Helene Sula shares her international adventures because the voice behind her eponymous weblog and social media accounts, Helene in Between. 

The Texas native finds wide-eyed awe and real delight within the sights of locales from Vietnam and the United Arab Emirates to her newly adopted dwelling in Oxford, England. She’s received followers—566,000 Instagram followers and counting—with reels about tradition shocks she’s skilled dwelling overseas, not as soon as, however twice. Her love for Christmas markets is contagious, with posts that includes steamy drinks and indulgent dishes oozing with cheese including to her platform’s enchantment. 

Whereas different digital nomad social media accounts have an aspirational—and infrequently unattainable— really feel, Sula’s posts have a “you’ll be able to sit with us” vibe. Now, she’s taking her viewers on one other journey along with her new guide, Two O’Clock on a Tuesday at Trevi Fountain: A Seek for an Unconventional Life Overseas, during which she encourages readers to seek out their very own path to a unprecedented life. 

Helene in Between enters the blogosphere

It began with a mountain climbing accident. In 2011, Helene Sula was attending her new husband’s work occasion at a mountain climbing fitness center when an unsecured belay shortly led to her hurtling off the wall and smashing her leg and ankle. A bout of pneumonia within the hospital added insult to literal harm and continued blackouts as a consequence of her sickness meant she couldn’t return to work. 

It appeared Sula may now not keep away from the inheritance from her household of writers. She launched a weblog. “I used to be so bored of watching Friday Evening Lights,” she remembers. “It was simply an outlet, a spot to attach and discuss my life. It in a short time turned an obsession.” 

At first, her posts centered on her each day life. She felt inspired by the connections she made with different folks on-line, initially over their shared damaged ankles. “I had this niggling feeling like, I’m wondering if I may do that full time,” she remembers. In 2012, there have been few examples of full-time bloggers, and the trail to income felt extra like trades with different bloggers than revenue. 

The trail turned clearer when an entry on Belgium’s “Tomorrowland” digital dance music pageant went viral, and she or he noticed she may pivot her love of journey into the weblog. She additionally poured her experience working a day job in company social media into the eagerness undertaking. 

Regularly, she landed sponsorships and created merchandise to promote, reminiscent of an Instagram content material system. “It didn’t really feel like I used to be promoting folks one thing. It was a method to assist different folks develop,” she says. She wasn’t keen to stop her day job till she was making extra on the weblog than at her job. Nonetheless, destiny intervened: She was fired the day she launched her first on-line course. 

Transferring ahead

Sula’s been a full-time content material creator, influencer and journey entrepreneur since 2015. Her content material platform was so profitable that her husband Michael was capable of be part of her enterprise a yr later. Though she says their enterprise partnership hasn’t been with out its frustrations and occasional stumbles, they’ve discovered a 50/50 partnership with Helene specializing in branding, advertising and marketing and social media, and Michael engaged on ever-important journey logistics and the enterprise facet.

The weblog’s freedom allowed the couple to embrace a digital nomad life, which has included relocating from Helene’s native Dallas to Heidelberg, Germany in 2016. (HGTV’s Home Hunters Worldwide chronicled their dwelling search.) The duo moved again to the U.S. in 2019 to journey the nation in an RV. They made the worldwide leap once more in 2023 once they relocated to Oxford, England—all with their two canines in tow.

Helene Sula expands into entrepreneurship

Though she says a robust social media presence requires no small measure of putting up with criticism each legitimate and petty, Sula believes the connections she’s made with individuals are rewarding. That’s what led her and Michael to guide journeys themselves. For a few years, this was with journey information firms that entice well-known journey hosts, like TrovaTrip and Avalon Waterways River Cruises.

A want to curate their friends’ experiences pushed the Sulas to constitution two group river cruises, creating itineraries and actions that enchantment to a number of generations, together with youthful vacationers. “It’s such a good way to get from A to B with a big group of individuals, and to get them to those completely different locations and seeing as a lot as they will. It additionally has the advantage of unpacking only one time,” she says. 

Sula says whereas she acknowledged the monetary dangers, she felt the demand was there. “We’ve been going to those locations for years. We’re well-known for it with our viewers,” she says. The preliminary reserving bought out in 10 minutes, main them so as to add a second. Michael deliberate each cease and each exercise within the itinerary, which allowed the Sulas to take friends to extra of their favourite locations.

Turning the weblog right into a guide 

Sula’s want to attach with extra folks led to her aforementioned guide, Two O’Clock on a Tuesday at Trevi Fountain, accessible April 9, 2024. In contrast to the Helene in Between weblog, which regularly delivers journey information content material centered on logistics, the memoir delves into Sula’s private story. She believes it affords classes which are related even when folks don’t wish to comply with in her worldwide footsteps. 

“The message that I wish to get throughout is you is usually a regular, peculiar particular person and stay a unprecedented unconventional life,” she says. “You’ll be able to go to your goals and keep grounded. You’ll be able to transfer overseas along with your two canines and have a mortgage and a wedding and nonetheless stay a unprecedented life.” 

Sula knew in the event that they have been to maneuver overseas and journey extra, they wanted to take action in a calculated method. The duo spent a yr researching, planning and prioritizing. They crafted lists of issues they wanted of their lives to really feel grounded. For instance, she knew she wanted a house base. In addition they set a restrict on the size of journeys they might take. Lastly, they knew they needed to keep up connections to household and buddies, in order that they inspired them to go to typically—steadily assembly guests in a locale aside from their dwelling base overseas. 

The guide’s title is drawn from a second when Sula acknowledged she had met her goals. That point, day and place was, “one of many first instances I spotted that I used to be dwelling my dream and I didn’t even understand it. It took that second for me to go searching and notice that you understand, I’ve not needed to change every part about myself and throw away every part I knew, [but] I can do the issues that I wish to do,” she says. 

She hopes the teachings are relevant to anybody, whether or not they’re hoping to begin a enterprise, launch a brand new profession or journey the globe as she does. 

Picture by Michael Sula.