Hi, I’m Nicole.

The endlessly curious mind behind Your Eccentric Sister, a human-centered storytelling studio exploring the relationship between people, place, culture, and connection.

I work with experience-driven brands across travel, hospitality, wellness, and lifestyle to uncover the stories that make them meaningful, translating atmosphere, identity, and emotion into thoughtful visual and written narratives.

My work exists at the intersection of editorial storytelling, photography, and narrative strategy, creating stories that honor the people, places, and experiences behind a brand.

A Life Guided by Curiosity

Long before storytelling became my profession, it was simply the way I moved through the world.

Ever since childhood, I have been captivated by adventure, culture, and the beauty found in everyday moments. The words beneath my name in my high school yearbook were Ralph Waldo Emerson’s:

“Live in the sunshine, swim in the sea, drink in the wild air.”

Looking back, those words feel less like a quote I selected and more like a quiet reflection of the life I was already living.

My curiosity has never belonged to a single discipline. It has spanned across cultural anthropology, religious studies, psychology, archaeology, history, photography, writing, communications, project management, and education, to name a few, all the while crafting connections between seemingly separate worlds.

I have been called a degree collector, an eccentric hobbyist, and once by a slightly overwhelmed immigration officer, “a walking encyclopedia in nice boots.” Fair enough, curiosity has always been my compass, leading me down intricate paths of research, discovery, and connection.

It is how I understand the world, connect with people, and uncover the stories bubbling beneath the surface.

The Common Thread

My work is shaped by a lifelong fascination with how humans create meaning.

Through anthropology and archaeology, I learned to look beyond what is immediately visible and understand how people, cultures, and communities express identity through traditions, environments, rituals, and shared experiences.

Through photography, I learned that a single image could evoke atmosphere and connection beyond words.

Through writing, I learned how carefully chosen language can transform information into understanding.

Through years of communications, marketing, and project development, I learned how those stories can be thoughtfully structured and shared with intention.

Different disciplines, one enduring mindset of reverence for this shared human experience. 

Stories Beneath the Surface

I am drawn to what exists beyond the obvious.

The history behind a destination.

The people who bring an experience to life.

The traditions that shape a place.

The details that make someone feel welcomed.

The moments that transform an interaction into a memory.

Whether I am photographing a boutique retreat, documenting the atmosphere of an expedition cruise, interviewing the people behind a brand, or crafting editorial storytelling, I approach every project with the same curiosity:

How do we help people not only understand an experience, but feel it?

Because the most powerful stories do not simply describe what exists.

They reveal why it matters.

What’s in a Name?

I have been asked about the name Your Eccentric Sister more times than I can count.

Usually with a small pause before the word “eccentric,” as if it needs a moment to settle.

And honestly, I understand why.

Today, eccentric often suggests something unusual, unpredictable, or outside the norm. But its traditional understanding carried something richer. Rooted in the idea of moving outside the expected center, eccentric once described a different kind of orbit: not a lack of direction, but a willingness to see from another perspective.

That meaning has always resonated with me.

Throughout my life, curiosity has rarely stayed within a single discipline or way of seeing the world. Archaeology, philosophy, literature, religion, languages, science, culture, arts, aviation, photography, and storytelling have all been different pathways toward the same pursuit: understanding people, place, and the experiences that shape us.

In many ways, this curiosity reflects a Renaissance spirit, a belief that knowledge is not meant to exist in isolated categories, but in conversation with itself.

Art informs science.
History informs culture.
Nature informs creativity.
Stories reveal the connections between them all.

Your Eccentric Sister was born from that perspective.

Not as a declaration of being different for the sake of being different, but as a celebration of curiosity, connection, and the belief that looking at the world from a slightly different angle often reveals what was there all along.

The words “Your” and “Sister” carry a deeper meaning rooted in connection and kinship.

“Sister” represents the sense of belonging discovered across cultures, communities, and shared human experiences. Across the places I have traveled, studied, and lived, I have continually found the same questions beneath different languages, traditions, and ways of life:

What is worth preserving?
How do we carry our histories, our communities, and our experiences forward?

The expressions may differ, but the search for meaning is beautifully familiar.

“Your” reflects the understanding that stories are never created in isolation. They are shaped through connection between the storyteller, the subject, the place, and the person experiencing the story.

Stories are not simply told. They are shared.

They belong to the relationships formed around them; the people who create them, the places that hold them, and the individuals who carry them forward.

And that is how the name truly settled for me.

Because it was never just a name. It was a reflection of how I have always seen the world: curiosity leading us outward, connection bringing us together, and stories reminding us that we are part of something larger.

Rooted in Place

When I am not traveling for work, I can usually be found writing and creating on our orchard in Vermont with my husband, surrounded by apple trees, gardens, evergreens, crisp spring-fed lakes, and the changing rhythms of the seasons.

This place continually reminds me why storytelling matters.

Nature teaches patience, farming teaches stewardship, seasons teach adaptation, and a meal shared with family and friends teaches presence.

The land has a way of slowing us down enough to notice what is often overlooked.

That same attention to detail informs every story I help shape.

Whether I am exploring a new destination, photographing an event, interviewing a founder, or crafting a brand narrative, I approach each project with the same reverence for place, people, and the moments that connect us.

Because meaningful stories are not manufactured, they are discovered.