Over this past Holiday season I was still a few months out of college, freshly back from a road trip and overseas trip, not ready to dive into a full-time job and pretty much just open-minded to where life took me. At my Mom’s annual Holiday party I gathered in the kitchen just as my Aunt Kate was talking to someone about her next hiking trip.

She was upset because she could only go a certain time of year, but her traveling companion (her son) wasn’t able to attend at the same time. Somewhere in those couple minutes of conversation our eyes met and she asked, “Do you want to come with me?” I heard the words Patagonia, South America, hiking. Without hesitation, I said yes.

At that moment I didn’t know much about Patagonia, but I had heard it was wild, open land. Beautiful natural space. That combined with hiking was more than enough for me. Over Thanksgiving I went with my Aunt Kate to England so I knew I had a great travel companion.

My Aunt Kate always said to me something along the lines of, “I believe that if people are genuinely good then good things will come to them naturally.” Add in a dash of being at the right place at the right time and voila, my Patagonia trip was born.