Hiking the Pacific Coast Trail + Lessons for Planning an Extended Off-Grid Adventure with Nina Butler

Introduction

Jason: That is Nina Butler, today’s guest. She did end up hiking the Pacific Crest Trail with her husband, which, by the way, is a 2,650-mile long-distance hiking trail from Mexico to Canada. It runs through California, Oregon, and Washington. But one of the things I wanted to focus on here that I thought would apply to all of us as travelers is this idea of chunking out a big portion of time in order to travel. What are some of the practical lessons, some of the key learnings we can pull from Nina’s experience planning on being off grid for so many months? Which is, you know, a lot more extreme than how a lot of us travel. Not just the adventure itself, but being so far removed from technology and daily life. And I thought, there’s got to be a lot of lessons to learn from that process she went through, and from not getting overwhelmed with all the things that need to be done before you take off for three weeks or three months or six months or even a year. Let’s find out what happened during the pre-trip phase. That’s part of this conversation. And of course, we get into the Pacific Crest Trail experience, trail culture, what the hike was like, and what it was like to take such a long nature-based adventure and what that did for her personally.

Jason: All that and much more coming your way right now. So buckle up, strap in. Thanks for being here, and welcome to the Zero to Travel podcast, my friend.

Jason: Hey, Jason here with ZeroToTravel.com. Welcome to the show. Thanks for hanging out and letting me bring a little travel into your ears today. This is the show to help you travel the world on your terms. And we’ve got quite an adventure today with Nina Butler. By the way, you can find her work at InRetreat.com. We’ll link up to everything. We’re going to dive right in. One quick reminder before we do: ZeroToTravel.com/newsletter. It’s where you can sign up for the free community newsletter. And I’ll leave you with a quote on the back end to wrap this one up. So I hope you enjoy this conversation and take value from some of the lessons and key learnings Nina had planning this extended adventure. Thanks for listening, and I’ll see you on the other side, my friend. Cheers.

Deciding to Hike the Pacific Crest Trail

Jason: Nina Butler, welcome back to the Zero to Travel podcast, my friend. So lovely to see you.

Nina: So good to see you, Jason.

Jason: Third time’s a charm. We’ve had you on before, and we’ll link up to those. Those episodes were great. We did top 10 health and wellness destinations, the best places to live in the world. You’re in the health and wellness space, so that was awesome. And how to craft transformative retreats for yourself and others. So we can link up to those. And today we’re talking about a variety of things, one of them being your recent excursion, a little light jog, a little light jaunt down the PCT. The Pacific Crest Trail.

Nina: A bit of a walk.

Jason: A short walk. A short 4,265-kilometer walk traversing seven national parks, 25 state parks, and countless private reserves and conservancies. You know, getting a little fresh air.

Nina: Yeah. Felt the itch to escape the city.

Jason: Well, I know that not everybody is going to go and do the Appalachian Trail, the Pacific Crest Trail, or one of these longer walks. I’m fascinated by these. I feel like, for me personally, the long walk type thing was a bit of a missed opportunity when I was younger and had more flexibility to maybe do it. But I’m putting a pin in it, as they say in corporate jargon, for later in life, perhaps.

Nina: Yeah. There were people of all ages on the trail, so don’t think that the time is gone if it’s something that appeals.

Jason: Yeah. We are going to get into some of the nitty-gritty of that. But I thought we should zoom out and maybe get some lessons around some of the overarching things you had to do to make this trip a reality, because you run your own business, InRetreat.co, which we’ll link up to. You do amazing yoga retreats all over the world, and people can learn about that. We can talk a bit more about that. But you obviously have this thriving business. You have your life. You were living in Oslo. You guys were trying to figure out where to move. And life is always kind of busy, right? So you have to figure out, what am I going to do to carve out the time to do something like this? And I’m bringing this up because for the listener, maybe for you, this isn’t the Pacific Crest Trail. Maybe it is. But maybe you want to take a good solid chunk of time off to go have an experience for whatever reason, and there are certain things that have to happen for that to happen. I feel like these stories always have some lessons we can pull out of them and perhaps apply to our own lives. So I wanted to hear, first of all, where you and your husband were when you were kicking this around in terms of mindset and all that kind of stuff. And then we can maybe unpack a bit of the pre-planning phase and what that looked like for you.

Nina: Yeah, sure. Absolutely. So at the time, I had never heard about the Pacific Crest Trail. I’d heard about the Appalachian Trail, but I’d never heard about the PCT. Did not know what it was. And this was September 2024. I had heard of the John Muir Trail. Actually, my oldest brother and his wife did that in, I think, 2018, and were raving about it. But I had never traveled extensively in the United States either, only ever stopped over, and knew very little about the landscape and everything. Anyway, in September 2024, we were living in Oslo in Norway, and as was discussed in the previous podcast I did with you, we had decided we wanted to leave Norway but didn’t know where we were going to go. We were also very uncertain about what that meant for work. We had also never settled down in Norway. We didn’t own a house. We didn’t have kids. We were in a really in-between space. And I was looking for something. I was looking for a bit of inspiration, or a snag, a little anchor into something, like, what are we going to do next? The time’s ticking, we know we’re leaving at the end of the year, so where the hell are we going to go? What are we going to do?

Nina: And then randomly I saw a post from an old friend I met in Australia in 2009 or something. She’s a very cool person who was a bit older, and I looked up to her. She did the Pacific Crest Trail in 2023 or something, and she did a post about it. And I was just like, oh my gosh, that looks… I mean, Chris, who I’ve already mentioned is my husband, and I love hiking. We’ve done multi-day trails extensively in Europe, Africa, and Asia. But I didn’t know that you could hike one continuous footpath for that long. I didn’t know that existed. So I was like, wow, this is amazing. This is the thing. And then Chris got home from work that evening and I was like, “Hey, do you want to hike from Mexico to Canada next year?” And he was like, “Sure.” So that was it.

Jason: That’s when you know you found the right partner.

Permits, Visas, and Locking It In

Nina: Exactly, exactly. And then about a week later, we were like, okay, now seriously, how are we going to do this? We never let ourselves really commit to it until we got a permit and a visa to be in the U.S. for that long. So that would be the starting point in discussing the things you need to think about and plan for to set aside time and make a big journey like this possible. The first things were super, super practical. You have to have a permit to do this trail, and there’s only a limited number of permits per year. So it was like, well, let’s make sure we get one. The process for that starts in October the year before the hiking season, which starts in spring, around April, the next year. I woke up in the middle of the night and did all the things to get on the minute they released them, and we did get a permit. Then we applied to the U.S. Embassy for our visa. And again, we weren’t 100% certain. We’re originally from South Africa. It’s the type of passport and citizenship where you don’t take it for granted that you’re going to get visas and entry into countries for longer travel like this. So we didn’t set our hearts on it, didn’t believe it was real, until the U.S. visa came through, which was around November the year before.

Jason: You didn’t emotionally allow yourself to get excited.

Nina: No, no.

Jason: What kind of permit was that? I’m just curious, for an extended stay. Do you remember?

Nina: It’s called a B1 something. I should look that up, and I can send it to you after we chat. I don’t have my passport on me here. It’s valid for 10 years, and over that 10-year period, you can be in the U.S. for up to six months. It can be in one chunk or in smaller chunks. We had to go for an interview at the U.S. Embassy and prove a whole lot of things, including our relationship and all kinds of details about what we were going to do. And actually, when we applied, it was still the Biden administration. By the beginning of the next year, it was this new era of, let’s say, more restrictive entry for foreigners in the U.S. And there were actually quite a lot of PCT hikers who had difficulty getting into the U.S., because there’s this nebulous space of, “Oh, well, you’re walking across the country, but what are you really going to be doing? Are you going to disappear?” And there are a lot of people using the trail to do a bit of work, which we can get into, and that sort of thing. So it is a bit of a nebulous space. So that was the first step in our planning, to lock in the permit and the visa.

Jason: Just to reiterate: if you’re going to take the chunk of time off, make sure you can get the visa, or whatever you need to make it happen, before you get too excited about it.

Stepping Away From Work and Budgeting for the Trail

Nina: Yeah, absolutely. And then the next thing, obviously, is job and house, the two big things.

Jason: Which is tied in with finances, of course, right?

Nina: It is. Yes, exactly. So in order to do this, Chris, who is a developer, had to quit his job. Obviously, you can’t be coding apps on the trail. So he had to start putting things in place to be able to do that and not damage relationships. That process started by the end of 2024 as well. Incidentally, I should take one step back. When we got the permit, you get a specific start date. Ours was the 13th of May, and you have to start the trail on that date. So we also had a timeline with that permit. That’s specific to a thru-hike. It might not be the case for another sort of sabbatical, but that’s just to explain it.

Jason: And this was in 2025, just so I have the timelines right?

Nina: Exactly. So it was the end of 2024 when we were planning and applying, and then we’d start on the 13th of May, 2025. So we had a five-month window to get everything in place. Chris needed to start the process of resigning and making sure he could literally step away from work. And I run my own business, so I had to start the process of stepping away from the business, but without the business dying. So I started putting people in place and setting things up. I had to look at all of the workflows and documentation and how the business operates and go, if I step away, how is this going to carry on without me? And you can’t contact me for a lot of it, as well. So I really needed all of that time. It was a lot of administration to get that ready.

Nina: And then, of course, as you mentioned, related to that is the budget. One good thing is we didn’t have a mortgage. I think if we had a mortgage, it might have been a bit more stressful. As we didn’t, and rent being one of the biggest expenses for most people, I guess, if you’re renting, we gave notice so our lease period would end. So you make sure you don’t have those lagging expenses. And then we also started to save quite aggressively. It obviously depends what your adventure or sabbatical looks like. One good thing about hiking is that you’re sleeping in the dirt every night.

Jason: No opportunity to get a four-star hotel.

Nina: I mean, there is. We did research into what people budget for this trail, and it varies hugely. What it comes down to, firstly, is the number of nights you spend off trail and in a hotel. That’s up to you. There’s a limited amount of time you have to finish it, but some people, even when they go into a town to get food, sleep in their tent. They don’t stay in a hotel at all. There’s that way to do it on a shoestring. And then there are people who stay in four- or five-star hotels in between and treat themselves regularly. So there are whole different ways to do it. We went for kind of middle of the road, worked out what we thought was a viable budget based on what we could see other people had done, and then started saving and putting money aside.

Jason: What was the total cost? Do you remember?

Nina: $10,000 each. And that was for 150 days on trail. That includes our flights and our equipment. There’s a lot of equipment. And there’s food, buying food in California, Oregon, and Washington, which are relatively expensive states to buy food in, especially California. And then we spent 10 of the 150 nights in a hotel. We broke up the 150 days with 10 nights where we weren’t in our tent in the dirt. So that was the budget.

The Journey Before the Journey

Jason: I just wanted to mention the business aspect of it, whether you’re employed or have your own business. I could see that being one of the stopgaps for some people. It’s almost overwhelming to think, how am I going to set this up so it runs by itself? But it’s actually a great opportunity. I had a similar experience. I didn’t do something so off the grid or for as long, but I was running an online business at the time, and I went on this trip to Southeast Asia and thought, I don’t want to have to be doing this stuff all the time. I want to enjoy my travels. And it forced me to go through all the operations and streamline things and figure out who’s going to do what and create standard operating procedures and so on. It sounds really boring, but it was actually a great thing, because the long-term benefit is that you now have a business that operates much more smoothly without you. It might suck in the beginning, especially if you’re not set up that way. But in the end, I think this is another example of the pre-trip phase being an opportunity. I find there’s a lot of benefit in even the before-the-trip part. The journey before the journey, I call it. In this case, streamlining your business, starting to think about what your intention is going to be. You’re sketching out this time for yourself. There are so many benefits to just committing to a trip. And I just wanted to highlight that as an opportunity. You can reframe it, right? Is it an opportunity, or is it so overwhelming that it’s going to stop you from doing what you want to do?

Nina: Yeah, absolutely. I couldn’t agree with you more. I think it improved my business having to do that. I never had to pull that out of myself in that way. And another thing, in particular if it’s your business you’re stepping away from, and this is maybe getting more into the mental and spiritual part of going on a long journey, is that you have to dislocate yourself. You have to put yourself, the ego of you, my business, my process, out of the way and look at it critically and from a distance. They talk about founder syndrome, where the business is your baby and you won’t let anybody else touch it, or you can’t step away. So if you’re struggling with that, plan a long trip, because then you have to distance yourself and be okay with the fact that the people looking after things are going to come up against challenges. And you have to trust that they’re going to come up with solutions without you, and that it’s going to be okay. That is a deeply emotional and mental process to go through.

Jason: Yeah, absolutely. And probably quite healthy, I think. Were there any other big lessons learned leading up to the journey that you want to share that might benefit others?

Old-School Map Planning vs. the App

Nina: Yeah. When you said that the planning, the journey before the journey, can actually be so enjoyable, that was something I really wanted to share. From January until April, we sat down every morning. We made the commitment, woke up half an hour earlier, and sat down for half an hour to an hour together with all the maps and all of the resources we had found about the trail, and went through it day by day. We made this massive spreadsheet with all of the details: where we’d sleep, how many miles, ascent, descent, where we’d get water, resupply, food. That’s specific to the trail, so maybe you’re not doing a thru-hike. But what I can say is that the imaginative journey and the whetting of the appetite for being in those places through this daily planning in the lead-up was so enriching. It meant that when we got to Van Dusen Canyon or Trailer Truck Road, or wherever it was, we were like, oh my gosh, this is it. We’d read about it, and we remembered it so clearly because we’d done it in so much detail. And it didn’t at all take away from it. It made it more special.

Nina: And we noticed that a lot of people… There’s an app for this trail called the FarOut app. It’s a mapping app, and there’s a lot of information on it. And I think particularly if you grew up in the U.S., maybe you’re a little more confident about navigation and not as worried about getting lost. You go in with a bit more of this contextual wherewithal, which we didn’t have. So a lot of people arrive and just navigate using the app. They do no pre-planning. This mapping app gives you the trail and a micro idea on either side of the trail of mountains and physical landmarks and towns. It’s all within the narrow corridor of what you download on the app and what people have commented on before, because it’s a community-generated app. Because we had done the old-school research with the big maps and the books and everything, we had a great contextual, wider scope of where we were in terms of the landscape, and a rich idea of the trail, which I think you don’t necessarily have if you don’t do that planning. I found that phase of drilling down into the details so enriching. And it didn’t at all, as I said, take away from the lived, in-person experience.

Jason: Okay. So pro paper-based planning.

Nina: Yeah, I think there’s something ancient about it. As humans, we’ve been adventuring and planning journeys since we were nomads, since Homo sapiens have been walking, navigating to new areas for water and food, caves here and livestock there. I guess there’s a natural inclination for us to want to wander and go and see and experience new things. And over time, with the advent of maps and the way we’ve created this rich cultural treasure trove of literature around journeys and humans as journeyers, there’s something so special about using maps and books and the words of people who have walked that path before to build the mental readiness to then do the journey yourself.

Jason: Yeah. I feel like we tend to assume that when we get on our computers or our phones, we’re accessing this extreme wealth of information, and that there’s no other way that could possibly be more informative or give us more context than the internet. That’s where all the answers are. It’s this Mecca of information. Yet I think your point illustrates that there are other ways to do things that might open your mind in different ways, and that using these tools is just one way. And I’m sure not staring at the app the whole time you’re navigating is also a refreshing thing when you’re actually out on the trail.

Nina: Exactly. A hundred percent. Literally, the stereotype of the PCT hiker who’s rushing through the trail with the app is hiking like this, looking at their phone.

Jason: Yeah. Which is a whole other thing.

Nina: I don’t want to criticize people. You get what you want and need out of the trail. But from my perspective, being reliant on a mobile app for your whole journey can only limit you.

Trail Culture and Hitchhiking Into Town

Jason: So what was it like for you? I want to hear about the cultural experience. Like you said, this was your first time coming to the U.S. There’s a whole trail culture. You meet some really interesting people on the trail, and you’re also hitting up these really cool towns along the way, and you’re seeing the landscape change and all of this. How was the experience for you?

Nina: Well, first of all, on the cultural side, we met really lovely, incredibly welcoming people. As a foreigner, you have an idea of the USA, and not all of it is positive.

Jason: No, that can’t be. I don’t believe that.

Nina: An idea that maybe people aren’t so keen on foreigners being in the country and arriving, especially in the current climate. But almost 98% of the people we met were so thrilled that we came from a country very far away. On the trail, most people were from the U.S. and Canada, and then European countries and the Nordics. We were the only South Africans we met, the only Africans we met on the trail. Apparently there was one other guy from South Africa who started a couple of weeks ahead of us. But otherwise, we always encountered people saying how excited they were to meet us. A lot of people were meeting someone from South Africa, or from an African country, for the first time, and they were extremely warm and welcoming, and often apologetic about the current climate, saying, “We really want foreigners here. We want them to like us and the U.S. Don’t think we don’t want people here.”

Nina: And like you were saying, there is a culture around these long trails. It’s a subculture of trail angels and people who want to help and support hikers. Obviously that’s an extremely positive culture and a positive experience. People really are extremely helpful and friendly. And amongst the hikers as well, everybody’s going through similar experiences and wants to connect. So culturally, I would say it was all extremely positive.

Nina: The only time we felt like we were met with some friction, maybe culturally, was when we had to hitchhike, which was a lot. When you leave the trail to get food in towns, on average about once every five to seven days, you get off trail at a road or a trailhead and then you’ve got to hitchhike into a town. And beggars can’t be choosers. So you’re there hitchhiking, and you do meet all kinds of people, and some not so great. There was once, actually, in the desert near Ridgecrest, just before we got to the High Sierra. It’s a very, very hot, very arid area in the middle of the day. We were trying, in a heat wave, to hitchhike into this town called Ridgecrest. We had been there about 20 minutes and we didn’t have any water, and it was actually starting to get a bit dangerous to just be standing out there. It’s on the Mojave Desert valley floor. No one was stopping. People were just driving past. And then this massive truck pulled up with one guy in the front. He rolls down the window and leans out and smiles, and he’s missing teeth, like meth teeth, you know? And he looks at me and he looks at Chris…

Jason: Not the ideal ride.

Nina: No. And he’s like, “I only got room for one.” So I would say we didn’t always feel 100% safe. But funnily enough, a lot of the people who stopped for us then said, “You’re not serial killers, are you? Are you guys safe?” And I get that. They’re taking a risk as well, letting us get into their car. So that was the only time. Mostly the people who did end up stopping and giving us lifts were super, super lovely. Interestingly, all the lifts we got were from people in really beat-up old cars. All the fancy cars just sweep past you. They don’t stop. Just a little side note. So people often with very little to give and spare are the ones who are giving, which is an interesting life lesson and insight.

Nina: And culturally, what we found super hard to get used to at the beginning was how overwhelming supermarkets and commercial decisions are in the USA. You want to get some vitamin C or a trail bar or whatever it is, and at the beginning we would stand in the supermarket with this choice ad infinitum and just be like, what do we choose? So that was a bit of a culture shock at the beginning. But on the whole, I think one of the most enriching parts of any journey is getting to see and understand, and therefore empathize with, a different culture, understand things on a deeper level, and see similarities. Because ultimately, that’s the message of travel: no matter how different and far-flung it is, we’re actually all wired very similarly.

Jason: Yeah, the exchange between hitchhiker and hitchhikee is always an interesting one. The guy… I guess nobody went with him, I’m guessing? You’re here, so you got the ride out of the desert.

Nina: We did. We said to that guy, “No, thank you,” and he drove away. And then it was about another 10 minutes, just when we were starting to completely despair, that this very beat-up truck pulled up. It was like a panel van, I think you call it, windowless. And they opened the back for us, and there were all these work tools in there, like a chainsaw chain, and big saws and stuff on the side. But the couple were very lovely. The lady had been in the military for about 14 years and was actually going through chemo at the time. I said to her, “Are we going to be safe in the back there with these saws?” And she was like, “Honey, if I can get in there in my state and be fine, you’ll be fine.” They were such a lovely, lovely couple. But funnily enough, once we got into the back of the van and were driving into Ridgecrest on the highway, we looked down to the left and there was this hole about this big, just above the wheel, with the tarmac going past fast.

Jason: Oh, man. Wow. Okay. What an adventure.

Small Moments and a Nervous System Reset

Nina: A lot of pain, a lot of despair as well. That’s also a reality of hiking that far, walking that far every day. But it was extremely, extremely rewarding for us. I feel like the big thing I take from it is an accumulation of small moments. Jumping in a river at the end of the day. The dappled light through the tent. Another day waking up with no emails, no pressure. Gathering water here, walking. It was an accumulation, over a long period of time, of small, very beautiful moments. Because we were able to be so immersed in that, dropping out of normal life, we became so immersed in the natural world and the natural rhythm of our days that I could be so present for those small moments. It’s not like there was one thing that happened that was the best. It definitely wasn’t the end of the trail, getting there. That was not the highlight. It was this accumulation of beautiful moments that I feel could really seep in, percolate, and digest in me because of the sheer amount of time we were doing this and living this way.

Jason: That sounds so beautiful. What a gift to carry with you. And the physicality of it. Did you feel like you returned in a way to some sort of human baseline that maybe we should all be operating from more? Not the constant barrage of ads and marketing and screens and this, that, and the other. You were out in nature for so long. You were so grounded and so present for so long. Do you feel like you hit some kind of normality in some way? It’s interesting that that’s an abnormal state compared to our regular daily state in society.

Nina: Yeah. What I can say to that is that I felt like my nervous system had a complete reset. If there are frequency levels of being anxious and hyped up, which I think we all are way too much of the time, to varying degrees… I didn’t consider myself an extremely anxious person before the trail started, but I realized as time went on, and as we got deeper and further into the journey, there was this frequency shift in my nervous system. The pressure you feel every day around time and fitting things in and getting things done, and the way our attention is pulled multidirectionally all the time. We’re having a conversation, but we’re also listening to that, also worrying about that, emails are coming in, that thing. It’s all happening. And all of that falls away. And with that, it felt like my nervous system’s frequency just lowered, lowered, lowered, lowered to maybe what is the natural state, the base level. And that gave me such a sense of calm, a deep calm.

Nina: Because in normal life, you can have those moments. You watch the sunset, or have a chilled weekend, or even a two-week holiday, and chill out. And I’m in the wellness retreat space, which is all about curating experiences where people are able to disconnect and calm down and reset. But what is the right amount of time to do that on a very deep level? I don’t know the answer to that. It’s probably different for everybody. But for me, I found that for at least the first month of the trail, I was still getting out of the hyped, and as it turned out, anxious mindset and space I was in. It took weeks to really settle properly. And then there’s this deep sense of calm.

Nina: And when we finally finished the trail… I’d fantasized for weeks about that moment. Triumph, we made it. I’d imagined it so much. But actually, when it happened, all I felt was total calm. This extreme sense of calm. I was just so deeply calm and grateful for the experience. And gratitude is such an overused, blandified term. “Let’s practice gratitude today.” It becomes meaningless. But when you really feel it, when you really have it, it’s extremely powerful. And that’s the feeling I had by the time we finished.

Jason: Yeah. Wow.

Nina: And then it was like a month, three weeks of normal life, and I’m like, oh my God, everything’s so stressful.

Jason: Like getting slapped across the face.

Nina: Yeah, exactly.

Setting an Intention for Your Journey

Jason: Somebody could argue, and we all know this is the reality, that if you’ve traveled for a month, or backpacked through wherever for three months, well, of course, you don’t have the job pressures, so it can be this magical thing. But I think what makes an experience like this different from, let’s say, having three months off and backpacking without a care in the world, is that, like you said, you were sleeping outside more often than not and gathering your water. You’re doing these basic things we did for thousands of years. And in that way, maybe you’re tapping into a different frequency, or level of calm, or baseline, or whatever you want to call it, than you would be if you’re gallivanting around on a multi-month backpacking excursion doing pub crawls, or whatever you’re doing. It doesn’t really matter. It’s not that that’s not relaxing. It’s that you’re getting back to some sort of natural way that we all came from. That’s what can make an experience like this a lot different, I think. Or any nature-based experience, when you’re immersing yourself in nature-based travel for a period of time. That may be one of the differentiators.

Nina: Yes. Really resetting your circadian rhythm, going to bed in the dark, waking up at first light. And the gathering of the water. I mean, our appreciation for the value of water. Oh my gosh. When you can go home and just turn on a faucet, you’re like, wow, this is amazing. You’re so unconscious of how much water you use in everyday life, and you don’t see it as having value. But when you’re doing something like this, if you’re spending time really off grid and out in nature, it is the most valuable resource. And reconnecting with that sense of how precious it is, is important, I think, and a gift in itself.

Nina: And to answer your question, this is one of the points to go back to in your planning phase. How do you plan for something like this? What also really matters is your intention for the journey. What did you want to get out of it? That was also one of our steps in getting ready: really sitting down and asking, why are we doing this? Why do we want this? What do we want to get out of it? That then determines a lot, whether you’re doing the backpacker pub crawl thing, or immersing yourself in other communities, or connecting with friends, or whatever your meaning or purpose is. It’s really important to find that clearly, because it hugely impacts the choices you make, and whether you feel a sense of fulfillment, I think, at the end of your journey.

Jason: Yeah, that’s a great point. I’m not pooh-poohing the three-month backpacking pub crawl thing. Like you said, it’s about what it is that you want to get. What kind of experience are you looking for? My first solo trip through Europe, that’s what I was looking for. I wanted to stay in hostels. I wanted to meet people from around the world. I wanted to see all these different places in Europe. I wanted to open my mind and have those types of adventures every day. I didn’t want to be on a trail. So it’s just different ways to think about these different types of experiences, and then, like you said, aligning them with what you’re trying to get at this moment in your life, or what you’re working towards.

Deciding Where to Live Next

Jason: For you guys, we talked a bit beforehand, and I wanted to talk about this specifically. You were trying to figure out, and you mentioned this at the top, where you were going to ultimately live. Where you’re going to set up the next chapter of your life, right? So I guess you decided?

Nina: Yeah, exactly.

Jason: Do you want to share a bit about that experience? Was there a point when you were traveling where you were like, oh yeah? Were you talking about it all the time, or just letting your subconscious process it? Or was it a hot topic every day? You had many hours on the trail together. Did you guys argue at all?

Nina: Okay, wait. I’ll answer your first question first, and then get to the arguing and the relationship dynamics of doing something like this with someone else. So yeah, one of our core intentions for the trail was to come to a decision about where we were going to move next. Because in spite of all the research I did, and we had that really fun discussion in Oslo, our last conversation together, all this research on the ideal places to live and pros and cons and quality of life indexes and all of that kind of stuff…

Jason: I’m disappointed you didn’t pick Norway, by the way. Just so you know.

Nina: In spite of all of that, we still hadn’t come to a decision. So we were like, well, hell’s bells, at the end of this trail we’d better have an answer. So we started the trail, and to your point, we asked ourselves, are we going to talk about this every day? How are we going to approach it? And we were just like, no. We’ve got so much to deal with. The first couple of weeks were so overwhelming, just doing all those miles and organizing our food and all of that. So we said, look, we’ve got loads of time. We’ll put it off. And then we literally didn’t talk about it at all.

Jason: Maybe that’s a good thing. You’re not obsessing over it.

Nina: Yeah, exactly. Until we got to Washington and crossed the Bridge of the Gods at Cascade Locks, from Oregon into Washington. And we were like, okay, this is the last state. These are the last 500, 700 miles, something like that. And we hadn’t touched this topic. Things had really slowed down. So we said that, and then it was maybe two or three days later that we were like, okay, so what are you feeling about this? And then we were silent for a little bit, and then I was just like, “Let’s go home.” And Chris was like, “Yeah, I was thinking home. Cape Town.”

Nina: It was an experience of getting out of your head. This is actually something you talk about a lot in yoga, which is part of the wellness world I’m in: getting out of your head and into your heart. People say that, and this was a deep experience of it, because we had intellectualized this decision so much. We were trying to make the right choice for us, for our careers, for our futures, et cetera, et cetera, and it had become entirely intellectual. We were lost in that and couldn’t make a decision. Because ultimately, your home is where your heart is, and the right home for you isn’t the right home because it ticks all the boxes. It’s because it feels like home. There’s actually a saying in Afrikaans, which is one of the 12 official languages in South Africa, that you use when you describe somewhere you love. It’s not “my favorite place.” The phrase literally means “my heart’s home” or “my heart’s landscape.” And that’s what this is for us. We’d forgotten all of those studies and plans, and we were just speaking from the heart, and it was so obvious. Well, of course, we’re just going to go home. It is ironic, after walking north for five months, to then say, actually, we’re going to go to the southern tip of Africa, pretty much one of the most southern places in the world you can live, other than Antarctica. But it was obvious.

Jason: Wow. Okay. Out of your head, into your heart. Travel to your heart.

Nina: Absolutely. And I think that’s for anybody who’s thinking, I’ve got a big decision to make in life, or I’m very uncertain about something. If you’re really struggling with that decision, take a break from it. Go and do something completely different, and do something quite physical as well, because mental and physical are interrelated. When you walk or dance or move, whatever type of movement it is, it’s almost like your thoughts percolate. They shake down and sort and settle. And sometimes you then have clarity afterwards.

Would You Do a Thru-Hike Again?

Jason: I know this is one of the hardest things, maybe the hardest thing, you’ve ever done physically, and it sounds like emotionally too. Would you do something like this again? A long walk like this, a thru-hike?

Nina: Not a thru-hike, no. When we finished, we were like, that was amazing, but we wouldn’t do a thru-hike again.

Jason: Yeah. It’s too intense.

Nina: And also, what we found is there’s so much time pressure. By the time we finished, on the 10th of October at the border of Canada, for the last two weeks of the trail we were cracking the ice on our tent in the morning, and it was snowing on us.

Jason: You’re racing the weather.

Nina: You’re racing the weather. There’s only a certain window to do it, and if you want to get that far in that time, you have to keep moving, and you have to move far every single day. We both enjoy the physical challenges. But what I found deeply sad is that we would pass somewhere extremely beautiful, a gorgeous lake at 3 p.m. in the afternoon, and we’d want to camp there, explore there, swim there, take our time. Or you wake up at a campsite and it’s stunning, and you just want a slow morning. But you can’t do that. You have to keep moving. And I found that sad. You need to sacrifice that for the whole journey. And that’s fine. I get it, and I have no regrets. But to the question of whether I’d do that again, I feel like I don’t need to. What I would like to do is go back to Washington and spend a month going off the trail into all the beautiful little areas we had to rush past, and camp out at that lake we loved, that sort of thing.

Jason: Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. A lot of people tackle these trails over a period of years and do little sections.

Nina: Exactly. Section hikers.

Jason: So you maybe have more of the luxury of time.

Nina: Yes. I think if you live in the U.S., that’s more accessible. You can say, okay, for the next four summers, I’m going to take 40 days off work every summer and do this section, that section, that section. But obviously, if you don’t live there, it’s a lot to be able to do financially, as we were talking about with the planning. So if you want to do the whole trail, you may need to consider doing it in one go.

Relationships on the Trail

Jason: Well, there’s something about the accomplishment of a thru-hike as well. There’s definitely a challenge that comes with committing to the thru-hike and saying, I’m going to make it all in one go. And you can hear some of the things that are complicated about it logistically, physically, and all of that. It seems like only about 15% of people make it the whole way on a thru-hike. You guys were doing 32 kilometers a day, up to 40 to 48 kilometers on most days. You must have been in insane shape. Which brings me to: what kind of shape was your relationship in? You mentioned the relationship dynamics. Do you have any tips for anybody traveling in such close quarters with their significant other?

Nina: Yeah. One of the first things people asked us when the trail finished was, “Are you guys still married? Did your relationship survive this?” Because, yes, you’re sharing a tent with someone for 151 days. And there are all the details. We didn’t carry toilet paper. You’re digging holes. You’re carrying your food the whole way. You stink all the time, and you’re always hungry. And anyone in a relationship knows you’re not your best self when you’re hungry. Don’t get into a fight when you’re hungry.

Jason: Being confined to a tent with my hungry wife. That sounds like a horror movie. Sorry, honey.

Nina: Well, that works both ways too, to be fair. I think everybody becomes a lesser version of themselves when they’re hungry. So yeah, it was really challenging. But what I can say is that we had a discussion about this before we started the trail, and we made the decision to try and give each other grace and space when one of us is acting stupid because we’re actually just hungry, or just tired, or whatever. To try and give each other grace. We made a conscious decision to do that.

Nina: And I think also, to your point about the goal of the trail, it gives you a singular purpose. We both shared that purpose, and everything else in your life has to come to a stop, as we were discussing, and falls away. And when you share that purpose… We also had a discussion about what happens if one of us gets injured, or one of us gets apathetic and doesn’t want to do it anymore, because there is that risk. You see people all the time on the trail who are just over it. Making the commitment to this together, with a singular purpose, also means that if you give in to that, it hurts not just your goal but your partner’s goal. And that does motivate you.

Jason: Yeah. Accountability.

Nina: It does motivate you. We did have one very big fight, which was about food, at the end of the High Sierra section, which is the longest food carry. We had to carry food for 12 days, which means you’re eating less. Right near the end of that, there were these two German hikers going the opposite direction to us, doing the John Muir Trail, which is a two- to three-week section where the PCT and the John Muir Trail converge. They were nearly finished with their trail, and they had bought too much food, as people on the John Muir Trail often do. It’s a joke between PCT and JMT hikers, that JMT hikers have so much food. And this guy said, “Oh, I’ve got all of this chicken stew.” It was extremely high quality, really, really good, a huge pack full of dehydrated vegetables and spices and chicken and everything. I’m vegetarian, and he just gave all of it to Chris. Like five meals. Soon after that, I asked him, “Do you have anything vegetarian?” And he said, “No, I’m sorry.”

Nina: And then we stopped for lunch, and we were eating our sad little wraps with peanut butter and M&Ms or whatever. And then Chris started micromanaging how I should dole out the little bit of food we had left, with three more days to go until we got to a resupply. He’s now got all this food, and he’s telling me what to do with the paltry, sad bit of food that’s left over for me. And I just lost it. So that was one big fight. But otherwise, we really didn’t fight much, which is an absolute miracle.

Jason: But you can laugh about it later, right?

Nina: Totally, totally.

Jason: That’s a good story.

Where to Get a Taste of the PCT

Jason: If you were going to recommend one area… Let’s say somebody’s like, “Hey, I want to do a few days on the PCT, or base myself in a town and do a little hiking to have that experience.” What’s your number one recommendation for a place to visit and maybe even just day hike on the PCT?

Nina: If I had to give just one, what comes to mind is Mammoth Lakes, which is in the Sierra. It’s a super nice town. It tends to be a busy ski resort in winter, but in summer it has a different vibe. It’s very close to a couple of trailheads and stunning day hikes, as well as plenty of longer multi-day trails into the Sierra if you want to go. And Bishop is another town just south of there. Both have awesome access, but Mammoth Lakes in particular is closer to the trailheads. So that’s what I’d say.

Jason: Yeah. So central California. California is sweet. It’s been too long since I’ve been there.

What’s Next for InRetreat

Jason: What’s going on with your company? Do you want to let people know what you’re doing, what you have coming up, and where people can find you and connect if they have questions?

Nina: Sure. InRetreat is a boutique travel and wellness company. We focus on open group retreats with up to 10 or 12 people in a group, where we set the itinerary. We focus only on eco destinations, as well as creating a sense of awe and wonder, so exceptional, one-of-a-kind experiences on the trip. And then we also do private retreats, where we use our network of eco destinations and amazing guides and experiences from the open group retreats to build a customized itinerary for you, your loved ones, or a solo journey. We’re getting more and more requests for the private, customized journeys. It’s really great in the sense that you can determine whether you want a really slow-paced solo experience, an experience with just a partner or a friend, or something more celebratory. You can really define how that is. We’re also focusing a lot more on Africa, because I’ve now moved back to South Africa. So there are lots of incredible retreats coming up. We just launched one at a wildlife sanctuary in Mozambique, and there are some amazing experiences in northern, central, and southern South Africa, and Botswana coming up.

Jason: Amazing. Lots of Africa. Well, we’ll link up to it, of course: InRetreat.com.

Nina: Yes, .com. I wanted to say that because at the beginning you said .co. That used to be the URL, but we recently bought the .com. It dropped, and we managed to get it.

Jason: Nice. Well, it’ll redirect to the .com either way. But yes, I’ll clarify that at the beginning, and apologies for that. Congratulations.

Nina: No problem.

Jason: It’s always a treat chatting with you. I love the podcasts we get to do together and that we’re in touch. I know you put together some amazing travel experiences, so I encourage people to check out InRetreat.com, and also get in touch with Nina if you have questions about the PCT. And of course, we mentioned the episode you did last time about places around the world. There’s a ton of thought you put into that list. I feel like it’s a whole goldmine of travel recommendations. So if you’re having fun with Nina and me today, you can listen to her past episodes here on the pod. I look forward to staying in touch. When you guys make it back to Norway to pick up all your stuff, if you ever do, maybe we can have a coffee or something. It would be nice to see you guys.

Nina: I’d love that. Absolutely. We’ll make sure we do it.

Parting Words

Jason: Congrats on finishing the trail. Do you have something we can send everybody off with? Maybe a challenge, or a quote you’re living by nowadays, or some food for thought, or any parting words to send everybody off with a smile on their face or some extra motivation?

Nina: I guess that you’re so much stronger and more capable than you think you are. That was one of the biggest lessons. Every time I felt absolutely cream-crackered, exhausted, I actually still had more. And it was a massive challenge. But if you break it down into little bits, day by day, little sections… It’s a corny thing to say, but it really works. It accumulates, and you can do it. You can do big things and hard things.

Jason: Great. Thank you. I appreciate that. That’s a great way to end it. Thanks, Nina.

Nina: Thanks, Jason.

Outro

Jason: Thank you to Nina Butler once again for stopping by the show. Hope you enjoyed that one. You can check out her work at InRetreat.com, one last time, and our newsletter over at ZeroToTravel.com/newsletter. I’m going to leave you with a quote to wrap this one up. A pretty famous quote, but it’s one of those you can always come back to as a good reminder. There’s a lot of truth in this one. I will say one more thing: we’re part of the Airwave Media podcast network now. If you go to AirwaveMedia.com, check out some of the other great shows they have over there. Okay, I stuck with walking as a theme for the quote, and this one’s from Sir Edmund Hillary, who said, “It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.” Thanks for listening. I’ll see you next time. Peace and love to you and yours.