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What Living Out of a Tent in a Foreign Country for a Summer Taught Me
At age 19, I took my life savings and bought camping gear, a tent, and a one-way ticket to the Icelandic wildness. From there, I went on to spend over a month of a three-month journey living in a tent, with my girlfriend, in the middle of nowhere, wild Iceland. This is what that experience taught me.
Why did I do it?…
I was young. I wanted to see the world and didn’t have enough money to do it any other way. I figured if I were going to die young, it better be in a cool way like this. And… because Iceland is expensive, like the most expensive in the world.
We were scared and excited to get there. I can say it’s peculiar to walk out onto a foreign countries airport and just start walking. We were getting off the plane with no timeframe to come home. We didn’t know what to expect. We had a plan, sort of. But we were two kids that quit good stable jobs and college careers to explore. Yea. We were in no rush, and by no rush, I mean that. We took our time walking. We spent a few days in towns before leaving for the wilderness. We hitchhiked and met some extraordinary people and some more interesting ones. This brings me to the first thing I learned. Don’t expect things to go your way. Ever.
