Mountains
Moderate
Hiking
Those who know me shouldn’t be surprised that if I decided to create a space to share, inspire, and connect with others, it’d be for other outdoors enthusiasts and active travelers. I think what’s surprising is that I would start my own business around it. My entire adult life I’ve been working in the corporate grind and never once did entrepreneurship cross my mind. Corporate world isn’t a bad thing – it offers financial means, vacation days, and #worklifebalance which I was very intentional to protect. That, plus my tendency to explore things that are mentally and physically stimulating quickly drew me to the joys of traveling and the natural outdoors during a lot of my free time.
Below are random old photos from 8-11 yrs ago during my earlier days as a working adult. A million bonus points if you can name where we were! 
I’m so lucky to have a life partner who also loves to be physically active and immersive in the natural landscape and local culture – we experience the world together a lot. Our shared goal is to work hard towards #earlyretirement to do more of this with the ease and flexibility of not being time-bound. We’ve been successfully working towards that goal and have been quite happy.
So what triggered me to do something different? During the second half of last year, I participated in a life changing leadership program led by Liz de Wet with some other incredible women. I’ve taken many leadership courses before, but this was the first time I thought deeply about non-working aspects of myself. And wow that was eye opening and humbling. I know what keeps my soul nourished and I’ve been successful at cultivating space and time for that, but I never realized how critical this has been to my physical and mental well being. I am happy but what’s my purpose? Am I fulfilled? At the end of the program I was gifted “Playing Big” by Tara Mohr:
I devoured the book cover to cover – I thought deeply about my calling. To quote Mohr pg. 201, “Callings are about making a contribution for the good, about in some way bringing more light and love into the world.” What are my personal passions that bring positivity to the world? Easy: it’s travel, nature, health, and fitness. I was also gifted with the opportunity to work with a spectacular coach Abby Malan who dared me to dream and challenged me when my internal voices of judgment, cynicism, and fear came through. We talked a lot about my “whole self” and cultivated space for the creative and risk-taking part of me to shine through for the first time in my life.
It wasn’t until towards the end of the year when my spouse and I did a 5 day self-guided trek in southern Türkiye that really inspired me with the idea of Self-Guided Trails. I’ll share about this trip in a future blog and you’ll see why. I love building multi-day hiking trips whether it’s via backpacking or day hiking. And I know how to do it well. This is my calling; this is what I needed to do. I want to inspire and help others experience the joys of leading your own unique adventures on the trails.
Thank you for joining me on this exciting journey! Please share and leave comments/feedback below.
