Meet Monica & Sammy | Travelling Macrame Artists

We had the good fortune of connecting with Monica & Sammy and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Monica & Sammy, how do you think about risk?
For us, taking risks is one of the most important things in life. Without risk, there is little reward; with risks, the rewards are endless! If we both hadn’t decided to travel on our own years ago, we wouldn’t have met each other and started travelling together. All of our choices have brought us to where we are today.

The both of us (Sammy and Monica) grew up with different upbringings, but we share the same views. We’re both driven by adventure and the urge to discover new places. So we decided to create a business that would embody that and give us the freedom to live the life we want to!

We were both travelling on our own through Australia for years until we met and started travelling together, making macrame jewelry along the way that we sold at markets, beaches and on busy streets to help fund our travels. Since January 2021, we’ve been on the road together and have also built an online business that allows us to create an income in a different way. Along the way we collect stones and beads from the places we visit, showcasing different stones from all over the world in our art.

Since we don’t have normal “stable jobs,” taking risks is a part of our daily life. Each day we come up with new ideas to improve our business and with that sometimes comes failure. We continuously adjust our ideas to create a scenario that’s even more beneficial. Taking risks continuously opens up areas to improve in and we learn a little bit more each time.

Life on the road also comes with many risks, like having to find somewhere to sleep in unfamiliar places or travelling through a bit of a dangerous area. For us, these are risks we enjoy taking because choosing to roll the dice, we’re able to constantly experience different parts of the world. It’s something we’re very accustomed to, it’s a big part of our life and never fails to keep the excitement alive.

Taking risks has brought us to where we are now, living a life on the road, meeting people from all over the world, and admiring the beauty in life. We never know where we’ll be tomorrow, taking everything as it comes, which really keeps things exciting for us! Leaving behind the social norms and being able to experience different cultures has given us the opportunity to help people and volunteer for good causes along the way. We live an extremely fortunate life, it’s something we realize everyday and never take for granted!


Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
We think what makes our story unique is the fact that we run our business on the road; we’re constantly changing our location. Since we started focusing on building a business together, we’ve changed our means of travel many times. Whether it’s hitchhiking, taking buses, a 4×4 in Australia, a motorbike in Mexico or soon to be on a bicycle again, we love finding ways to make things work. It’s important for us to have a minimalist lifestyle and travel lightweight while still having everything we need to create our artwork, which gets pretty heavy when you add together all of the tools, string, and stones! It’s always a challenge, but we love figuring it out and what’s life without a little challenge anyway?

We spend a lot of time challenging ourselves to create new macrame designs and pushing ourselves to continuously improve. We love what we do, we enjoy creating special pieces and we’re fortunate to have the time in our lives to do so. Macrame art requires a lot of time and patience, which can be hard to keep up with after long days on the road! But it all pays off when you look back and get to enjoy the finished result.

There are many things to take into account running a business on the road, like setting up our makeshift “studio” to take product photos in different locations. Wind and rain aren’t always on our side, sometimes there’s a small window of only a few minutes to take the perfect photo! But we feel so lucky to be able to take photos on the edge of a massive cliff in Australia or at the beautiful beaches in Mexico. We like to incorporate all different landscapes into our product’s photos and show a bit of the culture of each place as we’re there. The photos then tell a bit of a story from warm to cold places, showcasing where we are at the time. When we collect stones from the different places that we travel to, we get inspiration from the different cultures, art and landscapes that we encounter along the way.

We think it’s best to always work together, communicate and try not to stress about anything because there’s always a solution to every problem. A positive mindset goes a long way and most importantly what goes around comes around, which is something we always live by. Through our business we want to try to help make the world a better place in any way we possibly can. We try to be mindful of using eco-friendly materials, dedicating some of our profits to good causes or picking up pieces of trash that we see, because every act, big or small always helps! We love everything that comes along with running a business on the road, and we wouldn’t change it for anything! In the end, our goal is to continue living our lives to the fullest while running a small business that we love and hoping to make a difference along the way.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
There are so many people who deserve a shoutout in our story! From all of the people who have been kind enough to open their homes to us along our travels, to the people who have bought something from us at markets, online, or on the street to support us and our story. Our families who always support our decisions and the strangers we meet that constantly remind us of the good that’s in the world. We wouldn’t be where we are today without them!

A big shout out also goes to Sammy’s parents who originally came up with the idea to make and sell macrame bracelets as a way to fund their travels on their family cycling trip around the world. Starting in 2008, they cycled for 10 years through different countries and began selling bracelets in 2014. Their setup was simple, just a tablecloth on the ground on the busy streets of Europe.

An idea which has since grown into our business, Macrame on the Move, that we (Sammy & Monica) have created together today. As we move along from place to place, we’re continuously running our Etsy site from wherever we might be at the time. Now we create many different macrame designs from necklaces and earrings to wall hangings and more! This is only the start of our travels together and we plan to continue as long as life allows!

Website: macrameonthemove.com

Instagram: @macrameonthemove

Other: Pinterest: macrameonthemove