When Ola called and asked me to work as a guide at Expeditionsresor, everything kinda fell into place. I had already started looking for a place to live in Åre since I wanted to move back since I left in 2013. I just didn't know how. But getting introduced to a job that includes everything that I always wanted in my daily life, my best option for me was to work as a guide as much as possible and jump on a guide cert education to fill in the blanks when I didn't work.
Cus most of all I just wanted to find a way to be outside as much as possible every day, which also was one of the reasons why I quit my job as a design engineer even though I loved my job. So applying to Vildmarks- och äventyrsguideutbildningen in Åre turned out to be one of the best things I've done! To hang out with people who easily just jump on adventures spontaneously and rather make dinner over fire, go winter camping, play on their free time and go for a hike to a mountain top when having a "fika with friends".
"You have to settle down at some point, stop traveling and moving around all the time and just choose a place to live and a job to go to every day!" said everyone too often.
😂
It's a luxury to now have that which I previously prioritized all my free time, vacays and time off work on in my everyday life, as my job and building my daily schedules around it. Now I live in a context where my playtime is my job, where my dream is my reality.
"Settle down? From what? This?"
😂
But even if I play as it was still all just a dream, I'm also engaged to develop my skills and become even better at the things I do professionally. For my first guiding internship I saw it useful to dig in behind the scenes at my guiding company to get to know my job, customers and boss even better. So I took a seat in the office for a week to manage customer service and adventure planning with mentorship from hero LyLy, before I headed way up north to my second home northern Norway to guide a Riksbyggen-conference together with Sweden's adventurer Ola Skinnarmo.
All these experiences we create together, everyone of us.. Thanks guide school for an epic everyday life, thanks Åre for my home, thanks Riksbyggen for being part of making northern Norway a job I never want to leave, and thanks my pOlar friend for these two inspiring and super fun weeks together in our fantastic office!
(Edit: I went there again the year after for another fantastic work week, read all about that trip here)