From the outside, Lucy Leonelli was living the dream - working as a partner at a recruiting firm in London, attending endless dinner parties and no uncertain future ahead of her.
However, for the 29-year-old from Whitchurch in Bristol, this was a scary concept.
She worried about the person she was becoming and the lack of diversity in her life, as back home in Bristol she'd once thought of herself as "an eclectic mess of a human being.”
No longer feeling like that person, she decided to make a big change in her life, as Bristol Live reports.
So Lucy quit her corporate high paid job and went off to spend a year with 26 different communities across the country, choosing a community group for every letter of the alphabet and saying 'yes' to new experiences.
Get the news you want straight to your inbox. Sign up for a Mirror newsletter here.
“I was finding myself getting a bit prejudiced," she said. "I was judging people and doing things that were never part of my identity. In the corporate world, I was feeling really narrowed, I freaked out and wanted to rediscover all the weird and quirky parts of myself by spending time with different communities."
This variety of communities included naturists, who she met during a four-day holiday at a popular UK theme park.
While there she even agreed to do a naked photoshoot in the swimming pool that would go on the front cover of the British Naturist Magazine - and enjoyed naked rides.
Being naked constantly around 500 strangers was a surreal experience for Lucy, but after the first 10 minutes and a bottle of wine, she quickly began to feel more comfortable and ended up having a lot of fun.
As well as naked rides, Lucy went on naked water park slides and tucked into evening meals with no clothes on. There was also naked yoga, belly dancing and body painting.
She joined in with the disco dancing in the evenings, without having to worry about what to wear.
Lucy said: "I was hugely out of my comfort zone so you feel very vulnerable at first.
"My friend and I just drank a bottle of wine before we could even leave the hotel room but it’s amazing how quickly you adjust. It didn’t take us long to feel relatively comfortable.
"After that, it’s just the first time you do something new; like bend down to pick something up or go to a bar. Any body hang-ups you have before you go to these events are just completely out the window in the first 10 minutes.
“We only ever really see nudity in movies or porn which isn’t real or attainable. We’re thrown media every day that really accentuates all of that.
"It was a really healthy experience. We were also the youngest there by about 30 years."
Aside from naturists, Lucy also said 'yes' to exploring Billy Smart's circus on the downs as well as vampirism and the world of BDSM.
She was even invited to London's famous fetish venues Club Antichrist and Torture Garden, by the king of vampires who did not wish to be named.
As she has a boyfriend, she decided not to participate in the activities but simply observe on this occasion. However, she did wear a latex dress which she says was more uncomfortable than her four days of nudity.
She described vampirism as being like a religion but the extent to which the individual practiced depended on which sect they identified with - some people simply dressed like vampires, while a much smaller number actually chose to drink blood.
Lucy has since written a book about her travels and the communities she visited and says she felt welcomed in every group apart from the Hells Angels who in the end made a democratic decision not to be included in the book.
Seven years later, she still gets glimpses of the 26 worlds she stepped into for fleeting moments. She notices the once invisible bell ringers at the churches, the trainspotters at the stations and the hill baggers in the countryside.
"You see it everywhere after lifting the lid on clandestine worlds," said Lucy.
Now living in the United States, Lucy believes that if more people stepped out of their echo chambers, they would realise how much they actually have in common with people they view as “other.”
Lucy added: "I learned there is a lot more that connects us than divides us and that is true for all of these communities. There are so many similarities between groups.
"You realise that people are only strangers until you talk to them and then they become friends very quickly."
To find out more about Lucy’s adventures with naturists, vampires, battle reenactors and a whole host of other hidden communities you can purchase her book; A year in the life: Adventures in British Subcultures from Waterstones and other major retailers.
Do you have a story to share? We pay for stories. Email us at yourmirror@mirror.co.uk
