BeWILDered 

                      By Laura Waters

“What would move you to ditch your life and take off into the wild for 5 months?”

Join Laura on her 5 month adventure hiking the Te Araroa (the long pathway) in New Zealand. A 3000 Kilometre long hike from the top of the north island at Cape Reinga to the Bluff at the bottom of the South Island of New Zealand.

I did at first struggle to get past the first 10 pages or so for a few months as it was a little slow, but once I did, I was hooked. I really enjoyed reading her adventure, from the daily hurdles, the physical and mental toughness and all the beautiful landscapes of New Zealand.

Follow Laura from beaches to forests, volcanic and mountainous terrain – IFYYK- and conquering it all.

Laura’s story tells about the the fun characters she meets along the way, over coming her own fears and anxiety, but also what brought her to be in this position in the first place. Its a great story of persistence, belief and discovery in yourself.

With little nuggets of romance throughout the book of will they wont they, and will they ever see each other again? Pulling you through right to the end of the book and how it transformed her life.

This book really made me reflect more on my own situation, plans and the life that I want. 

What is keeping me where I am? 

And I happy there? 

Why am I did in a job I no longer enjoy- job security?

What makes me happy?

What can I do and change in my life to help achieve this?

But also most importantly, that as much as I love the outdoors, that I don’t spend nearly as much time outside enjoying them as I should. 

A great quote that Laura says is “its seems we no longer travel to see-to-learn- or discover something new- but to be seen.” 

In this she’s talking about the very high statistic of the importance of instagrammability to young travellers. If its not instagram worthy is there even any point?

I feel the same way about people who count countries, just to tick them off on a list to be able to say I’ve been to X amount of countries as a boast.

Okay what about the countries you return to over and over and over again? Not to tick a box, but because you fell in love with that country or city and you want to take your time to explore it more and in depth and I don’t think there is anything wrong with that, and its how I prefer to travel myself. Not everything has to be about the gram.