How convincing the principal to leave my interpreter school at 19, for a year backpacking in South America to learn Spanish with immersion instead of out of a book, promising I would come back fluent in Spanish, I took off with $1,500 in my pocket and it became the best decision I ever made.

I bought a One-Way Ticket to Ecuador to learn Spanish. Here’s What I Learned About Planning.

Ecuador, Quito, December 2016

I’m sitting on an airplane to Quito. One way. Writing down my first feelings in a notebook balanced on my knees.

Fear mixed with anxiety mixed with happiness. My hands are shaking as I write. I’m 19 years old with a backpack, $1,500 in savings from working double restaurant shifts for six months, and absolutely no idea what I’m doing.

I just dropped out of interpreter school to teach myself Spanish. Not in a classroom. Not with textbooks. But out there, living with locals, volunteering, trusting strangers, and pushing myself to the edge.

The Arrival

I arrive in the middle of the night. As I step foot in South America for the first time, goosebumps run over my whole body.

My hostel driver takes me through Quito at 4 am. The city lights climb up the mountains, little houses covering the slopes like scattered stars. My curiosity is killing me.

At the hostel, everyone’s asleep. A friendly receptionist escorts me to a dorm room with 7 sleeping strangers. I put my bags down silently and fall into bed, relieved and terrified. My very first time on the South American continent… falling asleep now felt like trying to sleep the night before Christmas as a little girl.

The next morning, I wake to a fresh breeze through the open window above my head. Mexican music and street noise drift in. I open my eyes and see the room by daylight for the first time, a girl from Australia on my right, an older man from England on the other side of the bunk bed.

At breakfast, I’m surrounded by people from all parts of the world. It felt like having coffee with the whole world on my first day of this big, scary adventure,

Throwback:

Six months earlier, I’d made the decision: I’m leaving interpreter school.

I wanted to learn Spanish the real way. Not from textbooks, but from real-life situations. I wanted to feel the language, dream in it, think in it. I knew no classroom could teach me that. I wanted to live it, to totally immerse myself in South American culture and push myself to the edge.

But how? How do you spend a year abroad, live with locals, take classes, and not go broke as a student?

I’d learned at 15 that if I have a dream, nothing can hold me back. Also, not the finances. So I started saving. I literally ran from morning shifts at one restaurant to evening shifts at another. For six months straight.

I researched the internet late into the night. How to not make this cost a fortune with an “organized volunteering or student exchange” trip that costs thousands of $$. I ended up finding a super small setup school in a mountain town called Pucará in the middle of the Andes. About 2h away from the capital, Quito. It was set up by an American traveler, who taught the local women in the village how to teach Spanish. No upfront cost was asked, only paying the teacher herself, personally, in cash after each class. This sounded so special and true to me.

Knowing exactly where the money goes, straight to the families without it landing in between different hands.

In exchange, I was going to take care of the kids of the family and help out wherever needed in the household and the bean field.

… and so, I bought the one-way ticket.

The “Plan”

My plan was simple: Start with 1 month of Spanish immersion in a hidden village in the Andes. Live with a local family. Then work 3 months here, 4 months there, 2 months somewhere else. Go home after a year.

Today I know that planning is lost time.

Nothing works out the way you plan it. You have to make the best of whatever the universe creates for you. You have to be flexible. You have to dare to take the beautiful adventures life gives you, even when they don’t match your neat little schedule.

Looking back now, I couldn’t have planned it any better. Because after the first 2 weeks, my plan didn’t even exist anymore.

I decided to let my fear go and just trust the unknown.

The Bracelet

After volunteering in the village of Pucará, I found myself at a market in Otavalo. They sell unique art pieces handmade by locals. Colorful carpets, shirts made from alpaca wool, and the best street food you’ve ever tasted.

I stopped at a stand run by a Colombian man. He made jewelry with different rocks. We started talking, and I told him my story, why I was here, and what I was doing. (All in my broken Spanish, but feeling proud of every bit of communication !!)

He smiled. “Every traveler needs something to protect them on their way.”

He let me choose one of his pieces and made me a bracelet out of it. I was guided to hold my hand with my eyes closed to the table and stop wherever my intuition feels to. I ended up choosing a beautifully carved piece of “wood”. It was the Ayahuasca root. The Colombian artisan taught me about this sacred plant medicine, as I had never heard of it before, and told me it will call me back when the time is right. For now, “This will fill you with energy and put the right people along your path. Just have faith. Don’t be scared of the unknown.”

The Shift

From that day on, I lost all my worries.

Whenever I felt scared or uncertain about where my path would lead, I held onto that bracelet and believed everything would be fine. I believed my way would lead me exactly where I was supposed to go.

And it did.

What I Learned About Planning

That one-way ticket taught me something I still carry today:

The best adventures can’t be planned. They can only be lived.

You can outline the first step. You can prepare financially. You can research and pack, and make lists.

But the real magic happens when you let go of the plan and say yes to what unfolds.

The people I met, the places I stayed, the opportunities that appeared, none of it was in my original plan. And all of it was better than anything I could have imagined.

The Truth About Control

At 19, I thought I needed a detailed plan to feel safe.

What I learned at 19 was that trust is safer than control.

Trust in yourself. Trust in the universe. Trust that if you take the leap, the net will appear.

Not because life is magical and perfect. But because you’re capable of adapting, figuring things out, and making the best of whatever comes your way.

If You’re Thinking About Taking the Leap

Maybe you’re considering something scary right now. A move. A career change. A one-way ticket of your own.

And maybe you’re waiting for the perfect plan. The right time. The guarantee that it will all work out.

Here’s what I wish someone had told me:

You’ll never have the perfect plan. There will never be a “right time.” And there are no guarantees.

But if you wait for certainty, you’ll wait forever.

Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is buy that ticket, board that plane, and trust yourself to figure out the rest.

Where That Ticket Led Me

That one-way ticket to Ecuador didn’t just teach me Spanish.

It taught me who I was when everything familiar was stripped away.

It taught me that home isn’t a place, it’s a feeling you carry with you.

It taught me that the best stories begin when you stop trying to write them and start living them.

Seven years later, I’m still living this way. Still saying yes to the unknown. Still trusting that the path will reveal itself.

And it always does :)

The best stories begin when you stop trying to write them and start living them.

Katrin Gsinn