Sailing Simplicity: My American Dream

In 2008, Teresa Carey made a dramatic change to chase her dreams. She left her job, sold many of her belongings, and moved aboard a small 27-foot sailboat affectionately named Daphne after her grandmother.

During the following two years, Teresa sailed solo and lived aboard with only her cat Dory for company. Her focus was to live in concert with the ocean by enjoying its beauty and challenge, exploring simplicity, and drastically reducing her environmental impact.

In her TEDx video, filmed in June 2011, Teresa describes her version of the American dream and shares her thoughts on simple living, overcoming fear, and the value in chasing your own creative passions.

Teresa writes regularly for her blog titled Sailing Simplicity & the Pursuit of Happiness, which has grown to inspire a large audience of simple livers, adventure-seekers, and dreamers. 

She is currently combining her passions for the ocean and the arts as a filmmaker for a documentary titled One Simple Question. "Like Thoreau’s journey to live deliberately, gain understanding, and discover happiness through simplicity, One Simple Question uses the quest to see an iceberg as its cabin in the woods and the virtues of simple living as its guiding compass."