Backpacking Adventures

Seriously. Stop It. I was recently in wine country, California for a bachelorette party. Our Airbnb was pretty secluded -- a little over 5 miles up a hilly, windy, wooded road that ended in a half mile long driveway that 2 Uber drivers refused to go down because it was "too sketchy" for them to drive for some reason (true story... despite the fact that 3 of us made that drive in rental cars without hesitation, they both made us get out of their car and walk the rest of the wa

How Going Alone (and Being Afraid) Set the Foundation for Future Adventures My sixth backpacking trip was this solo adventure. The seventh would ultimately be the Appalachian Trail. Deep into the COVID lockdown, I was feeling itchy for an adventure. I was living in Columbus, Ohio, and I was working a series of odd jobs. People kept asking me what my plan was -- I didn't feel comfortable returning to teaching until the pandemic was over, as my online teaching experience in the

How Backpacking Cerro Chirripó in Costa Rica Changed My Whole Dang Life It was autumn, 2018. My final year of college. Somewhere along the way, I’d realized that I was on track to graduate a semester early, and I wasn’t prepared for that, so I leapt at the opportunity to study abroad. I landed on a program in Costa Rica studying ecological resilience – a program far outside the scope of my special education and English literature majors. All I knew was that I wanted to be out