'I Built My Career Around My Freedom, Not the Other Way Around'

Prune Salmon is 26, carries a laptop in her backpack, and holds one deep conviction: you can design your life before designing for your clients. A freelance motion designer, she currently works with Decathlon Switzerland from the other side of the world. But behind the apparent lightness of this lifestyle lie very deliberate choices, an Atlantic crossing by boat, and a rare clarity about what it means to be a free woman in 2026.

Building everything around a childhood dream

For Prune, travel didn't happen by accident. It's a thread that goes back to childhood. Trained at the École de Design Nantes Atlantique, she went to Montreal for her master's — her first escape. Upon returning, rather than looking for a comfortable permanent job, she launched her freelance business with one clear goal: geographic freedom.

To achieve that, she made choices others might call sacrificial. 2D over 3D, so she'd only depend on a laptop. Agencies over direct clients, to avoid constantly explaining her craft. Remote work as her number one criterion, non-negotiable.

"It's all about choices," she says simply. "My deepest desire coming out of school was to be able to travel. I thought about what best fit that choice. I also had to sacrifice certain things, like my interest in mapping, building a real community of colleagues, not to mention the distance from loved ones."

A year of preparation in Nantes to build her network. Then departure, backpack on, heading for Latin America. A year and a half on the road: from Colombia to Brazil by land, by bus, by hitchhiking, through volunteering. And an Atlantic crossing by boat, because for Prune, flying is never a casual act. In a year and a half of travel, she only took one flight.

The moment of truth, somewhere on the Caribbean coast

The moment Prune realized her dream had become reality? It was in Colombia, on the Caribbean coast. She was working on her first contract with Decathlon, and at the end of the day, she'd join friends to surf. She stopped. She realized.

"I was living what I had visualized during the entire year I spent building this project. Despite my certainty that it would work, periods of doubt always come to disturb the idyllic picture we paint of our future life. But I believe that having imagined it and being convinced it would happen one day contributed to making it real."

Traveling without flying, a political act

Prune doesn't just travel. She holds herself to a standard few digital nomads claim: drastically limiting air travel. Bus, hitchhiking, boat — she chooses the road whenever possible, even if it means two months to cross an ocean.

"Traveling is a privilege, a luxury that few people on this planet have. So if I do it, I want to do it consciously and the right way. It saddens me to see influencers selling travel by showing themselves one week in Australia and the next in Morocco. For me, flying is not a casual act."

This choice is also part of her slow travel philosophy. Prune prefers the journey to the destination. She doesn't plan her next stop, stays open to unexpected encounters, and lives day by day. In South America, volunteering allowed her to stay longer in places without blowing her budget — and to build lasting connections. On the Colombian Caribbean coast, a month in a hostel with other volunteers and locals became "almost a little family." The kind of authentic connection, rooted in shared daily life, that traditional travel platforms don't know how to create.

"Are you crazy, all alone?"

A woman, alone, hitchhiking, backpack on, in countries that don't appear in tourist brochures. Prune knows the line by heart. She hears it often. She doesn't take offense.

"I understand these reactions, because they come from fears that people project onto me. But I don't have many fears — not about people, not about what might happen, not about the unknown. These are things that actually fuel my curiosity. Fear lives more within us than outside."

A black belt in karate, Prune doesn't venture out naively. But she refuses to let fear — especially other people's fear — dictate her choices.

Legitimacy, a silent battle

On the question of women's legitimacy, Prune doesn't theorize. She shares what she lives. For a long time, she didn't feel legitimate turning her craft into a business. Looking around her, the observation hit hard.

"Most men don't even ask themselves the question — they just do it. And I wasn't an isolated case. In a female music collective, we all — without exception — expressed our feeling of illegitimacy in calling ourselves artists, while our male friends have been doing it for years without a second thought."

Her message is direct: "As a woman, you have to work twice as hard to claim your place in this society. And I encourage every woman who hesitates to do it, if only to inspire others."

Coming home to leave again

Prune had left for five years. She came back after a year and a half. Not out of failure, but out of clarity. Alone in the Colombian countryside for three months, she understood something essential.

"Even though I had everything I needed and a magnificent view, it didn't make sense alone. You can meet beautiful people everywhere. But people who know you deeply, who you grew up with — you don't find them on every street corner."

The Into the Wild quote resonates with her experience: happiness is only real when shared. It's also what moves her about the idea of connecting nomads with locals who share their passions — finding that human warmth without leaving it to chance. Today, Prune travels in Europe, closer to her loved ones, just as free.

What's next?

Prune is working on two big personal projects: converting a van to hit the road again, and creating Soma Collectif, a female Dub collective that already has several dates planned for 2026. The rest — mapping, yoga, and other ideas — she'd rather not talk about yet. Prune isn't the type to announce before she acts.

If she could talk to the Prune who had just finished her master's, hesitant, she'd tell her one thing: "Trust yourself 100%. You can do anything you want."

This article is part of our series published for International Women's Day 2026. At Hello Mira, we believe digital nomadism is better when shared — with locals, with other nomads, with those who dare. That's why we give a voice to women who live this adventure every day, with their doubts, their battles, and their vision.