My Story
Hello 🙂
I’m Caryn, a Pacific Northwest based adventurer and storyteller. I explore my small corner of the world with my best friend and my everything, Zack. I take a lot of pictures, Zack takes a lot of video and together we try and inspire you to go outside to have adventures of your own! We strive to create unique itineraries with fun experiences to get you off the beaten path. We also share our personal journeys with you so that you know that we have tried and tested everything we suggest to you!
We can’t wait to explore with you!
We post about:
Hiking, Backpacking, and Camping Itineraries
Off-the-Beaten-Path Outdoor Experiences
Tips and Tricks to Improve your Outdoor Life
Beautiful Places to Stay
Unique Experiences to Make Travel Even More Memorable
Our Travel Stories (the good and the bad)
Sustainable Travel Tips
Our Favorite Well-Loved Outdoor Products
Eco-Friendly Products (always tested!)
Travel Photography Tips
Money-Saving Travel Tips
And much more!
We’ll show you our favorite travel hacks, camping locations, cozy cabins, alpaca ranches, butterfly houses, cheap flight websites, and beach bungalows so that you have the best travel experience in any location.
How Did I start my Website and start Traveling and hiking for work?
Well, it’s a long story, but it starts how you might expect. Every summer when I was a child, the thing I looked forward to was spending time outside with my dad. We’d camp, hike, and go on scenic drives together. The second thing was attending my favorite outdoor summer camp where we’d spend every day doing different outdoor activities.
One of my most memorable experiences from camp was when my whole cabin got in our swimsuits and found a big mud puddle in the forest. We painted things on each other’s backs with mud, and soon we were all drenched head-to-toe after making mud angels. After everyone was sufficiently dirty, we ran as fast as we could right into the lake. We splashed and played, cleaning all the caked dirt out of our hair. That day, I experienced how nature can literally make you feel cleansed again. That was where I felt happiest and most complete. Every step I took in the woods brought me closer to who I really was.
After the age of 14, I lost sight of those things. My mom was diagnosed with breast cancer and my life was changing significantly. I watched her go through her treatment, and luckily, after a couple of surgeries and lengthy chemotherapy, she went into remission.
My mom and I spent those years trying desperately to heal from our past, which kept trying to catch up with us. We were both going through our own personal painful times, so we grew apart and tried to move on separately. Life was hard. She was always doing preventative medical treatments, hoping that her cancer wouldn’t come back. And I completely lost touch with the things I loved the most. I didn’t know who I was, and I was feeling the need to do anything I could to be someone else. Until the real me was just gone.
When I was 18, we got the news that her illness came back. This time as stage 4 cancer. You can imagine how difficult this was for everyone in my family, but even though I was surrounded by people telling me they were there for me I don’t think I ever felt more alone.
A year later, we went on a trip to Hawaii with my family. I had never been that far from home, and I was amazed by how different everything was from the PNW. The plants, the grass, the ocean, the wildlife, everything felt exotic. Going to Hawaii was one of my mom’s lifelong dreams, and I was happy to see it coming to fruition.
After only one week into our two-week stay in Hawaii, medical professionals advised that she return home immediately. Every other day, she was confined to her bedroom, too tired to leave the house; and we all knew she was taking a turn for the worse. However, she wanted to enjoy the time she had there with us, so we stayed. In hindsight, I think she knew these would be some of her final moments. A week after returning home, she was admitted to the hospital for an extended stay, and she died only a month later.
That trip affected me a lot. I wished I could’ve captured it in a meaningful way. I wished I could go back and experience it again. It was a bittersweet trip, but I wanted to turn every negative piece of this experience into something positive. My life was changing in a big way again, but I was young and determined to do more than just survive. That motivated me to buy my first camera, a Canon Rebel T5i. I shot with it for two years with my favorite 50mm f/1.8 lens on it. At the time, I loved portrait photography and my skills were growing. I wasn’t actively trying to do anything with it, but I loved it. I also realized that my favorite portraits were the ones taken in the wilderness.
Photography was leading me back to my roots, reminding me where I thrived and grew as a child. I also noticed familiar feelings coming back again, the ones that made it seem as if nature itself was healing my soul. I’ve struggled with my mental health throughout my life, but finally felt the pull to start my healing journey. I was finally ready to start moving forward, but with various (possibly lifelong) diagnoses for my mental health under my belt, it was hard to stay positive. I knew I’d be able to treat the symptoms for my mental health problems, but they may never fully go away.
I was slowly learning to accept and love myself for who I am. I started thinking of my mental health like grief. Knowing that things will get easier, but never wanting the hurt to fully disappear because you love that person; and one of the best parts about love is that it lasts forever, even if it hurts. In the case of your mental health, that love is for yourself. Everything in my life was finally pointing and telling me what direction to go, so I started living an intentional life to the best of my ability.
Like everything, intentionality takes practice, so I started doing the things I loved. I took photos every day, I started a new job, and I accepted change as it came to me. I eventually decided that I’d push hard to turn this hobby into a possible career. Right around then is when I met Zack. He started to gain his own interest in photography, and I offered to take photos with him and maybe give him some pointers. It turned into a rewarding friendship, and a year later it changed into something more. He’s a big part of my why. The relationships I started making with people who also love the outdoors and photography steered me toward the right path.
It’s been six years since my mom passed. That was the start of my journey of figuring out who I am and learning to heal. I’m still working on that every day. Everyone has a different road and a different story of how they stumble down that road in the dark until they can start walking. When I started spending a lot more time outside taking pictures, more importantly photos that I love capturing, and served as reminders of my incredible journeys, I felt like I was finally getting up and WALKING down my road.
Living intentionally has changed my life and traveling intentionally can change yours. When you’re traveling, do what you love. If you love being outside, this is the perfect place for you. I share carefully crafted itineraries and personal accounts of my adventures in the outdoors. That means you’ll know what to expect ahead of time and, you’ll find lots of beautiful new outdoor locations you might not have heard of. I’ll even show you memorable places to stay, and some unique experiences you probably wouldn’t think to do on your trips. When you return from the woods, you’ll come home more yourself than when you left.
Additionally, I hope to inspire you to be more sustainable and think green for your future travels. We can always do more for our little green planet. I want to leave people inspired to protect the wild spaces we have left so anyone can have the opportunity of being cleansed and refreshed by nature. This isn’t the end of my story. Though it’s hard to share these details with you, I hope to inspire others to move forward with their own dreams.
I can’t wait to update my story as things change along this road I’m now walking, and I look forward to you all joining me every step of the way.
