This woman paid $29,000 to spend a grueling year working on a 179-foot sailboat with 40 strangers

The INSIDER Summary:

• Nicole Hardy spent a year sailing around the world as a crew member on a ship.
• The trip cost around $29,000 and involved gritty work and little privacy.
• Despite the rough conditions, the experience was unforgettable.

You might know Nicole Hardy from her essay in the New York Times Modern Love column called "Single, Female, Mormon, Alone," or from her memoir that followed called "Confessions of a Latter-Day Virgin."

Now she's working on another book about a year-long sailing voyage that took her across three oceans and four continents.

Between the cramped quarters, physically demanding work, and bouts of illness, it wasn't exactly smooth sailing — but it was unforgettable.

Hardy spoke to INSIDER via email and provided a sneak peek of what life onboard the Picton Castle was like.

Nicole Hardy has been traveling as much as possible for over 20 years.

Deciding to sail the world with no experience wasn't much of a stretch.

"Few things have ever sounded as romantic as sailing the world," she said.

Having recently finished a memoir called "Confessions of a Latter-Day Virgin" and wanting to get out of her own head, she decided she would work on a ship.

The book chronicles her Mormon upbringing, the difficulties of remaining celibate while aging out of the Church's singles ward, and (spoiler alert!) her eventual decision to stop repressing her sexuality as an unmarried woman, which she also wrote about for the Modern Love column in the New York Times.