I am an adventure guide for an All-Women’s travel company, which means that I can direct incredible women groups in hiking, backpack, surfing, rappelling, snorkeling and cultural trips around the world. I have come to walk along the Inca path in Peru, snorkel in the Caribbean Sea and see the sunrise about Petra in Jordan, all while they pay me.

When I tell people what I do to work, they usually think I am living the dream.

But while I feel in my friend’s apartment between tours in search of my next concert at home, she looks at me from the other side of the couch and says: “I don’t know how you sleep at night.” I am about to guide an international tour in Belize for three weeks, but I don’t even know where I am going to live next week.

And that is the nature of this lifestyle. My life is like a roller coaster: long and hard climbs where my stomach is agitated with anxiety and anticipation, followed by exciting drops and cardiac races. Meanwhile, other people’s life tends to be more like a guyvive, predictable, constant or at least soft to enjoy an ice cream cone while waiting for the next rotation.

But I always tell people that I did not choose this lifestyle; This lifestyle chose me.

It all started when I saw a steering wheel in my university’s dining room: “Introduction to the backpack on the Florida path – $ 65”.

I had never been backing into my life, but that little steering wheel filled me with emotion. I enrolled alone, and when I saw that the guides on that trip were colleagues, practically brilliant of a golden aura as they were paid to enjoy the beautiful outdoors, I knew I was about to step on the roller coaster. I asked them: “How can I get your job?”

And that is where my trip began: work part -time as an adventure guide at my university while obtaining my degree in Psychology and Communication. I certified in desert medicine, I learned to drive 12 passenger vehicles with 12 Kayaks of the sea united to the back through Miami traffic and how to create completely new backpack routes in the march when a section of the path is closed due to forest fires. At 19, I traveled abroad for the first time, they paid me to guide the Landmannalaugar path, a 35 -mile walk through the Iceland field.

But once I graduated, I thought it was time to “grow.”

And I tried, I really did.

After making the path of the Trail of the Apalaches at 22 for fun, a reward that I gave myself after graduating, I enrolled in a Master’s Program for Mental Health Advice in Boston College. But when I saw how much I would have to get student loans, something inside me shouted, NO! Sácanos here!

On Monday I enrolled in classes; For Friday, I was packing all my things in my car and leading to the rural area of ​​Pennsylvania for the season, living in a cabin in a lake while teaching elementary school students outdoor education. Without cell service in the valley, I spent my nights building fires, writing, walking along the lake at sunset and spending real quality time with my coworkers and friends.

I tried again in 2020, get a job in the behavior health unit at a Children’s Hospital in New Orleans. If I had stayed in the long term, they would have paid for my education. But after spending hours in fluorescent lights, seeing the medical care system prioritize money on real care, shouts in my head continued.

At 25, I took a television table and a folding chair, I sat on Frenchmen Street in the center of New Orleans and sold my poetry. I also paid my rent with a history of work and concerts in the New Orleans Hollywood cinematographic scene unit. That phase of my life was full of art, nights and unpredictability.

But the Russian mountains do not stay in free fall forever, and finally, I realized that it was not sustainable.

My brother, with his safe financial career, perfect marriage, Golden Retriever and five bedroom house in the suburbs, is the opposite. “You need to pay you for your highest skill level,” he told me after I realized that poetry in the street was not going to work.

I had more than 10,000 hours of backpack experience, so I requested to be a guide again.

After working independently with some outdoor education programs, I was hired as a regular guide with an adventure travel company for all women. As a hired guide, I take 12 trips a year in the United States and internationally. The company is totally remote, so everything is administered virtually: before each trip, I receive detailed technical itineraries, logistics spreadsheets and previous tours adventure reports. Then I get on a plane and prepare to give women the best experience of their lives.

My work is part of logistics, part of Hype-Woman, a photographer, part of the driver, part of the chef, part of a shoulder shout, yoga instructor and part of the first desert responder. Management everything, from mapping paths of trails and organizing equipment to making sure that everyone feels supported and safe on the trip.

The routes last between four and 10 days, and the working days are long, usually from 12 to 14 hours, sometimes they extend to 16. It is a large amount of load, truck driving, trail guide, problem solving, stories narration and maintenance of emotional space. Like the waiting tables, most of my income comes from advice, so although the base salary covers the essential, I never know how much I will leave until the trip ends. Another climb on the roller coaster.

When I am not guiding, I am usually between short -term housing configurations: staying with friends and family, being at home or traveling. While technically part -time work, the guide occupies a large part of my year both physically and mentally. I can be on the way or abroad for several weeks at the same time, depending on how trips are scheduled. I had a permanent apartment, but after a year of guide, I realized that it had only been six weeks in the last six months.

Women who join our tours are often in some kind of crossroads (after divorce, a new job, birthday of milestones or simply yearning for connection and adventure, and all are inspiring. They come from everywhere, and appear with open hearts and a willingness to challenge themselves. The true magic is at the moments that I can see these women conquer a fear of the heights uncontrollably around a fire or cry tears on the top of a mountain.

My first year, at 27, I directed walks through some of the most incredible landscapes in the United States: edge in the Grand Canyon, Angel’s Landing in Zion, Half Dome in Yosemite.

Year two, at age 28, I went abroad: walking to the Alps Julián in Slovenia, leading the expeditions of consecutive Inca trails, guiding Jordan and amazed at Petra, one of the seven wonders of the world.

I will never forget rafting through the Soča River in Slovenia. We had just finished a walk of 30 miles of cabin, we spent the oar in the morning at dawn at Lake Bohinj and we gave ourselves one of the best breakfasts in my life in a boutique hotel. The river was crystalline blue, the guy you see in Banff, Canada, but warm and cozy. While we float through the rapids, our local guide said ahead and shouted: “Look, Slovenia loves you, Katie.”

I followed his gaze to see a giant limestone heart located in the distant mountains.

But for each stimulating ancestry, there are long increases that stolle the stomach.

How to receive food poisoning in Peru and have a single day to recover before leading my next group, forcing me to look strong and professional.

Or, equally so frightening: any family reunion.

“Are you not becoming a little old for this lifestyle?”

“You are almost 30 years old, you should have your life solved.”

“You’re never going to find a husband doing this. Men want someone stable. They will think you are cheated every time you go to another country.”

“The way he invests his time now will determine his future.”

Sometimes those comments affect me. Sometimes I find myself crying alone in my car, seeing that another high school girl has a giant rock on her finger, a newborn baby or a wedding that seemed to come out of a Disney movie. I wonder if they are right.

I am still single, although I have had some quite romantic releases in some quite notable places, and yes, I would love to marry and have children one day. My biological clock is marking, right? Isn’t there all the good disappeared?

Sometimes I wonder if this lifestyle is delaying me. I have 401 (K) and health insurance, but I don’t have a permanent direction or a professional career that fits perfectly into a LinkedIn box. While my work allows me to explore the world, it does not always offer the type of structure that people are associated with stability. There are moments, usually late at night, when I sleep in a bed borrowed or put my suitcase again for the tenth time, when I wonder if I am building a future or simply drifting from the present.

But then, I see the pure joy on the face of a woman after helping her to conquer the cables of the average dome. I see the sunset from the top of one of the best mountains in the United States, everything while paying me, and I can’t help feeling sorry for the uncles people.

Because they will never know the emotion of the trip I am.

When he was younger, he was terrified of repentance. I was afraid to wake up one day wishing to have chosen differently. But the more I was traveling, the more I realized something: Repentance is not about the elections it makes, but not.

Because do you want to know what is more difficult than not knowing where you are going to sleep, being alone and single, or not knowing how much money you are going to earn this month? Is living a life full of What would happen?

So that’s what I do: I pursue, discover and reveal each And if Until it reaches the end of that rope. That is what keeps me in the future.

That and blind trust, optimism and maybe even the slight deception that everything will work. If I take full advantage of the present moment, I think the future will be taken care of alone.

Because sometimes, the most scary elections lead to the most unforgettable walks.

I know my body. I know that one day, after exploring the world, Rafting Ríos, conquering mountains, jumping on flights, sleeping in shelters, carrying a 50 -pound backpack and treating 100 ampoules on other people’s feet, will get tired.

And she will get out of the roller coaster.

But right now? I have my hands free, I’m throwing them into the air, I’m shouting at the top of my lungs,

Katie Klos is an adventure and writer guide that directs trips all over the world for the Chick company explorer. With more than 10,000 hours of backpacker experience, it is a path of the Apalaches through Hiker and has a double specialization in psychology and communication. Passionate about wild places, write about trips, identity, freedom, culture and team. You can follow her on Instagram.

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