Back in 2018, somewhere towards the end of August, I was exploring Mongolian steppe on horseback with couple of other badass ladies. We were sitting and chatting in one of the gers of the nomadic family we had borrowed our hoses from. The adventure was almost over and the next day we would start heading towards Ulaanbaatar and begin our journey back home. I hadn’t showered in days, my knees were swollen and my body was battered and aching, but as we were reflecting on the experiences we had, at some point I said “This is what I want to do with my life. Explore wild places and share them with others.” Not necessarily on horseback, atleast not all the time, but embrace the wilderness, be surrounded by nature, document and share these experiences with others. At the time I thought I’d be doing this specifically with my camera, but since then I’ve decided to expand a little.

Fast forward three years and in August 2021 I started as one of the participants of the International Wilderness Guide Prorgram #26 in Kuru, Finland.

Back in 2021, when my partner and I started seriously considering moving from Netherlands to Finland, I was looking at options and opportunities for myself. Offering tours and workshops had been a part of my long term plan for a long time, and I had even been in the planning stage of organising my first one before the pandemic hit and threw a wrench into everyone’s plans. Now that we were thinking about moving to Finland, actually studying to become a qualified guide made sense to me.And when I eventually discovered the IWG program, I knew I had found my dream school. As our Finland plans were confirmed I sent my application and then started waiting to see if I’d get invited to a interview. Originally I planned to be sensible and apply to other schools offering similar courses (although in Finnish) but as time passed I realised I really wanted to go into this specific one. Even though this was way further from home than the other options I had. This meant that rather than commuting every day between school and home, I’d be living at the school and only going back home to my partner, our animals and our freshly built brand new home during (most of) the weekends. So I threw all of my eggs into one basket, and hoped for the best. If I wouldn’t get in this year, I’d just re-apply for the next one.

Obviously, since I’m writing this update, I got in. I’m now on my second month here, and I’m so happy and grateful that I made it. Of course, it’s A LOT of work, the study pace is super-hectic, and it’s not definitelly not going to be easy breezing through the upcoming months. It’s not all just outdoor adventures, being in nature and exploring the wilderness, but there’s also lot of reading, memorizing and intensive studying. Despite being used to long hours of hard work, being deeply interested and motivated in learning our topics, there’s definitely times it gets a little overwhelming. But at the same time, despite only being in the beginning of this educational journey, I can already tell that this is going to be one of the best years of my life. And I have such exciting plans for how I’m going to use all of this in the future as well. So stay tuned!