About

Welcome to the

Adventures of a Hipsy

My name is Alice Ayres, and I am a Hipsy.

A Hipsy is a hippie and a gypsy rolled into one. It’s the only word I’ve ever found that actually fits the way I’ve lived my life.

I was born and raised in a religious cult. Homeschooled, sheltered, surrounded almost entirely by other members. But the irony is, I was also a world traveler. Asia, Europe, the Middle East. I grew up watching how different people lived all over the globe, and yet I had no real idea how the world actually worked. I was like an alien observing life from the outside, never quite part of it.

At 21 I walked away. I had a one-year-old and another baby on the way. No job history, no apartment, no roadmap. I was living in the Philippines and the world made it very clear, very fast, that it had no intention of waiting for me to figure things out.

So I figured things out.

Then I immigrated to the States and started over again. New country, new culture, new everything. A few years in, I packed my kids and whatever fit in my car and drove 18 hours to a new city to start over one more time. New job, new place, new life from scratch.

I’ve rebuilt myself so many times that starting over stopped feeling like failure and started feeling like something I’m actually good at. Every time I lost everything I told myself: if I built it once, I can build it again.

And I always did.

I’m in the middle of another rebuild right now. This one feels different though. This time I’m not just surviving. I’m building the life I actually want, on my own terms, finally becoming the version of me I always knew was in there somewhere.

Through all the lives I’ve lived in this one lifetime, I’ve come to believe that life is about who we are, what we choose, and how present we are in every moment along the way. Everywhere life takes me is an opportunity for my next great adventure, and I’m on a mission to make this life the most extraordinary one I’ve ever lived.

There is never a dull moment when you’re a Hipsy. Subscribe and follow along so you don’t miss a moment of the adventure.

Always wandering, never lost.

— A.A.