Who Is Kay Walten?
I left Baltimore in 1992 with a boyfriend, two pickup trucks, a pile of dive gear, and $7,000.
I was headed to Mexico for six months.
I stayed for 27 years.
In that time I built one of the first online vacation rental companies, explored miles of underwater caves, recovered bodies from those caves (only 2), was an IMAX stunt double, and helped a civilization grow from the end of a dirt road.
That last one I’m still working out.
I hosted thousands of guests. I put small towns on the map that nobody had heard of. I survived hurricanes, a pandemic, a divorce, and the arrival of Airbnb.
The Smithsonian wrote about the caves. The Women’s Diving Hall of Fame inducted me. The Explorer’s Club made me an International Fellow. All of this for doing what I loved.
Then I sold the company, blew up my life, and bought a travel trailer.
I went back to school so I wouldn’t have gin for breakfast. Built an AI app nobody was ready for. Tried consulting. Wrote frameworks on Substack under a brand called Smart Pineapple. It was fine. It was also vanilla.
I’m done with vanilla.
I write under my own name. About travel, destinations, hospitality, tourism, and the parts of this industry nobody talks about. And about the stories from a life that sometimes defies explanation. Caves, dirt roads, border crossings, blind horses, army ants, and the occasional dead body.
Lately I’ve been in France, writing about towns where the same thing is happening. The bakery closes. The rent triples. The kids leave. I know what it looks like because I was once the money arriving.
I write for people who give a shit. People who’ve been in it long enough to know the difference between the brochure and the building.
If you want polished frameworks and TikTok strategies, I am not your person. If you want someone who’s been in the building when things go sideways and will tell you what it actually looked like, pull up a chair.
Sometimes you just can’t make this shit up.
