Caitlin // Wyoming Explorer

Oh hey there!

The name is Caitlin Jade, I'm 21 years young, and the baby of my family.

Being outside and exploring wherever I can is definitely my favorite thing to do. I've got a serious case of wanderlust and I wouldn't have it any other way. Right now I'm living in Logan and going to school at Utah State, and if I could be a student there forever I would. I love it there.

I grew up in a family that went on one vacation a year, and that was camping. Most of my earliest, favorite, memories are of sleeping in a tent and roasting s'mores.

I'm also a runner. That's another thing I love doing outside. My favorite one that I've done so far has got to be the Ogden half-marathon, since so much of the course was in the canyon and it was so scenic to run through. I have a goal to do one half-marathon a year, and starting next year I want to travel to each different race to continue adventuring to different places.

My latest adventures have included going to Arches National Park, Canyonlands National Park, and Goblin Valley. It was my first time being to all of those places this past Spring Break and let me tell ya, it was incredible.

Here are some pictures of some of the neat places I've seen lately.

How Exploring Pangea Has Changed My Perspective; and a Glance into My Life

Let's rewind time to about a year ago, I went through the hardest time in my life. I found myself signing divorce papers to end my one year marriage.

21 years old and divorced? That's one place I never thought my life would take me. That's something life has taught me the hard way. You don't get to choose some things you go through, and it's completely your choice how you let it change you.

I didn't feel like myself. For a little bit there I stopped being with people that made me happy, and doing things that made me happy. It was so weird, it felt like my life had completely stopped, but everyone else kept going with theirs.

The weather started warming up, and my brother and I went on a hike one day. It was then that I realized that being outside and exploring was something that was actually really therapeutic to me.

I've been able to satisfy a little of my wanderlust from exploring places around me and going on adventures. I am stoked to have this opportunity to be an Ambassador for Pangea Explorers Club because being outside and active really changed my life for the better when I was going through a really dark time.

Guys, life can get really rough sometimes. And like I said above, you choose how it changes you. Don't just take my word for it, when you're stressed or feeling down, get outside and get in touch with nature and this incredible world we live on.

Let's all get outside, and go see something we haven't seen yet.

Explore on, explorers. 

Jakob // Finland Explorer

Hey hey. My name is Jakob Kujanpaa. I'm a pretty simple guy! I love almost anything active and almost anything outside. I'm 23 years old and I'll be a sophomore at UVU this fall studying psychology and business. I was born in Illinois and grew up in Utah. My father was born and raised in Finland, which is why I'm the ambassador for the one of the most beautiful countries in the world, the Land of Ten Thousand Lakes, Finland.

One of my main goals in life is to be able to travel around the world and help those that are less fortunate than me find happiness in the simple things of life.

The reason I am happy, is because I choose to be. Yes I have been blessed with a great life, amazing family, and incredible friends. However, throughout high school I went through phases of depression. I didn't always realize when I was depressed, but the times that I did recognize it I didn't want to tell anyone, and keeping it to myself didn't help. The only things that would make me happy we're playing soccer or ice hockey. Those were things that I loved to do, because they put me in a good mood.

 I now know that not only did I become happy because I was doing something that I love, but by being active and exercising my body I was stimulating my brain and it would shoot off positive endorphins throughout my body.

I believe in being active and I believe in being outdoors. We have this beautiful world, let's go explore it and find the happiness that it has to offer us. A good breath of fresh air and a walk in the park can go a long way.

 I love Pangea. "Happiness is not just a mood, it's a work ethic." Shawn Achor

Nate // China + Taiwan Explorer

大家好! Hey everybody!

So I've never posted on a blog before... or read a blog for that matter. Haha but I'm sure it'll be fun! My friends call me Nate or 黄智祥, but my full name is Nate Olson and I am way excited to be a part of the Pangea Explorers Club! 

 Like everyone else involved, I love being outdoors and finding new adventures. I spent a chunk of my childhood in a super small town in southern Idaho (Declo, ID; population 300-ish) where I had plenty of opportunities to get outside and explore. In fact, my house was basically right across the street from the Snake River. My friends and I would go down there all the time and find places in the nearby woods to make little forts.

When I go out and hike/camp/boat/you-name-it today, I still feel the same rush of freedom and escape that I got back then. The only difference is that my adventures are a lot more exciting than they used to be ;)

So what's with the Chinese stuff up there, right? I served a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Calgary, Canada and was assigned to speak Mandarin Chinese. I spent 2 years up there making tons of Chinese friends, and I just fell in love with all of it. I can't get enough of the culture, food, language, and people.

In a way, being a missionary was a great big adventure! Traveling to a new place, learning a new language... No matter how much planning I did or didn't do, I never really knew what surprises the next day had in store. There was also so much purpose behind everything I did, and most of it was for the benefit of other people. 

Getting home from all that and having just regular, predictable, everyday life? It's a bit of a bummer. Sure you get to see your family and friends, which is great, but I got bored pretty fast.

There was even one day that I was driving around, kind of looking for something to do, and I saw this guy pulling a stump out of his yard... Yeah I asked him if I could help. He said he could handle it on his own, and I think he was a little weirded out. So this was the point that I realized I needed to find some new adventures. Luckily I was moving up to Logan, UT to go to school at USU!

Since being here in Logan I have always been looking for new fun things to do, and there are plenty of them. I spend a lot of weekends going on hikes, hitting up the hot springs, playing basketball, going out to a lake... whatever I can get a group of people together for! If everyone else is busy, I will usually go for a trail run on my own.

It's never enough to just have fun either; you have to make it an adventure somehow. Try some new things, explore of the trail a little bit (in a safe way). 

 It has been fun as well to get to know the Chinese community up here. You see, every time I see a Chinese person or hear someone speak Chinese I literally have no choice but to stop them and talk, I just can't help it! 

Needless to say.

I have made a lot of friends up here from China and Taiwan. I actually attend my weekly church meetings in Mandarin. It has been a blast as well to show my Chinese-speaking friends how fun it is to get outdoors! A lot of them come from big cities in China, where hiking consists of shopping or missing the bus and walking to school or work. And let me tell you, their school is hardcore. If anyone needs some relaxation time in the woods, it's our friends from the Far East. It has been a great experience to take them out to the mountains and watch them fall in love with it all.

I am not about to stop finding new adventures any time soon either. I've got some midnight-sunset hikes planned up here in the next couple weeks, so hopefully I can get my hands on some high quality Pangea gear soon ;) 

Actually, I have one of my biggest adventures yet coming up. I am most likely going to take off to China in the fall to be an exchange student for about a year.

So I guess adventure doesn't always mean being out in the trees; the most important part of any adventure is the idea of trying something new and fun. Everyone should find something good and wholesome that they love and go live it! Don't go through the motions and don't get stuck on the couch watching Netflix.

Life is way bigger than that.

At the bottom there you will see two pictures with a big ol' gap in the middle. That's how life should feel; like there is always an empty spot waiting to be filled with the next adventure.

Being out and about, seeing nature, being with friends, actually doing things... that's what makes life special. Whenever I am having a hard time or in a bad mood I like to take a drive up the canyon and hike or even just sit and enjoy the scenery. Seeing the mountains, trees, and rivers helps me to realize how big this world is. We are so tiny! But instead of making me feel small and insignificant, it makes me feel blessed. Blessed to know that God made all this for me. And He made it for you too, so get out there and enjoy it. :)

I think we should all just go enjoy Pangea a little bit more!

 

Orsi! // Hungary + Arizona Explorer

I was born and raised in Hungary and came to the United States after graduating high school. I played tennis since I was 10 years old and got an athletic scholarship to play for a Division I school, so I packed up my suit cases and left home. That was 9 years ago and even though living far away from my family and childhood friends is the hardest, I think making the move helped me improve a lot as a person.  

But first, let’s go back in time a little bit.  

Growing up I was a very shy child. I was fighting a big amount of anxiety that made each day miserable. To help me take my mind off worrying, my mom pushed me towards being involved in different sports and outdoor activities.

I loved being outside, it was my happy place. I remember that my friends and I spent any given moment playing soccer, hide and seek, or just laying down in the grass and looking at the clouds trying to find animal shaped ones. 

When I was 10 years old, my mom signed me up for tennis and that changed all of our lives. I fell in love with the sport in a minute. My passion and dedication resulted in us having to move cities and traveling to more and more tournaments. We were on the road almost every weekend that not only helped me make friends from all over the country but also showed me many interesting places that I have never seen before.

I got very nervous about my matches sometimes but I still loved being on the road because we got to go to either a new place or an old one that I loved very much. When I was nervous about school, I went to practice and trained as hard as I could, when I was nervous about tennis I went to hike or bike with my parents to calm down. When the crazy days got overwhelming, I went down to the river and walked a couple miles in silence and let my thoughts untangle them.

Forwarding a couple years, I was standing at the airport in Hungary, hugging my family and saying goodbyes and I was more scared that I have ever been before. I didn’t know where I was going, I barely spoke the language and I had no idea how I was going to survive what was ahead of me.

I arrived to a new place far away from my safe base and had to start over everything. Nothing was familiar anymore, except for one thing: playing tennis. School started up again, tennis season kicked in and even though I was 9000 miles away from home, we did the same exact thing. We hopped in the car on the weekends and got on the road to play tennis; plus, we saw lots of new places. 

I was lucky enough to travel the West Coast, the East Coast, and spend a couple years in the Midwest as well. When I felt nervous again I went for a hike, I woke up early and watched the sunrise by the ocean, I went to learn yoga outside in the sun, strolled to a creek to sit in quiet and listen to the water and find my inner peace again.  

Things change. Actually at some point, everything changes and it sometimes scares me more than anything. We get older, we lose friends and friendships, we move away, we graduate and all of a sudden everything we have known and felt safe around disappears. 

After graduation I had a hard time finding myself again. Competitive tennis was gone from my life in a blink of an eye and everything I had known and was good at was not there for me anymore.

 But again.

 Even if I am in the Midwest, or live on the West Coast, there is always outside and many wonderful things to discover. Even if all that changes the one constant thing I can always find peace in is there . . . to go and find my outdoor peace spot where I can sit in quiet and see what is next. Once I am in that clear state of mind, the answer just comes to me. 

So this is my story. I am very honored to be part of the Pangea Explorer Club because they represent what I believe in.

Travel followed me throughout my life and I always found an outlet and peace in nature that nothing else could gave me whether I was aware of it or not. 

Looking back it was always the solution to improve myself, to get better, to grow and to find peace. Leaving home was not easy; however, it pushed me out of my comfort zone and made me stronger than I have ever been before. 

I hope each one of you can find a solution here with the help of our collective effort. This team was put together with a great variety of people that serve one purpose only, to show you that there is so many wonderful things out there that are worth thriving for! 

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