About

I’m sitting on a cold concrete step in a foreign country whose language I don’t speak.

An officer stands in front of me, slowly flipping through my documents, while fourteen heavily armed special forces guards surrounded me from all sides. They’re armed to the teeth, the message is clear — I’m not going anywhere.

The officer looks up, smirks, and in broken Russian says, “You’ll leave here either with an escort to detention… or feet first.”

That was my first encounter with the country that would later become so dear to my heart — Georgia.

How it started

I never planned my life to be what it is. As you can tell from the bio, that’s not my strong side.

At the same time I don’t know a person more curious to try a new thing then myself. A new hobby, trade, skill, food, culture…

One could say, my life is a race – race against boredom.

In a way it was always like that.

As a kid in Ukraine, mom never had a quite, peaceful time, I needed attention, entertainment and ooh, I always had that one question, I’ll ask anyone, about anything and that would be “WHY”.

WHY the sky is blue? WHY the rain is falling? WHY do we wear shoes? For every subject I had a “WHY”. No wander my mom used to throw a ball at the desired direction to distract me and set me up for the right course. Yeah, balls were another passion of mine! Perhaps I was a dog one life prior, couldn’t harness the instincts…

First move abroad

When I was 7 we (Me, my mom & my sister) moved to Israel.

It wasn’t easy, different wether, culture, language… Everything is different. The worst – you are different.

That meant only one thing for me – I had even more WHY!
At the same time though, growing up I finally begat to get answers, not just from other people, but I could figure many things by myself. And that obviously ignited my curiosity!

“Grab your push bike and lets go!” I was riding my bike anywhere, new places, new people, new adventures – all it takes is just push the pedals and ride.

Skateboarding, rollerskating, graffiti, parkour, cliff jumping, roofing etc etc etc.

What places have I reached? How the hell I am still alive? And how I’m still curious? It was a fun childhood… Might write about it one day.

Perhaps it shaped the world in my head as a big playground, which I’m exploring to this day.

First mountains

Teenage years, depressions & first mountains.

I won’t expand about it here, but credit to my mom who saw me dying inside and decided I need some fresh air. This way I ended up in the Polish Tatras, fell in love with them straight away, found a way to cope & recharge and opened the next playground after Israel.

Hiking there between these precious, beautiful peaks made me think. What life am I living? What life do I want to live? How do I make it possible?

Long story short – I started an online web studio. I was earning money, blowing it on traveling and that was satisfactory enough, since the mountains were resetting my depression. Until they weren’t anymore and I had to make a change.

Changing my life

I quit the company gave away my clients to friends who were still in business and went to study tourism, archeology, history, geology and much more – all related to the middle east. This course took me 1,5 years and it called More Dereh in Hebrew or Tour Guide in English.

I decided traveling few times a year is not enough, and money were never a motivation for me. Thus making traveling my work sounds like the perfect plan! Or is it?

Touring people in the cities quickly became boring. I went to learn and became a canyoning guide – a bit more adventurous. Those were crazy times, never been home, sleeping in a hammock, tent, at random people constantly moving around the country, following the work.

Eventually I felt the need for a change again. I learned how to build temporary obstacle courses, rope parks and holding events, entertaining people. It was all fun, felt like the next step is expanding abroad and sharing with the clients the beauty of the real mountains, via ferratas, climbing camps, long hikes etc. But 7 October 2023 changed my plans.

I was on my way to the northern part of Israel with half of my group, we just stopped at a coffee shop to refuel and check on the other half. Saying I was surprised to hear they’re in the bomb shelter and another war began is a huge underestimation.

This is how tourism died in Israel. I’m writing that in 2026 and we still don’t know when and if it’ll come back.

Crazy adventures

I lost many things since, people, friends… But for the sake of the story my newly established career. I had to do something cause bills doesn’t pay themselves and I still wanted to travel, which I still needed money for.

The easiest pivot was Industrial Alpinism or Rope Access. I quickly passed the course, since I had already plenty of experience on the ropes and started working in the industry as a technician and later as rescuer from heights and confined spaces.

I was involved with various projects big and small. Work onshore and offshore, was evacuated from the gas platform because of a potential missile attack.

Eventually I was making very good salary, job was easy and I had plenty of it. I could travel wherever, whenever I wanted but, this feeling started to crawl its way back to my heart – boredom. I needed adventures, I needed a change.

Yes, again.

Big Decision

31 May 2024 I’m flying to Corsica to hike the GR-20. I don’t have a ticket back, I don’t know what’s gonna come next. I’ll figure it out I thought.

Another very long story short – GR-20, Toscana, Georgia, Almost imprisoned, my first summit 5,000+ , Learning to Paraglide, Hiking the Camino, Found love, moved to Australia, Built a van, Van life, Break up, Moving to Cairns…

Decided I can’t remember all that, gotta create a blog!

Why this blog?

The story I started the article with is only one of many.
I love reading & apparently I love telling stories, so I thought I can combine sorting my memories, having some fun and sharing with others.

I hope my stories will inspire people to make their own changes, doesn’t have to be big, but sometimes the smallest change gives the most impactful outcome.

This blog is not about “Bragging”, I’ll include FREE guides to all I know.

It’s also not about AI generated articles or commercial posts.

I find experiences more valuable while shared, I believe I received so much good in my life that it’s my obligation to pass it over.

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I hope you’ll enjoy the reads, see you out there!

Iliya Turchin