About

 

My name is Amanda Loviza, and I am a journalist, a mountain lover and soon to be an American living in the UK.

When I was 12 and moving from Tennessee to Virginia – my fifth state of residence – my aunt gave me a little plaque that says, “You never really leave a place you love. Part of it you take with you, leaving a part of you behind.”

I’ve been leaving pieces of myself all over the world, at this point. I’ve lived in seven U.S. states, and there’s no denying that I am, by virtue of my birth, an American. But of all the places I have lived, there was only one place that killed me to leave. One place that I thought, if I have anything to say about it, I’m coming back here. It was the tiny little village of Tenbury Wells, on the border of Shropshire and Worcestershire, in England.

It’s been four years since I left the UK, and the years have been significant ones. I tried a few new jobs and a new state, and I finally got a divorce that was several years in the making. Then everything started over. I went to bury my pain in the mountainsides of the Catskills, but I accidentally healed myself on the way. I hiked more mountains than I can count, and I fit myself neatly into a tribe of incredible women. I grew into the person I always should have been.

And then one day, I visited the UK again, and I went to a birthday party. Now it’s all coming together….