Stephanie Berger was — no spoiler — the first castaway voted off the island on Season 48 of the durable reality TV show, “Survivor.”
But Ms. Berger, now 39, a principal technical product manager at Amazon, had proven her mettle in countless ways before setting foot on Fiji where the season’s shoot began in late June of 2024. After all, what was racing down a beach, crawling through a muddy net, running up a ramp and hurling sandbags at a target compared to the heavy lift of finding an appealing apartment in New York City — on a tight timetable to boot.
Adding to the degree of difficulty for Ms. Berger: She was deep in the “Survivor” casting process in March and April of 2024 while relocating from the house she owns in New Orleans and where she’d worked remotely during the pandemic, to New York, where Amazon has an office.
At the same time, her mother had just entered hospice care near Charleston, S.C., and she was going back and forth to visit. Further, she required a place she could claim on May 1. That was when she had to vacate a borrowed apartment in Tribeca, part of a house swap with friends of friends.
“I needed to find something quick and get my stuff in there before I went on TV,” Ms. Berger said. “But I also needed to find something that was going to feel like home. I was in a period of pretty massive upheaval and the last thing I wanted was to not have two feet on the ground.”
