Destination Chile: First Stop On My World Tour

My social media photos do not lie, these past couple of weeks have been the start of a big, new journey for me. For the first time in five years, I have packed all my belongings into storage, stuffed some clothes into a backpack, and hit the road, destinations mostly unknown, open to opportunity, with all the time in the world.

I am prepared to be gone from the US until at least next summer. I’ve taken the steps I needed to take to lead a nomadic life, which is something I’ve always wanted to do.

I’ve never continuously backpacked for more than three months at a time without living in any one place, and this is what I feel called to do, at least for now. Not just to see the world, but to experience, grow, learn, and, now that I have an audience as a blogger, to share all of that with you. And yes, the decision to do this has come with great sacrifice, determination, and focus, but I press on to where I feel I need to be.

My plan was to start this journey in southern Chile to attend the Adventure Travel World Summit (with the ATTA), as well as take 7 days to hike the famous W Circuit of Torres del Paine National Park in Patagonia (with Fantástico Sur) and spend a few days touring the island of Chiloé (with Birds Chile).

I knew this would start my trip off with a bang, and I looked forward to it for many months. Suddenly, my time in Chile is already over, and I can only look back on it with incredible gratitude. Those first 7 days in the wild of Patagonia, with a group that started as strangers, was one of the best weeks of my life.

I am a mountain girl, and there is nowhere I feel more alive than surrounded by ridiculously beautiful mountains (I used that word a lot that week). Combine that with 7 of my new best friends, 2 of the best female guides in Patagonia, a 72 KM trek, and the freedom of the trail, and I had myself a recipe for bliss.

I was in the center of it, and I could feel it all day every day. I felt it while I ran in a pelting snowstorm, while I sat by a stream to dry out in the sun, while drinking pisco sours in a wood-fired hot tub on the side of a mountain at the shores of a glacier lake, while staring in jaw-dropping awe at two galaxies that are only visible in the deep black of the southern hemisphere. Have you ever seen the stars from Patagonia?

I could feel it as I spread my arms wide into a valley surrounded by vertical spires and glaciers, while simply sitting around the dinner table with my companions, laughing and sharing stories from the day, while staring out over Grey Glacier, which is part of the third largest mass of connected ice in the world after Antarctica and Greenland. It is alive, wild, and mystifying, and we could hear it breathing as we kayaked through icebergs around it.

To be inside nature like we were is what makes my soul shine. This place has taken up residence in my heart, and one of those cabins at Refugio Los Cuernos has my name on it for a week someday, I can’t wait to go back. Shout out to Fantástico Sur, who put the trip together, if you are considering Chilean Patagonia, do the W Circuit with them.

It was hard to say goodbye to Patagonia, but the buzz of the Summit in Puerto Varas was a brilliant distraction. We went from remote, off-the-grid, silence, to being in the midst of 700 adventure travelers from all across the world coming together to learn, share, dream, and create the future of adventure travel. The opportunities and friendships that have come out of those 5 days is almost overwhelming, and we (you and I) are going to continue to see the results as my year goes on.

It was in January of this year when my editor Jo at Yahoo told me, “You need to be involved with the ATTA, they are your people.” I have since gone to Baja California Sur, Ecuador, and Chile with them, and she was right. I found my tribe.

After the Summit, I got on a bus with a new group of soon-to-be best friends to the end of the Pan-American Highway. At the end of the road, we crossed the water by ferry to a place they refer to as the “non plus extra de América” which in Latin means “there is no more.” What lies at the end of the road and across the water is the frozen-in-time culture of the island of Chiloé.

With our guides from Birds Chile, we met a 3rd-generation boat maker who builds huge boats out of wood, by hand. We met a woman who invited us into her house for a curanto, which is a traditional meat and seafood feast cooked over stones under the earth. Her deep, sincere laugh made us all feel as welcome as old friends, and it’s no wonder that she inspired a character in one of Isabel Allende’s books. We met a man who runs the last working water mill in Chile, which he still uses today to grind flour. We shopped at a market with a local chef to pick out ingredients for a traditional fish stew, which we then cooked and ate together as we celebrated our last night on the island.

It’s amazing that so much awesomeness could happen day after day after day, and I thrive in it. I feel blessed for these opportunities, but I also feel like I have arrived to where I’m meant to be and where I’ve been working to be.

I am writing this from seat 24A on a flight to Bangkok via Tokyo. I am heading to Thailand for TBEX, a conference for travel bloggers. I should be there at least a couple of weeks, but we’ll see what happens, because I don’t even have my next plane ticket out yet. Just the way I like it.

Stay tuned, this journey has just begun.