So i’m home from New Zealand. What an experience. I really can’t get over how amazing that trip was. The first two weeks of volunteering was so cool. I was extremely happy to learn about our projects and what we were doing to help the environment around us. It was really neat. I got to see the most spectacular landscapes, gorgeous hillsides, lakes, forests, farmlands. It’s everything combined into one. At our second volunteer space, we even got to plant a celebratory miro tree. something that is going to last hundreds of years in the park reserve!

And then the adventure tour. I cant even fathom how many things I did on that trip that I thought would never happen in my lifetime. I jumped off a platform 400m above Queenstown, did the largest swing in the world, got to see a kiwi, in person up close! I met some of the sweetest people that live around our country and the world, and without this trip, 99% sure I never would have come into contact with. Getting to learn about the culture and travel the country was beyond my wildest dreams. It’s made me so much more passionate about my wanting to travel and see life and help people and places that I haven’t been to yet. I got a tattoo of the kiwi bird to celebrate my going to New Zealand, getting to see one live, and coming away from this experience changed.

This trip definitely put some fire behind me, and for sure changed something within me. I have a determination in my life that I never really had before and it’s thanks to the people I met and the things we did. It opened my eyes to a lot of things outside my little bubble, which I used to think was so open before this. I’m excited to see where I can take myself now.