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GoNOMAD Writer Profiles

Kelly Westhoff: Writer, Teacher, Traveler

While a contributing editor at the Minnesota Women's Press, Kelly covered local women in politics, business and the arts. Since then she has gone on to become a frequent contributing writer for many publications, including the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Minnesota Bride, Midwest Home and Garden, Transitions Abroad and, of course, GoNomad.com. She writes about travel, food and drink, home and garden, and sustainable and organic lifestyles.

You can read more of her articles at her website KellyWesthoff.com.

GoNOMAD readers are familiar with Kelly and her husband Quang Nystrom from their blog Global Roam, in which they chronicled their trip around the world. Now that they are home, they post periodic entries about daily experiences that reconnect them to their roam.

When the Global Roam was over, Kelly started a new blog called The 'er' Files.

Kelly teaches college-level composition courses at the Art Institute International in Minneapolis, and she has taught creative writing classes for youth at the Loft, the nation's largest literary organization. She served as a writer for one of the Loft's writer-in-the-schools programs.

She has also taught numerous subjects in public schools including language arts, geography, English as a Second Language and Spanish.

Kelly has written numerous stories for GoNOMAD.com and in 2005 she was awarded a GoNOMAD Travel Writing Grant for her visit to the secluded coastal village Capo Polonio, Uruguay.

Kelly with a sea lion in Uruguay

Here's an excerpt from her story about the trip, Cabo Polonio, Uruguay: In Search of the Fabled Ombu Tree:

Being in Cabo Polonio was like being in a galaxy far, far away. In Cabo Polonio, I was far, far away from any resemblance of my daily life in the United States.

There was not a gas station, a Starbucks or a McDonald’s in sight. There were no newspaper kiosks. There were no cell phone rings. There were no cafes with Internet access. Plus, for the majority of the day, there were no lights because there was no electricity.

Cabo Polonio is not in outer space; it is in Uruguay. It is a small, secluded town in a small, South American country. In fact, I hesitate to even call Cabo Polonio a town. Instead, it looks and feels like the final outpost on the edge of a rugged frontier. And it is. Cabo Polonio is surrounded by rugged frontiers.

Sand whips and whirls throughout Cabo Polonio. It slithers across the beach. It gathers in mounds the size of a VW bug. It settles against the walls of buildings. It would block traffic if it could, except there is no traffic in Cabo Polonio. Cars don’t drive through Cabo Polonio's streets because cars can´t make it past the sand dunes. But monster 4x4 trucks can. Read more