In 2023, Michelle Cabrera was suddenly faced with the possibility of losing her usable vision within a year. She was diagnosed with retinal thinning. As she struggled through the initial depression after the diagnosis, she found a journal she had written as a child. It talked about travel around Asia and inspired her to volunteer in Nepal for three months. The travel bug bit, and a year later, the Chicago resident found herself on an adventure that went off the rails in Vietnam.
According to CNN, when Cabrera reached Vietnam, she was looking for an authentic, off-grid adventure. She was determined to avoid standard tourist traps to explore the Phong Nha-Kẻ Bàng National Park. So Cabrera chose to bypass regulated tour operators and spoke to her homestay manager: “I asked her if she could set me up with locals so I could do an adventure in a cave for a day, and that I didn’t want a set route, just local knowledge.”
