my book — Untethered: A Beginner’s Guide To Solo Travel 
📸 Follow along on Instagram 
📝 Read the blog 
🌴 Join my group trip to Bali 
📕Join The Lost & Found Book Club

I Travelled Solo Through India for 3 Months — Here’s Everything I Wasn’t Expecting to Learn, Love, and Leave Behind

You’ve heard the rumours, right? Seen the movies with chaotic streets, overflowing trains, and spiritual awakenings. Heard the warnings: it’s too much, too unsafe, too overwhelming.
Well, I heard them too. And I went anyway.
This is what three months travelling solo through India as a woman really looks like. It was messy. It was heart-achingly beautiful. And it changed me in ways I never expected.
In this episode, I speak honestly about the magic I experienced, the discomfort I leaned into, and the lessons I learned the hard way - from Mumbai’s creative chaos to Udaipur’s quiet grace, from trusting strangers to learning how to say no, from falling in love with food again to remembering what awe feels like.
India unraveled me. It made me braver. Softer. Louder in all the right ways.
I always reflect in my journal at the end of a country - what I learned, what I’m taking with me. So consider this your peek inside my journal.
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Let’s Stay Connected:
📕 Buy my book — Untethered: A Beginner’s Guide To Solo Travel 
📸 Follow along on Instagram 
📝 Read the blog 
🌴 Join my group trip to Bali 
📕Join The Lost & Found Book Club

Feeling Lonely, Lost, or Disconnected from Yourself? You Need to Hear This.

Ever felt like you're surrounded by people, but still weirdly alone? Like you're just... not quite you lately? Like something’s missing, but you can’t put your finger on what?
This episode is about that feeling.
The kind of loneliness and disconnectedness that leaves you feeling depleted and lost.
 
In this one, I get into:
The different types of loneliness (and how to tell what yours is really asking for)
How to go from craving connection to actually loving your own company
What philosophers and poets teach us about solitude
And how to attract authentic, intentional and meaningful social connection
I see you. I’m here. Let’s figure it out together.
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Let’s Stay Connected:
📕 Buy my book — Untethered: A Beginner’s Guide To Solo Travel 
📸 Follow along on Instagram 
📝 Read the blog 
🌴 Join my group trip to Bali 
📕 Join The Lost & Found Book Club

Story Time: Reading You My Favourite Short Story I’ve Ever Written (Think Abandoned Manor Houses, Long Train Rides & Dark Forests)

Recorded during a monsoon evening in Delhi with chai in hand and the world quieting outside my window, I read you one of my favourite short stories - a piece I wrote when I was 22, while riding Greyhounds across the American South with an uncharged phone and a journal in my lap.
 
Where the Women Go is a story about grief, sisterhood, memory, and the spaces that live between dreams and forests, life and afterlife. It’s lyrical and strange and vulnerable. And it matters to me deeply.
 
This isn’t my usual advice session. It’s a moment of creative connection, the kind I hope reminds you that storytelling is one of the oldest, truest ways we figure ourselves out.
 
So wherever you are - walking through a park, stirring something on the stove, or curling up in bed - I hope this story wraps around you like a blanket. And maybe stirs something you thought was long buried.
 
And if you're up for it tonight: write something. Dance a little. Doodle in the margins. Let something creative move through you.
 
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✨ Let’s Stay Connected:
 
📕 Buy my book — Untethered: A Beginner’s Guide To Solo Travel
📸 Follow along on Instagram
📝 Read the blog
🌴 Join my group trip to Bali
📚 Join The Lost & Found Book Club

Travel For Free (Yes, I’m Serious): Work-Exchange, Couchsurfing & Other Legal Hustles

Tonight, I’m recording from a tiny apartment in Delhi, a little dazed after surviving what might’ve been the wildest overnight bus of my life. But also feeling grateful. Because I’m reminded, once again, that travel doesn’t have to be expensive to be extraordinary.
In this episode, I’m answering a question I get all the time: How do you actually afford to travel long-term? The answer? It’s not a trust fund. It’s curiosity, courage, and a willingness to get your hands dirty.
I share the exact tools, platforms, and stories that have helped me travel the world nearly for free. From volunteering in jungle hostels in Costa Rica, to couchsurfing with strangers and trading small skills for a warm bed and a hot meal… this is the real, unglamorous, magical side of slow, meaningful travel.
We’ll talk:
How to use platforms like Worldpackers, Workaway & TrustedHousesitters
The power of work exchanges (and how they changed me)
Trading your talents for stays, meals, and unforgettable memories
Creative ways to travel on zero budget
And the real reason “I can’t afford to” is often just fear in disguise
Plus, a journal prompt to get you moving toward your own adventure.
This is not just a guide to free travel. It’s an invitation to get a little lost and find the version of you that’s been waiting at the edge of comfort.
🪴 Read the full chapter (and more) in my book Untethered: A Beginner’s Guide to Solo Travel — now available on Kindle or as a PDF download.
✨ Want to join me in Bali this December for a group trip and marine conservation project? Find out more here.
➤ Get $10 off your Worldpackers membership with the code KARMEN
➤ Read the blog
➤ Check out my Instagram
📚 Join The Lost & Found Book Club

5 Unconventional Tips to Stop Abandoning Your Goals And Finish Something

📚 Some very exciting news: my book Untethered: A Beginner’s Guide to Solo Travel is officially available for pre-order on Kindle!
It’s part handbook, part workbook, part travel memoir. Check out the preview on my website or pre-order on Amazon Kindle to be the very first to get the book when it goes live on Sunday, 29 June.
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Do you feel like you have so many ideas but never follow through?
Sick of making plans, setting goals, getting excited… and then somehow abandoning them halfway through?
Then this episode is for you.
We’re talking about how to actually finish the projects that matter, especially the personal ones no one’s holding you accountable for.
Whether it’s starting a blog, writing a book, running a marathon, or just showing up consistently for yourself, I’m sharing the mindset shifts that helped me stop quitting on my dreams.
And no, we’re not going to be talking about the self-help fluff that you find everywhere… “build tiny habits,” “find an accountability partner,” “celebrate the small wins”… blah. If that worked, you wouldn’t be clicking on this episode, would you?
🎧 If you’ve ever felt stuck, scattered, or secretly scared you’ll never finish the thing that matters most… this is your sign to start again, differently.
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Want more?
➤ Read the blog
➤ Check out my Instagram
➤ Join my group trip to Bali
➤ Pre-order my book

The Politics of Desire: The Sex Education I Got from Philosophers (That I Wish I Got in High School)

Our desires, our turn-ons, our ideas of sex… where do they come from? And who benefits from them?
 
Because sex isn’t just an act. It’s an archive of cultural conditioning.
 
This episode is a crash course in feminist philosophy, critical theory, and the tangled relationship between sex, power, and culture. From shitty sex ed classes to porn culture, internalized scripts to embodied autonomy, we’re asking the uncomfortable questions we’re usually too afraid to voice.
 
We’ll talk consent beyond the yes/no binary, porn as both a mirror and a script for the world, self-objectification, BDSM, beauty standards, and what it means to actually be empowered, not just perform it.
 
I weave in insights from thinkers like Amia Srinivasan, Simone de Beauvoir, Nancy Bauer, Audre Lorde, and bell hooks, and try to offer a new language for those of us who’ve felt confused, ashamed, or alone in our questions around desire.
 
This is for the curious. The conflicted. The ones unlearning in real time. If that’s you, then you’re in the right place.
 
📚 Mentioned in this episode:
The Right to Sex by Amia Srinivasan
The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir
Works by bell hooks, Audre Lorde, Nancy Bauer, and more
 
💭 Three questions I leave you with:
What shaped the way you see sex, power, beauty, and desire?
What does empowerment feel like in your body and how do you know it’s yours?
What cultural scripts have you internalized and which are you ready to rewrite?
 
If philosophy teaches us anything, it’s this: We have a responsibility to ask the hard questions, especially the ones without neat answers.
 
📚 Want more?
➤ Read the blog➤ Check out my Instagram➤ Join my group trip to Bali
📚 Join The Lost & Found Book Club
 

If You're Asking “Should I Break Up With Them?” You Already Have… And Other Unhinged Truths I'm Learning in My Twenties

I just came out of one of the most inspiring conversations with a friend and had to hit record. So today, we're talking about the kinds of lessons that shake your worldview and leave you wondering how no one told you this sooner.
Some of what we cover:
The breakup question that answers itself
How bitterness is often just blocked creativity
Why your “cringe” phase was necessary
What it means to want more without lack
What real luxury is
The power of curiosity and letting yourself evolve
If you're in your twenties (or feel like you're re-entering them emotionally), this episode is a love letter, a wake-up call, and a gentle shove all in one.
📚 Want more?
➤ Read the blog➤ Check out my Instagram➤ Join my group trip to Bali