Alice Bond - taking a sabbatical from work and hiking the 1300km across the South Island of New Zealand followed by travelling in China and Japan! - a podcast by Sarah Williams

Alice took a year long sabbatical from work and since then has walked 1300km across the Te Araroa South Island in New Zealand, wild camped on the Great Wall of China and walked for 10 days along the Tokai Nature Trail in Japan. 

During this podcast Alice shares more about growing up, not being sporty but loving the outdoors, how a car accident helped to motivate her to make a change in her life, how she planned for her time off, as well as giving advice and tips for you on enjoying the simple life, hiking and dealing with challenges as they come up. 

Show notes

• Who is Alice
• Growing up in the Malvern Hills
• Not being great at sports but loving the outdoors
• Spending time in Cornwall
• Navigating through Dartmoor…
• Wanting to spend time in the mountains and found it harder as she got older
• Not finding her thing while at university
• Deciding to take a sabbatical work 
• Being in a car accident in Norway 
• How she came to the decision to take a sabbatical
• Reflecting back on the car crash
• Deciding on which hiking trail to do 
• Why the Te Araroa trail stood out
• Having 6 months to plan the trip and taking into account the seasonal nature of the challenge
• Not doing much hiking before heading off to New Zealand
• Not knowing how much of the trail they would do 
• Having 60 days to complete the South Island hike 
• Enjoying the simple life of the trail
• Routes and daily life on the trail
• Navigation
• Guthook App
• The biggest challenge while on the trail
• Getting lost in the fog
• Why they wanted to focus on the South Island
• Heading off to Japan to hike a small section of the Toki Nature Trail
• The languages challenges in Japan and why google translate was amazing!
• Camping on the great wall of china…. with gunfire going off at night!
• Being happy in her job and just needing to make a few changes
• Having the time to reflect on their lives
• Spending time outdoors
• Going back to work after so much time off
• Doing the Cape Wrath Trail in Scotland
• Why you should do a sabbatical
• Practical tips and advice 
• Support from friends and family

Social Media

Instagram is: @Alicebond0

Further episodes of Tough Girl Podcast

Further podcasts by Sarah Williams

Website of Sarah Williams