Currently...

At the moment I am living in Nepal running an http://www.grgadventurekayaking.com" rel="nofollow">adventure sports company that specialises in whitewater rafting and kayaking.

Off season I spend my time in the office sorting out the 'boring' side of the business (accounts, marketing, websites, staffing, building partnerships with travel agents and rafting companies from overseas, and general office work) but during the season I am usually out on expedition trips, helping out on the treks and trying to learn kayaking!

Before I escaped...

I am a law graduate, so before this I worked for a little while training Magistrates and then I worked for the Youth Offending Team. I knew I would never become a solicitor and everyone always thought I would end up running my own business but we never knew what in - and to be honest I'm a little surprised myself!

My moment of truth...

I travelled for a year before university and always thought that I would live abroad at some point. Being stuck in an office Monday-Friday and just living for the weekend gave me the motivation I needed to up and go! I figured this was the best time of my life to travel before I got tied down to mortgages etc. So I packed 7kg of my things and went.

Planning for it...

I didn't really - it was one of those things that just fell into place.

I had enough money saved to last me for about 6 months so it was either come home or find a way to support myself abroad. I met Maila, a kayaker out in Nepal who really wanted to start his own company after working for 15 years for other people, so I helped him with the business side of things. I get the trips, he runs them - it's a good team!

There are so many rafting companies out in Nepal, and with Maila being the Nepali kayaking champion, we figured we'd focus more on that and so far so good.

The worst and best bits...

I wouldn't use the word 'worst', but the hardest thing has been starting with few funds. Retrospectively, we should have gone off and worked for a year to raise money to invest in the company and buy all the equipment we needed.

We started off with no money and 4 kayaks, and brought the rest as we went along. Now we have 6 rafts, over 15 kayaks and a whole heap of other stuff!

The best part has been that I have been able to help a large amount of people out here. Maila now owns his own company, we employ 6 salaried members of staff, and have over 30 freelance guides working for us. It's a nice feeling knowing that we are helping provide for so many families.

(And the fact I get to go on these fantastic trips!)

Best advice...

One thing at a time.

It takes a long time to become an established company and you just need to take one thing at a time. At times I have become quite overwhelmed about how much there is to do, but writing a list of everything and going thorugh it one-by-one makes everything a lot more manageable.

Useful resources and information...

A bit of a silly one, but Google. Being out in Nepal I didn't know many people to start with and I was new to running a business myself, so everytime I had a question about web design or accounting it was always Google I turned to!