[9] Abbamonte earned his MBA from the Thunderbird School of Global Management (now part of Arizona State University) in 2010.

[10] After college, Abbamonte worked on Wall Street, spending time at Cantor Fitzgerald at the original One World Trade Center,[11][12] Intercontinental Exchange, Citigroup, and Merrill Lynch.

[13] In that year he launched his travel blog LeeAbbamonte.com[14] and decided to make an effort to visit every country in the world, completing the goal in 2011 at the age of 32.

[21] He has been featured, quoted or written about in dozens of publications including USA Today,[22] BBC,[23] Bravo,[5] Chicago Tribune,[24] Forbes,[25] New York,[1] Slate,[26] Condé Nast Traveler,[27] ABC News,[28] The Washington Post,[29] Martha Stewart Weddings,[30] The Huffington Post,[31] and U.S. News & World Report.

[8][42] Abbamonte made his television debut in 2006, appearing on the ESPN sports trivia show Stump the Schwab.