Born with an undiagnosed medical condition, Renee Bruns, who has been using a wheelchair since she was seven, developed a love for travel after spending much of her younger years going from state to state to see medical specialists around the US with her mother.
By the time she was 16, Bruns, who was eventually diagnosed with diastrophic dwarfism – also known as diastrophic dysplasia – a skeletal dysplasia that affects cartilage and bone development, had been to all 50 US states and was itching to see more of the world.
“I think it’s one of the silver linings of having a disability, I started to see the world from a different perspective,” Bruns tells CNN Travel. “I was thinking, ‘Well, what’s next?’”
She soon began traveling internationally, visiting nearly 70 countries, including Peru, Cambodia, Laos, Kenya and Turkey in the following two decades or so.
After suffering what she describes as “burnout,” Bruns decided to take a sabbatical from her job as an insurance executive in order to pursue a year of “intense full-on travel.”
And while she’d previously traveled with a family member or her life partner Tony, who she could call on for help when necessary, Bruns opted to go solo this time.