Known Traveler: Samantha Demarkles, Wellness Wanderer

Samantha Demarkles is proof that you can always adapt and make a career for yourself, no matter what life throws at you. After growing up on the East Coast, Demarkles moved to Missouri at 18 years old. She got married and started a family right out of college. She describes the transition as “tough” and was looking for a community of other young moms. With some encouragement from a friend in the marketing industry, she turned to Instagram to find people sharing similar experiences. 

“I had missed this chunk of time… I just thought I was going to be a mom, I didn't ever think about having a career,” she says, until she saw these “original bloggers” posting about their daily lives as moms on social media. With a photography and art school background, Demarkles felt like she could share her motherhood journey and has grown a following of more than 110,000 followers with her authentic lifestyle and food content. 

“I've always wanted to make really, really good things with the least amount of effort and ingredients as possible.”

After having her first son, Demarkles began educating herself about the ingredients in food, trying to eat clean and be healthy while nursing. She posts about everything from recipes to motherhood and sometimes writes as well. “I've always wanted to make really, really good things with the least amount of effort and ingredients as possible,” she says about her food. 

With two more kids, a divorce, being a single mom, and another relationship, Demarkles is now balancing life, love, and work. Her food journey led her to discover small businesses and brands, and now as a small business owner herself—she and her partner, who is a chef, run Box Hill Grocer outside of St. Louis, Missouri—she loves being able to feature them in the store. 

“It's been connecting a lot of the brands that I'm passionate about and bringing them there,” she says of the store. Located next to one of her partner’s restaurants, the grocer is named after his farm that Demarkles and her family now live on. “[It’s] a lifestyle in its own way, she says, “encouraging you to be home and pay attention to your surroundings and eat really, really quality, good food.” The shop also sells prepared food and homemade baked goods, all made with the mindset that what you put in your body matters.

But this isn’t Demarkles’s first forte in running a small business. Previously she founded an online shop selling hats based on one of her tattoos that reads, “handle with care.” She now sells prints and has future plans for other creative projects. 

Given her background, supporting small businesses is important to Demarkles. She leans on social media to find healthy restaurants and other small businesses when traveling, “without that awareness, without that culture on Instagram for your space or for your business,” she says, “people don't know about it.” She credits social media with making it easier to find healthy brands and businesses that are aligned with her values.

Demarkles also credits Instagram and her community for inspiring her to travel. She’s traveled and stayed with people she’s met through social media, and she taps fellow creators for advice when she’s in a new place. She admits that travel wasn’t always a dream of hers, “if you had asked me when I was 18, ‘Where do you want to go in the world?’ I don't know that I would have had a great answer for you,” but that it’s become a fulfilling part of being a social media creator. 

She’s traveled to Los Angeles, Nashville, Chicago, and back to her hometown outside of Boston… typically driving, and with kids in tow. “It doesn’t have to be expensive,” she says, referencing memories of vacationing on Cape Cod in Massachusetts growing up over trips to the Caribbean that her peers were taking with their families. 

"Try to be as equally calm as you can be diligent in your inner work."

Of course, traveling with three kids can be exhausting, but she knows how important it is to give her children these experiences. “You basically just have zero of the comfort of your own home… and then the kids don't know where they are… but it's worth it,” she says looking back on the time they now spend in Michigan every summer, “It's always worth it.”

She credits staying sane with having a morning routine and a calm mindset, "try to be as equally calm as you can be diligent in your inner work," she says. And that applies to no matter what stage of life you're in, or where you're at in the world.

This article is part of our Known Traveler series where we highlight creators who share inspiring travel and lifestyle content. Check out the full edition for Wellness Wanderers.