My adventure was a trip of two parts, beginning with a French language school in Montpellier but ending with me scaling the varied terrain of the French, Italian, and Swiss mountains. From watching electric world cup games in a packed city square with hundreds of French fans to sitting completely alone on the side of a mountain looking miles down into an Italian valley I’d just hiked up, this trip was full of moments I will never forget.

My adventure began in Montpellier, where I was welcomed by my host and taken on a tour. I fell in love with the city straight away, with charming side streets and cute cafes, as well as boulevards lined with palm trees and trams running down the middle. The next two weeks of my French course flew by. I made friends from all over the world, from Germany, to Sweden, to Turkey, and we had so many fascinating conversations about our different cultures. In the evenings, we went out to watch a World Cup game almost every evening. There was almost always a game that at least one of us had a stake in! Another great day out was to Montpellier beach, where a big group of us spent the whole afternoon in the sea and even managed to spot a flamboyance of flamingos flying over the water at sunset! The lessons were very challenging, but I settled into it by the end. The confidence I gained from them has made the idea of one day being able to converse confidently in French no longer feel like an insurmountable goal.

From Montpellier, I headed to Chamonix, via Lyon, to begin the hiking portion of my adventure. This portion was designed to push me to be spontaneous as I deliberately only did enough research to ensure my safety but not enough to form a proper plan. Instead, I just had a tent on my back and a desire to explore. After pitching at my first campsite, I wandered into Chamonix to explore. I stumbled upon a large square with a climbing wall framed by huge mountain peaks and discovered that the final of the Climbing World Cup was about to start. Abandoning my dinner plans, I grabbed a baguette, found a good spot and watched some incredible climbing with an unbelievable backdrop, providing my first evidence of what great opportunities can arise with no plan.

My first few days in Chamonix were quite daunting, but through talking to other hikers at my campsite, a visit to the tourist office, and some good old-fashioned poring over a big map, I made a loose plan of action. The first step was a bus through a tunnel under Mont Blanc to Italy. Emerging on the other side of the tunnel into Italy was such a great feeling but I was immediately bought back to earth by the ordeal that is navigating Italian busses. As a meticulous planner and timekeeper, the completely unpredictable nature of the Italian bus system sent me a little mad! However, with a bit of a luck, I managed to get one of the most scenic bus rides of my life from Courmayeur into the nearby valley. My camping pitch for the night featured a rushing glacial river to my right and a dense pine forest with towering mountains behind it on my left.

The next morning, I awoke bright and early, packed everything into my rucksack, and headed to the bus stop for a 30-minute bus to take me to the start of my day’s hike (an intended 6-hour hike into Switzerland). However, I was soon informed that the buses were not running due to unexpected glacial melting blocking the road. What followed was frantic phone calls with taxi companies, half-hearted attempts at hitch-hiking, and numerous cancelled Uber attempts. However, about an hour later, just as I was about to give up, the bus suddenly appeared on the horizon, the blockage clearing sooner than expected. Hugely relieved, I was now on my way, not knowing that this was not the biggest hurdle I would face that day! The hike was stunning right from the start, huge sweeping views of mountain peaks and a valley stretching as far as the eye could see, exactly the kind of landscape I’d been desperate to witness on this trip. However, the climb was tough, with all my sleeping gear on my back, the roughly 1500m of elevation I had to undertake was gruelling but the motivation of being in the middle of nowhere with no other options kept me putting one foot in front of the other. As I was climbing, the clouds overhead began to darken, further motivating me to quicken my pace! After about 3 hours, I reached my first mountain refuge. Eating my lunch, the weather conditions were only worsening with a severe weather warning announced for the coming hours. I was still multiple hours, and a country border, away from the campsite I’d booked for the night. It’s fair to say I was a bit terrified! At this point, I went inside the refuge to ask if they had any spare beds left for the night but was told I would have to wait 2 hours for the reception to open to find out. Fortunately, after an anxious wait, they found a bed for me, and this ended up being one of the best nights of my trip. I was disappointed to have cut my hike short and not make it to Switzerland, but the refuge was cosy and charming, a hearty and much-needed dinner served communally, offering the opportunity to chat with other hikers.

After one more day hiking and camping in Italy, I took the bus back through to France, pitched my tent in the town of Le Buet and hiked up to my second refuge. This was another lovely experience, with another home-cooked dinner and sharing a bottle of wine with new friends. I had initially planned to head down the next day, the same way I’d come up. However, as we were chatting over dinner, I was recommended another route down which involved heading along a balcony ridge round into Switzerland to a beautiful lake where you can take a combination of a mountain-ridge train and funiculars back into the Swiss valley. I had previously abandoned my hope of crossing a land-border into Switzerland but now I had stumbled onto a way to try again (albeit from the opposite direction!) so I decided to take it. It ended up being a very worthwhile decision. The views hiking down to Lac d’Emosson were stunning and once there, I got the opportunity to do a zip line from one edge of the dam to the other, 250m off the ground framed by a stunning view of Mont Blanc! The journey down was also breathtaking, taking one of the steepest funiculars in the world with a gradient of 87%!

Overall, my adventure had its fair share of highs and lows, pushing me to adapt, think on my feet, and embrace spontaneity in some fairly extreme conditions. I am grateful to LEAP for giving me the opportunity to undergo this experience, not only in providing funding but most importantly in inspiring me to think bigger and push myself harder than I would ever have done otherwise.