A Dublin woman has revealed she sold most of her family's belongings and moved into a tent to become closer to nature.
Fiona Byrne Ryan moved to America after finishing her landscape architecture degree in UCD. She was unsure what she wanted to do with her life but soon things began to fall into place.
She told Ryan Tubridy on RTE Radio 1 that she met the love of her life while on a graduate visa in the states.
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Fiona told Ryan on his morning show: "After I graduated, I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do with my life to be honest. Sitting in an office did not sound appealing to me whatsoever.
"Irish people can go over and do the graduate visa and that's what I decided to do. I decided to go over to the states for a year.
"I met Brandon when I was over here on my graduate visa. I made my way to Detroit, Michigan and I never made it home.
"Brandon is a Native American. When I met him, he had his own real estate company and I just started working with him with my design background.
"We started a family. We have a two-year-old son."
While, the family's life may have seemed perfect, the American dream still left the pair feeling empty, prompting a search for greater meaning
"Last October, we sold our house. We had a house in Detroit. We sold most of our belongings. We decided that we were going to live in a tent for a little while.
"It wasn't a very quick decision like that. We let go of our real estate company and realised that everything we were working towards wasn't really what we wanted- a bigger house, a nicer neighbourhood.
"We had gotten the biggest pay check that we had ever gotten with our business. When we got that we felt completely unfulfilled.
"It just didn't feel right. We were on a search to find out who we were and what we wanted to do with our lives..
The family travelled to Northern Minnesota and lived in a tent for six month, three months of which were the freezing winter. They have now joined a sustainable help farm and are living in a greenhouse.
"We got like 12 feet of snow over the winter. At the moment, we have taken over a greenhouse. Temperatures here are still quite cold. We had snow this week. We are keeping a wood stove going to keep it nice and warm in there for the plants.
The couple are now part of an online community called 'Truthfully Living' where they mentor and teach people how to get back to the land.
Fiona said that living in a tent has brought the family closer to their roots and helped them realise what's truly important.
"Part of this journey of letting everything go and moving into a tent was more so discovering about what it means to be a human," she told Ryan.
"The earth has a spirit. We help people on that journey.
"I guess one of the most beautiful experiences that I thought I'd never have was sitting in our tent during the winter and there was lots of snow. We were completely insulated and there was silence. It was so quiet. We gathered our firewood from the woods around us and we just sat at the fire. Our son had gone to sleep. The peace and the quiet was something that I had never experienced."
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