Meet The Team
Lia Garcia
CEO & Co-Founder
Lia grew up on a farm in Kentucky, but for whatever reason, has always had a Californian accent (possibly due to watching Clueless at a young, impressionable age). She was a serial entrepreneur from a young age – she once locked her parents out of their kitchen, printed up a menu, and forced them to order off of it.
She graduated with a degree in fashion design, apparel merchandising, and business and spent five glamorous years in the fashion industry as a buyer, and then became a Business Systems Analyst, which is not glamorous at all. Then she got married, quit her job, took a disastrous year-long honeymoon, started a travel blog, and boom: here we all are.
Jeremy Garcia
Co-Founder & Podcast Lead
Jeremy grew up on the California Central Coast and discovered a love of writing, photography, and film. He moved to San Francisco in 2009 to attend school. Then he met some chick named Lia; boring story. He teaches photography, film, and graphic design to high school students. At Practical Wanderlust, he focuses his attention on the podcast, writing, and photography. He also serves as the founder and executive director of The Wander Foundation, a nonprofit organization that helps provide students with culturally immersive travel opportunities.
Mulan Garcia
Best Dog
Mulan was born in August 2019 in South Korea. She was rescued as a puppy from the meat industry by a local organization and flown to a shelter called Jelly’s Place, where she was adopted by Lia and Jeremy. They have been a happy family ever since.
Mulan is mostly Pomeranian/American Eskimo dog, with a lot of other breeds thrown in to create the perfect dog. Her interests include napping, cuddling, befriending strangers, destroying stuffies, licking everything, snuffling, parking lots, leaves, cheese, and standing on or near windows to keep watch on the block. In her brief time as a traveler, she’s learned that she loves road trips, hates flying, and definitely prefers the beach to the snow.
You can follow along with Mulan’s adventures and general adoreableness on her Instagram, @mulanthefloof!
Richie Goff
Editor in Chief
Richie Goff was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky and graduated from the University of Louisville with a degree in English and linguistics. Richie enjoys theatre (he attended a performing arts high school), playing the ukulele, and growing flowers (you can follow his flower farm Instagram @magichourflowerfarm).
Richie has always loved to travel, springing from three cross-country van trips with his family growing up. His farthest adventure to date was visiting Japan, and he is excited to travel more of the world in the future!
Natalie Collins
Head of Email Marketing & Affiliate Marketing
Natalie is an English girl born and raised in Yorkshire. In 2017, after 13 years working in business development, she quit her job and set up offering business management support to solo business owners. She then spent 3 years living the beach life in a surf village in Morocco before moving to Barcelona with her adopted Moroccan street dog, Zina.
Natalie joined the team in 2018 and has worked across most of the business, helping Lia with anything and everything needed.
She also writes on Medium with dreams of one day writing a book on life, making dumb/amazing decisions and being a solo woman throughout it all.
Kala Bradford
Videographer & Content Creator
Kala has worked in video production and digital storytelling for nearly 10 years, and is responsible for creating the visual storyline behind Practical Wanderlust’s many travels. She strives to educate, inform and inspire with the videos she creates for Practical Wanderlust. From shifting her career from broadcast journalism to more ‘behind the camera’ visual artistry and production she’s had the opportunity to work with nationally renowned television shows and productions, including the Carbonaro Effect, TedX, and Warner Brothers newest ‘Batman’ film!
After graduating from Indiana University, she left the country for nearly 4 years to teach English as a foreign language in the south of Spain. Traveling is an integral part of her passion and drive. She tries to implement those lessons, experiences and unique perspectives to every endeavor life throws.
Kala enjoys listening to music, soul-searching, dogs, tarot readings, creating visually stimulating content, long walks in nature, staring at homes with unique architecture, daydreaming, collaging, riding horses, Indian motorcycles, plants and sunlight.
David Breeker
Contributing Writer
David Breeker was born and raised in the coastal town of Heemskerk, west of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics from Inholland University in Amsterdam, where he specialized in Tourism Management and Marketing. Having worked in marketing in various tourism and hospitality companies in the Netherlands, Thailand and Switzerland, he moved to England with his partner in 2014 to start a family. David has always loved travel, and the more he travels, the longer his must-visit list seems to get. After being made redundant in 2019, just before Covid (trendsetting right there!), he became a stay-at-home dad and started writing about travel. Ever since he started working remotely, his goal is to create a work-life balance in which family, work and travel are in perfect harmony.
David’s favorite things: his children, his cat that isn’t really his, cooking, coffee, food (Thai and Italian), badminton, snowboarding, nature and everything that lives in it, running and music (rock and electronic).