Pleased to Meet You!
Two nomadic authors hike the world
Products and Services We Use, Love, and Recommend:
Our favorite cruise travel agent is Sharon at Atlas Travel. Email her for a quote at sharon.sellers@atlastravel.com and tell her Lisa and Matt McMann sent you.
Into hiking? We love LMNT electrolyte powder. Try the Raspberry Salt.
Lisa switched from coffee to Joe’y coffee alternative with superfoods and hasn’t looked back.
Curious about our books? Bookshop helps authors and independent bookstores. Or check our websites: Lisa’s and Matt’s.
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Welcome to Footnote. I’m Lisa McMann, a New York Times bestselling author of 33 books for young adults and children. I’ve been writing professionally since 2004. My husband, Matt McMann, worked as a musician for 26 years before turning to a lifelong dream of writing. He is a USA Today bestselling author of five books for young readers with Penguin Random House. You can find out more about our books at lisamcmann.com and mattmcmann.com. But we are here to talk about other stuff.
Matt and I are the Footnote team. We’ve been married for 34 years and are parents of two fellow creatives, our son Kilian McMann (a designer and artist) and daughter Kennedy McMann (an actor you might know as Nancy Drew).
In 2024, Matt and I sold everything and became nomads. On July 4th we left our loft in Tempe, Arizona, for the last time, loaded our rollaboards and backpacks into our slightly dented 2-door 2007 Pontiac G6 convertible, and celebrated our independence from stuff. Sure, we only went to a hotel a few miles away, but we were officially nomads. It felt strange. Freeing, yet scary. Things got more interesting after that (thank goodness, because July in Phoenix is not very interesting).
The whole process of scaling back our lives and possessions to the point of fitting everything we owned into a small vehicle started at least a decade ago after we watched a video on minimalism. Living in a big family home, just us two, with both kids grown and gone, didn’t make sense anymore. But what were we supposed to do with all the stuff we’d accumulated? We’ll dive into this part of the story from time to time.
It’s been a year since we left our home and furniture behind. We’ve traveled a lot, visiting a number of new countries and revisiting some we’d been to before. We discovered cruising. We fell into pet and house sitting once people learned we were nomadic. We became occasional roommates with friends in Phoenix, which surprisingly turned out to be one of the best parts of our new life, and gave us a tiny bit of stability as well as a closet to keep a few things in.
Against all odds (and to Matt’s great surprise), I took a liking to hiking, and I’m not even going to edit that wording because the rhyme makes me smile. After years of sedentary butt-in-chair, cave-dwelling type work churning out two books per year, I surfaced and took a good look at my life. And recognized I wasn’t getting any younger, but I was definitely getting weaker. I needed to take my physical self seriously. So I’m taking a sabbatical from book writing…or maybe I’m retired and I just don’t know it yet. I guess we’ll find out together eventually, so stay tuned.
But back to hiking. Matt and I have discovered all sorts of lengthy multi-day hikes around the world that are calling to us. Caminos, Ways, National Trails in places like Japan, Spain, England, Peru, and New Zealand. And many of the trails are dotted with quaint villages that have hotels, B&Bs, and hostels, eliminating the need for tents and camping, yay! Because we should not be mistaken for campers—my back hurts enough, thank you! We can hike for days or weeks and sleep in hotels every night along the way, you say? And someone might even deliver our luggage to the next village for us if we so desire? Count me in.
So we’ve been training, putting in the miles, trying to get stronger, trying to climb higher, struggling to breathe through the hard parts. I can’t wait to share the creative ways we attempt to build muscle and stamina when we don’t have a home, much less a home gym, much less a local gym since nowhere (or everywhere?) is local. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Footnote is about two nomadic novelists hiking the world and writing about it. If you’re intrigued by nomad life, or authors, or hiking, or traveling, or making the most of your empty-nester “go” years while you are still capable of movement, I invite you to subscribe. We’ll deliver tips and tricks, delve into highs and lows, and report on the successes and failures of our odd little lifestyle about once a week.
If you want more information about certain aspects of our journey or you have questions, please leave a comment and we’ll try to cover those topics in a future post.
We’re excited and a little scared to share so much about our personal lives. But we’re very happy that you’re coming along for the ride.
I love everything about this!
I am so excited to follow along on this journey!