Hi everyone, I’m Destynee! I’m a full time content creator who has reconnected with my childhood self through the western lifestyle. I grew up in the mountains of western North Carolina in a little town called Mills River. As a kid, I was quite a tomboy. I was taught to play outside from a young age which led to my love of horses, 4 wheeling, fishing with my papaw, playing with my 14 dogs, catching salamanders in the creek on our property… the list goes on. Needless to say, I was never afraid to get my hands dirty. Growing up I was lucky enough to live near the Blue Ridge Parkway, so I’d go on weekend adventures with my friends and family. This is where I discovered my passion for videography! One Christmas, I asked for a GoPro and from there on, I was the friend who documented all of our adventures.
As I grew up, I was a girl with huge dreams. Coming from a town with nothing to do other than hang out on dirt roads and in our local grocery store’s parking lot on Friday nights, I craved something bigger, to escape the small town life. At that moment, I didn’t realize how special the slow country living life truly was.
When I turned 18, I never looked back. I quickly found myself moving across the country to Los Angeles to chase my dreams, although I wasn’t quite sure of what that was at the time. I knew I loved creating. In the creative industry, I truly think you have to reinvent yourself a thousand times just to figure out who you truly are and what resonates with you and that’s exactly what I did.
I began taking content creation more seriously while living in LA and going to college online. My friends and I would take weekend trips to Joshua Tree, and that’s where I found myself happiest, putting on our cowgirl boots and hats and hitting the desert for content days. This made me happy. I felt like I was reconnecting with baby Des.
As I’m sure you all know, life is a whirlwind, and you never really know what's coming, you simply have to roll with the punches. Next thing I knew, I was moving across the country to Miami. This was a full send moment in my life, and although I did love living in Miami, and life is all about experience, there was always something missing for me. I bought my dog the first day I moved there, because I didn’t know one single person. Raising a dog in a “concrete jungle” was so different from what I grew up around. I found myself craving trips home to my parents house with land and space for him to run free. As I found myself visiting home more and more often, I began to feel like myself again. I didn’t want to go back to the city. I realized how unimportant some made up standard of living this “glamorous lifestyle” truly was.
That was when I knew it was time to go back to my roots. The small places and moments are what truly matter in this life, things that were put on this earth for free, like wide open spaces, nature and animals. Western style isn’t just a “style” to me; it’s a lifestyle and a way of living. I think my happiness started to shine through in my content when I started creating what came naturally to me.
I now live in Charleston, South Carolina, the home of “Coastal Cowgirl” and I think that describes me perfectly. I’m also a quick car ride from my parents land, so I truly get the best of both worlds. Since moving back to the South a year ago, I have fully immersed myself into Western fashion and lifestyle. Western style is truly everyday liveable wear which I love! Being able to shop local mom and pop farmer’s markets, grab an ice cream from the diner down the road, take my dogs to a big open field, shoot skeet in the back yard, fish in the lake…. it's the little things that make western living so great. Documenting my genuine, authentic life comes second nature to me now that I’m living the great “Western dream.”