“Where are you from?” For most this question merits a one sentence response, sometimes two, but for Avalon Sueiro, the answer is a bit more complicated. She was born in Los Angeles and moved to Boston when she was three, living there for 7 years. But in 2014, everything changed when Avalon and her family left the US to travel around the world.
She lived in Costa Rica, Ecuador and France, visited every country in Europe in a 21ft RV then spent 5 months in Japan during the pandemic. Later in 2020, Avalon moved back to France and with no prior experience, she and her parents bought a 21ft catamaran that they began learning to sail. Two years later, Avalon crossed the Atlantic Ocean with her family. Finally, in the fall of 2022, she moved to Pennsylvania to attend Carnegie Mellon University, returning to live in the US for the first time in eight years.
During her travels, Avalon mastered two new languages and began work on her fourth. She also accumulated a wide range of skills- some more useful than others. Avalon will proudly tell you how she can both make Danish clogs from scratch and perform first aid in the middle of the ocean. Avalon also launched two start-ups which she continues to run to this day. The first, The Novelers, focuses on providing book clubs to kids all around the world and the second, Intello Tutor, where she teaches French and Spanish online.
Living a travel lifestyle has taught Avalon a great deal about resilience, problem solving, empathy, risk taking and life in general. She became infinitely closer with her family- her little brother especially, who she now considers her best friend. She also had her eyes opened to both the beauties and injustices of the world around her. Although she has yet to decide her path forward, she plans to use everything she has experienced and learned around the world to help those who have so generously shown her their cultures and taught her more than she could ever repay.
So where is Avalon from? Her favorite answer? Everywhere.
