It was 8:56 pm, San Francisco time, as I took a deep breath, pulled my backpack onto my shoulders, and took one last look out the window. I had a knot in my stomach as I walked towards the gate, and before I knew it I was on the plane, headed across the Pacific for thirteen hours to New Zealand.

Nearly two months later, I can’t explain why I was so nervous for this trip. Maybe because this was my first trip anywhere without my family, and I also wasn’t sure if I was going to become friends with any of my fellow Ohio State students traveling with me. I knew that early mornings, long drives, and jam-packed daily itineraries would become my life for the next three and a half weeks. But little did I know that breathtaking views, charming towns, friendly people, and way too much ice cream was also waiting for me on the other side of the Pacific Ocean.

Here’s just some of the things we packed into 24 days in a country known to Māori as “The Land of Long White Cloud:”

• Walked up the world’s steepest street
• Pet (and smelled!) sheep
• Watched sunrise over New Zealand’s tallest mountain, Mt. Cook/Aoraki
• Milked cows (and then drank it!)
• Went bungee jumping down into a 400-foot canyon
• Saw one of New Zealand’s largest glaciers
• Danced at a laundromat-turned-dancefloor
• Saw penguins, fur seals, sea lions, kiwi, eels, orcas, dolphins, albatrosses, glowworms, and plenty of other wildlife
• Got less sleep than we should have
• Personally sent 26 postcards and took about 4400 pictures

The “study” part of studying abroad also turned out to be a blast. This program is part of the School of Environment and Natural Resources and was focused on sustainability, so I learned a lot about the country’s unique struggles in conserving resources and protecting endangered wildlife, but I also discovered how sustainability is much more than just an environmental issue. It is an individual issue in that we each have different ideas of what sustainability means. But it is also a collective social rights issue because it concerns every person in the world, and requires cooperation from all different backgrounds, cultures, and perspectives. I learned that we can best achieve high-quality, sustainable lives if we work to give everyone fairer access to resources, education, and the opportunity to share their personal views of sustainability. Only then will we be able to come together in celebration of our differences to protect our planet’s ecosystems.