Reclaiming the outdoorsy identity for myself: How Outdoorsy started & what to expect from this podcast

Welcome to the first EVER episode of Outdoorsy. In this episode, your host, Madeleine (Mads), shares her personal journey of growing up with a love for the outdoors, losing her confidence in that space, and eventually reclaiming her passion for nature on her own terms. 

In this first episode, Mads lays the foundation for future conversations with guests from diverse backgrounds, who are making the outdoor industry more inclusive, approachable, and welcoming to everyone. She also introduces her new Patreon and Discord community, where listeners can connect, share experiences, and build offline relationships.

Join the Outdoorsy community:

• Subscribe to Outdoorsy on Patreon for access to the Discord community, where you can connect with others, share stories, and build community offline.

How you can support:

• Subscribe to this podcast!
• Rate and review the podcast -this helps a TON!
• Listen to future episodes.
• Check out the Patreon and join the Outdoorsy Discord community!
• Follow Madeleine on social media for updates and behind-the-scenes content at @madeleinewilsonphoto on all major platforms.

Topics & time stamps:
00:00 - Introduction to Outdoorsy
03:21 - Why I'm Sharing My Story
06:01 - The Early Years: Growing Up Outdoorsy
12:01 - High School Struggles: Disconnecting from Outdoorsy
20:01 - College and Post-Grad: A Continued Challenge
25:01 - Finding Confidence: My First Solo Trip
32:01 - Building Community: Outdoorsy Online
39:01 - The Importance of Inclusivity
45:01 - Creating Outdoorsy: The Podcast and Discord
53:01 - What to Expect from Outdoorsy
56:01 - Final Thoughts & Call to Action

What's next:
Join the community on Discord via Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Outdoorsy.
Donate to Indigenous funds: https://www.madeleinewilson.org/post/indigenous-funds-to-support

Connect more:
All of my links: https://www.madeleinewilson.org/info
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@madeleinewilsonphoto   
Instagram: https://instagram.com/madeleinewilsonphoto
My Amazon favorites and storefront: https://www.amazon.com/shop/madeleinewilsonphoto

Transcript

Madeleine (00:00)
Welcome to Outdoorsy, the podcast where we are redefining the word outdoorsy one episode at a time. I'm your host, Madeleine and I am on a mission to reclaim the word outdoorsy for everyone. I believe whether you're scaling mountains, reading by a campfire, or just going for the occasional stroll through your local park, this podcast is for you and you are outdoorsy. Basically, if you've ever felt like the outdoor community wasn't built with you in mind, this is the place for you.

I believe the outdoors are for everyone as long as you're kind, you are inclusive and curious and respectful. That's about it. You can just be hanging out outdoors and you are considered outdoorsy. And every other episode, I'm going to be interviewing experts and people, just regular old people as well. So content creators, outdoor educators, outdoor experts, mountaineers.

All sorts of people from all walks of life and all backgrounds that are giving a perspective of what outdoorsy actually means, what that actually looked like, and uplifting voices who often aren't represented in the outdoorsy community. So I'm so excited. I already have so many incredible interviews lined up for you all. And the guests that I have on my podcast coming up are just absolutely incredible. Their stories are so moving.

I have learned so much. have been so humbled by their teachings. yeah, I just I cannot wait for people to listen and hear from these incredible people. And a few other bonus episodes, I'm to be sharing like my personal experiences and the strategies and things that I've picked up over my years of exploring as mostly as solo adventurer and the great outdoors. So that's kind of the premise of the podcast. We're basically just showing that outdoorsy can mean a

whole bunch of different things to different people and however you choose to enjoy and explore the outdoors is totally valid. You don't have to be doing crazy adventures to count as outdoorsy. I think that in order to really understand why this podcast came to be and why you should trust me to be talking about this topic, I do want to share a little bit of my story.

and answer some of the questions for you all that my podcast guests are all going to be sharing about and answering in their episodes. But I figured I might as well go first, right? So I'm gonna dive into some of my story, telling you all my background, how I define the term outdoorsy, and then how I got to the place that I am today, which is starting this podcast and kind of how I got from point A to point B.

So if you are ready to jump into that story with me, awesome. But if not, and you just want to hear from the amazing guests that I have lined up, I completely understand as well, and I highly encourage you to do so. But if you're curious about kind of my story, let's just jump in. So I kind of went from being a grubby kid and going outdoors a ton growing up.

to kind of losing my confidence as I became an adult. And even in kind of high schools when I lost my zest for the outdoors and started not really identifying with the term outdoorsy as much. So let's start with childhood though, because I think that that is really the foundation and the core of why I'm so passionate about this particular topic. I was raised in the Pacific Northwest by two incredible parents and I had two sisters, I'm a middle child.

So if that tells you anything about me. But my dad was an eagle scout. He grew up very outdoorsy as you would typically classically define it and was even a mountaineer. He had a summit attempt of Denali in Alaska. He has summited Mount Rainier, also known as Tahoma several times, including once with my older sister. So just incredible technical expertise there on his side.

And then my mom came with us on a lot of outdoorsy adventures, but she was the first person to kind of show me that outdoorsy can look different than like what my dad was doing, which I would consider kind of falls into the classic box of what you would normally think of when you think of the word outdoorsy. She was happy to go with us camping, but she did not want to sleep in a tent, didn't want to sleep on the floor. Like she wanted to be comfortable. And we always gave her crap for this growing up, but...

Now as an adult reflecting back, I'm like really thankful that I had the perspective of these two people not only working in tandem and a really great partnership to raise us and kind of give us a well -rounded outdoor experience, but also just to show us that being outdoorsy can look different for different people and that's completely okay. One is not more valid than the other. So I grew up going camping a ton with my family.

doing a lot of stuff where my dad would take us out on camping trips and he would set the alarm for 1 a.m. and wake us up and we'd go look at the stars. we just did a lot of stuff where we weren't hiking necessarily, but we were kind of going for nature walks and just looking at the spider webs and the bugs and the wildlife and talking about it and just building up this general sense of curiosity and wonder for the great outdoors and this respect.

for the outdoors as well. That was really, really important to how my dad and my mom approached taking us outdoors, was it was about reverence and respect and just appreciating the surroundings that we were in. So just this incredible foundation that I will never, ever, ever take for granted. And I recognize how lucky and privileged I am to have had that experience. So yeah, thank you to my mom and dad for raising us right.

this amazing appreciation and respect for the outdoors. Then as I went into kind of middle and high school, I started doing more high adrenaline outdoor adventure, right? I went whitewater rafting with my church youth group in the summertime. So we'd go for like a week long whitewater rafting trip. That's actually the first time I ever saw a bear.

I went for my first backpacking trip in high school. Lots of cool things like that. Lots of cool first experiences that were a lot more intensive than just kind of going camping and hanging out. So I'm really glad that I got those experiences early on in life too and as I was developing. But I will say that high school and middle school is kind of the first time that I started to disconnect from the term outdoorsy or I started to not.

quite identify with the typical stereotype that we associate with outdoorsy. So the first one was just the cool kids that were at my high school. I equate my high school a little bit to the high school in 21 Jump Street where the like social structures and hierarchies were like slightly reversed, but the like cool kids were the ones that were really into like rock climbing and outdoorsy pursuits and things like that.

very stereotypical granola -y. And while I liked being outdoors, I didn't really like rock climbing and stuff like that. just, I don't know, I just wasn't really super interested in it for a couple of reasons. It just wasn't super interesting to me, but also I suffered from a lot of chronic health conditions that prevented me from participating fully and stuff like that. So I just kind of wasn't into it.

But I still liked the outdoors and so I felt like I had to like pretend to like all of these things that they liked in order to fit in and still be considered part of the outdoorsy crew. But in that I also felt really excluded because there was a lot of very verbal and outward disdain for people who were not outdoorsy or people who were like didn't dress granola or dressed more girly, which obviously I do.

or were into pop culture or like things that are not stereotypically quote unquote granola and like openly talking not nicely about people who are into those kinds of things and really looking down on them. So I always kind of felt awkward because I was like, I really like those things. I don't feel like I fit in here. And then the other piece was that they were all really focused on like accomplishments like

achieving a really specific goal and seeing that as the main driver for going out and being active and being outdoorsy like accomplishing a certain route or making a certain time or hiking a specific peak and it was all kind of based around like this concept of conquest and for me I just was like I just want to go outside I just want to like go hang out outside and like maybe go for a little walk a little casual stroll and

you know, I really liked kayaking and stuff like that. That's a little bit less intensive and a little bit more casual and a little bit slower paced because that's how I grew up really just kind of not like crazy doing stuff or seeing anything as something to be conquered, but just kind of going out and enjoying and just existing in the outdoors. And it didn't seem like anybody was really interested in that. It had to be around a certain goal. So

that started to disconnect me from that as well. And then I would say the other piece was the expensive gear and expensive clothes were off putting. did not grow up poor, but I also did not grow up really, really well off. My family was like pretty middle class, upper middle class, but I went to a private high school on a scholarship where the majority of the kids that I was around on a daily basis were consistently wearing.

designer clothing, and by designer clothing, I mean, not in the sense of like what most people think of, like designer outdoorsy gear. So, you know, really expensive stuff in my opinion, you know, whereas we were getting our outdoorsy gear from Fred Meyer, which they just weren't doing that. It just was different. And so there was this difference in like,

them becoming gear heads and everybody having the same gear, having the same clothes, all looking the same, having the best top tier, rock climbing shoes or whatever it is. And then me just being like, one, I'm not even interested in that, but two, I can't afford all that stuff right now. So that also kind of excluded me from that as well. And...

Obviously, again, I'm talking from such a place of privilege. Like I am just a white woman who is like complaining about how hard it was going to a private school. Like trust me, I hear myself right now and know that there are people who have a lot more barriers when it comes to going to the outdoors. But I do wanna just share my experience with you all so you kinda know where I'm coming from. I know it's like nothing compared to the barriers a lot of other people face. But yeah, I think in high school is also when...

I started to actually feel more anxiety just around active outdoor pursuits and just anxiety in general. Like, let's be honest. But I remember we went on a class trip or like class bonding thing to climb Little Si. If you're from the Pacific Northwest, you know that hike is kind of like a deceptively tough hike, but everybody says it's like a moderate or, you know, basic hike. It was so hard. And I remember...

I was so ill -equipped for that and yet there was no preparation from the trip leaders. This is high school. Again, we were taken in buses to this hike. We could not drive at the time. There's no preparation from the group leaders of like, okay, there's different abilities here. Who has a chronic illness? Who has never hiked before? Who is a little bit of a slower hiker? Who is faster?

None of that. just was like, everybody gets to the summit, we're all going at the same pace. And since this was the group of people that I was with and the majority of the like grade that I was in, everybody was going so fast and it was like a race and it was one the most miserable experiences of my life. And it really put me off to hiking in groups. I just was like, if this is how it's gonna be where we're just like racing and not enjoying anything, I have no desire to hike with other people. So that put me off to that.

completely. And then I would say the other thing in high school that changed for me was that my relationship to my body completely changed. As I mentioned before, I had some chronic health issues that really made my relationship with my body very complicated. I was just really not happy with my body and I went through some really, really challenging stuff that I won't get too far into, but it mostly was around chronic pain and

made it very difficult for me to keep up in these kind of high, high intensity active pursuits. And then in terms of my body as well, I did become very aware of how my body looked. I was always like very insecure about how my body was since I was a very young girl. I developed a lot earlier than most of my peers and that caused a lot of distress and a lot of confusion and

a lot of comments were made to me about my appearance from other kids. I had really bad acne, know, just kind of typical stuff you go through as a young woman, honestly, but it really did impact me. And I was a little bit on the bigger side as well in terms of just physical stature. I mean, I'm a very short person now.

But at the time when I was growing I grew taller than everybody and I grew wider than everybody and that made me feel so incredibly insecure and so how that relates to the outdoors is like it made me feel like my body wasn't equipped for this because you know you look at the REI catalog or you back then you look at like the REI catalog you look at whatever catalogs you were getting in the mail Really dating myself now and you would see all these like thin people

doing all these things. And so if you weren't thin, you kind of automatically excluded yourself from that community or that industry. And so I was like, well, you know, this is just how it goes, right? So that was kind of like my middle school, high school experience and how things started to really shift. And then at the end of high school, going into colleges when social media really became huge.

more prevalent and that for a lot of people is what has contributed to them feeling like they don't belong in this outdoor community. You see people posting their accomplishments, their highlight reel and oftentimes looking perfect while doing it and only sharing the good things not sharing any of the bad things from the trip and you play this comparison game over and over and over so I saw this in college and I just was like well I guess I'm just like not an outdoorsy girl.

And I just, I like didn't really do any outdoorsy activities at all in college. I completely just went the opposite direction and I was like, I'm a city girl. you know, cause obviously if you live in the city, you can't do outdoorsy things. If you don't pick up on my sarcasm, that's heavy on the sarcasm because you can be multiple things at once. Anybody can be outdoorsy. It doesn't matter where you live, but you know, in my silly little brain that wasn't fully

developed yet, that's kind of the thought process that I had. And yeah, and I just was completely, completely not interested in that stuff, which is sad to think about and to look back on. And then I graduated and all of my friends that I made post -graduation, for the most part, there's like one or two exceptions, but the majority of the friends that I made after graduating,

We're not interested in anything related to the outdoors at all. I have to pause for a second because if you are watching the video episode, you just saw my dog Harper jump up behind me. Just know that if you are ever watching this podcast on a video episode, she is always going to be sitting right there. She's my little assistant buddy. So if you ever hear her little self in the background, that's what's going on. That's Harper girl.

She is not outdoorsy. And by that, I mean, she hates the outdoors. She does not enjoy being outdoors. She really only likes to be inside. And that's really the only type of person who is not considered outdoorsy is if they don't like being outside. So I'll get to that in a second, but yeah, she's not outdoorsy that's okay. We still love her. So where was I? I was talking about college and, after college, excuse me, after graduation and...

making new friends and stuff and the majority of those people were not outdoorsy. Like they also did not like being outdoors, did not like camping, didn't really like hiking, not interested. I would invite people to go with me and people would just be like, I love you, no. I love you, but no thank you. And that's totally fine too. My husband is that way too. He will go on some things with me. He will go for a short hike or he will go camping occasionally with me. But for the most part, his preference is to like not do that, which is totally...

totally fine and I think the basis of a very strong and healthy partnership is if you and your partner have independent and individual interests. Like there's plenty of stuff that he likes that I am not interested in at all and that is totally fine. In fact, I think it's really healthy. yeah, I just was like, man, know, nobody else, nobody else wants to do this with me. What am I to do? I guess I'm just not an outdoorsy gal because I didn't want to go do stuff on my own.

And before I jump into kind of what changed to then make me feel confident and actually go out and do stuff, I do want to once again interrupt this rambling to just remind you that the way I have felt excluded or not welcome in the outdoorsy community is vastly different than other people. am a straight presenting cis -gendered white

woman who exists in a body that fits into straight size clothing. So like, there are so many other barriers that people face in terms of identifying with the term outdoorsy or feeling like they are being excluded in the outdoorsy world that are so vastly different for me. And that's like a huge reason why this podcast exists is to uplift those stories. But I just, again,

Want to just interrupt my rambling to just remind you, I have a ton of privilege here and my quote unquote struggle with identifying with the term outdoorsy is going to be very different from people who exist in marginalized and historically excluded groups. So keep that in mind. Okay, now onto what changed.

I'm actually not really sure what changed to be totally honest, but I think the thing that made me feel like I could go out and be outdoorsy in a way that worked for me and start doing stuff on my own was having a partner, having a healthy partnership. My husband and I met in 2017. We got engaged in 2019 and we got married in 2021. And I think in 2019 is when, yeah, 2019 is when I went for my very first solo trip.

I had just purchased a Subaru Outback, like this used 2012 Subaru Outback that I bought with this sole intention of using it as a vehicle to go camping alone in. I knew I wanted to get outdoorsy. I knew I wanted to do this thing. My husband had like encouraged me and supported me and seen how much I wanted to do this. So I was like, okay, I'm gonna do it.

But I am scared. I am really scared of doing this by myself. really like the thought of being in a tent alone was so terrifying. Like I didn't even want to do that in my backyard. So I was like, the only way I'm going to do this, the only way I'm actually going to do this is if I can sleep in my car and lock my doors and be comfortable. So that's exactly what I did. I got a vehicle that could do that and

in summer of 2019, I took it for her maiden voyage up to Mount Rainier National Park. And this is the part of the podcast where I tell you to do as I say, not as I do, because I think I broke like 10 different rules and I slept in my car in a parking lot in the national park, which you are not supposed to do at all. Like don't do that. I think I honestly was just so flustered and so outside of my realm of comfort and hadn't done enough research and

didn't know what I was doing that I just panicked and parked somewhere and I was like, my God, I hope nobody knocks on my door. Like that was, that was the level that I was at at that time. So please don't do that. Please, if you are taking your car out and you are staying the night anywhere, please do your research and plan ahead and make sure that you can stay legally wherever you are staying. Like just be smarter than I was. I've made plenty of plenty of mistakes and this was definitely one of them, but it just, I will say.

The one good thing that this does teach us is that, you know, it doesn't have to be perfect for you to go out and do it. Like at this time, I think I had a sleeping bag and a pillow and a flashlight. Like I think that is all the gear I had. I didn't have anything else. I just had my car and the basic essentials. I don't even think I packed food for this trip because I was like going up after work.

I'm gonna take some photos at sunset, I'm gonna sleep, and then I'm gonna take some photos at sunrise, and then I'm gonna go home before work starts again. So I went on like a Wednesday evening, came back early Thursday morning and had my whole work day ahead of me. So like, it doesn't even have to be a full day adventure, it doesn't have to be super planned out. I mean, please plan better than I did, obviously, but you know what I mean? You don't have to have like this crazy elaborate setup to just get going. You gotta just start somewhere. And I probably should have started smaller.

than that, like looking back, I probably should have maybe just gone out for a day trip. I should have started smaller than an overnight in a national park, but I digress. I'm really proud that I did that because it really did make me feel empowered and excited. Like I could actually do this. And so since 2019, I have gradually accumulated more gear, accumulated...

vastly more experience and knowledge about how to safely and responsibly recreate outdoors. And yeah, like I said, I've made a lot of mistakes along the way, but I have learned so much. And I now am at this point where I feel super confident in my setup and my skills and my expertise. And in 2023, I started sharing all of this online with you all. And that has been one of the most incredible

surprising, humbling, and just lovely experiences I've had with the outdoorsy community because, like I said, I excluded myself in adulthood from community groups that were doing group hikes and things like that because of the poor experiences I had in high school growing up. I just didn't want to even risk being left out, being excluded, and feeling awkward. So I just didn't even try.

So this intense independence was born from that, but then sharing all of this stuff with y 'all online through TikTok and through Instagram and on YouTube, it has made me realize the power of community and how much we can learn from each other and how incredible this community really is and how many different people there are out there enjoying the outdoors in different ways.

So although I've been sharing a lot about my experiences and stuff online and that's been really fun, I think the best thing that has come from this is the people that I've met and the connections that I have made in this community. Which brings me to like this concept that I had of sharing more of these stories because I think that as I have shared more of my experience with you all online and you all have somehow tagged along and listened to me ramble.

You all have really identified with this concept of I am outdoorsy, but that doesn't have to look the same for me as it does for you. And I am outdoorsy and that can just be as simple as me existing in the outdoors. So as I keep posting more stuff about this concept, it's really taken off. And a lot of you have responded to this and been like, my God, I did not. I did not realize that anybody could be outdoorsy. I didn't realize that.

you know, there's, there's, or I never called myself outdoorsy because I don't hike or I don't call myself outdoorsy because I don't camp in a tent. I even have people who say, well, I don't, you know, what you're doing, Madeleine is not camping because you're not in a tent and you're not on the ground. don't like, that doesn't count as camping or you can't call yourself outdoorsy because of X, Y, and Z. And that's just not true. Like,

We don't have to fit into these boxes and this definition. And you will hear through the interviews that I have done for this podcast with all of these different individuals. Everybody comes from incredibly different backgrounds. Some very technical, very education focused, some self -taught, some people who are currently doing a lot of active outdoor pursuits. Some people who are currently disabled and not doing anything right now, but still identify as outdoorsy. And you will see that like,

Outdoorsy can mean whatever you want it to mean as long as you are enjoying being outdoors and you are respecting the land. That's it. Be kind, be curious, be respectful, but you are outdoorsy as long as you are outdoors. It's really actually so simple. And the people that have gotten mad about me saying this online who have come into my comments, I mean,

I have received physically violent threats in my comments and in my dms from me sharing this concept online because there are people in this world that believe the outdoors should be gate kept completely they think that it should only be reserved for the elite that shouldn't be shared and that the specific identity can be owned by an elite group which is just not true it's just wrong

and it's rooted in really problematic ideology and really problematic patterns of behavior. So if we dig into why certain people feel like they can lay claim to the term outdoorsy and other people cannot, it is always rooted in the patriarchy and in colonialism and in racism. And then also we've got a whole bunch of ableism, we've got fatphobia, we have homophobia, all sorts of bigotry.

and just close -mindedness that drives this ideology. So in order to break those things down, we have to have these conversations and we have to uplift the voices and the stories of people who have been historically marginalized, who have been historically excluded from this industry, who have been threatened, who have had their safety taken away from them.

who have really struggled to overcome very real and very severe barriers to getting into the outdoors at all. And I thought I had a really unique opportunity to start something here where I can uplift those voices and help share those stories. I have this background in digital marketing and I have done a lot of content creation in my time from podcasts to webinars to blogging to social media.

I have a ton of experience here, almost a decade long career. I wanna put it to good use. And I think by starting a podcast, I can use my skills and my expertise that I've learned from my professional career combined with my love of the outdoors to bring light to these stories. So that is how the concept for Outdoorsy was born was I was noticing these patterns of behavior online. I was starting to see a huge response and a huge...

like need and thirst and hunger from you all to have more discussions about this and to continue to showcase that outdoorsy can look different for everybody and that everybody belongs in the outdoors and that what better way to do this than to start a podcast and start sharing these stories. So that's how I created this. And the other thing with this is it's not just a podcast.

Which you know if you choose to just listen to this podcast or watch the video episodes That is more than enough like thank you so much But I also want to let you all know that I worked really hard to build a discord server so I developed this idea of like we need to have a better community forum because Facebook is terrible It's just really terrible and I am part of quite a few Facebook groups that are fine

But in general, find the majority of people are not really on Facebook anymore. And so even if it's a non -toxic community, it's just usually pretty inactive. So I didn't want to build a community up there. And then TikTok and Instagram, it's just so one way. I didn't feel like I was like building community in the way that I wanted to. Like I want it to be more interactive and engaging and I kind of want to break down those barriers. So I thought...

Why not create a Discord server? I'm in a couple of different Discord servers right now and they've all been so positive and lovely and amazing. So over the past month or so, I've been really thinking about how I wanted to build up this community in a way that would be like safe and also engaging for people. So I did create a Discord server and you can join it. you do have to subscribe to my Patreon to gain access.

And the reason why there is a paywall is because I care very deeply about the safety of everybody here in this community. And I want the Discord server to be something where people feel really welcomed and really safe. And by putting a very small barrier of $5 a month, I think that that is going to help weed out a lot of the people who maybe wouldn't take this community seriously and wouldn't actually be invested. So that is

the hope and the goal there is that by just adding a tiny barrier of entry, there is a more positive, inclusive, just healthy and safe environment for all of us. And I've put in place a lot of rules for us to follow, not so much so that it's gonna be like boring. Like please, for the love of God, let's not have this be a boring Discord server. But rules just to kind of be like, if you wanna promote your, you know, small business or whatever it is, or you wanna share your links on social media so people can connect.

there's specific channels for you to do that rather than it becoming like a spammy channel for people. And then I created different interest groups. So there are channels in the Discord server. set up, if you're familiar with Slack, it's very similar to Slack. But there's different channels for like all the activities that you could possibly like to do. So from, you know, hiking and backpacking and camping, like the kind of typical things to...

tide pooling and beach combing and surfing. I even have channels set up for crafting and books, reading book recommendations, that kind of thing. Because there's so many crossovers here in terms of audience and things we like to do outdoors. Like my favorite thing to do outdoors is to read outdoors. So I wanna hear your book recommendations. So there's a bunch of channels like that. And then there are also...

channels for different communities that you might belong to because one of the things that I've learned from interviewing my guests is that the outdoor community is very white and very heterosexual and or let me back up and say it isn't the outdoor community is not very white and very heterosexual what we see what is often represented is so

So in order to actually foster the outdoor community that truly does exist and be representative of the community that does exist out there, I have different community groups in the discord for different communities that you might identify with. So there's a queer channel, there is a BIPOC channel, there's an indigenous channel, there's a veteran's channel, there's a parent's channel, like all sorts of things for you to find people that have some commonalities with you.

that might make it hard for you to connect with other people who do not fall in with that community. So I wanna use an example of someone I was talking to about hiking groups and stuff that they had been a part of in Southern California. She is a Black woman and she was talking about how she joined some groups in Southern California to go hiking, but it just never clicked. Like she felt like she wasn't really represented. Like she was...

never quite fitting in, right? And then once she found Black Girls Trekking, which is an organization specifically around getting Black women outdoors, she finally felt like she was comfortable in that community and finally felt like, okay, these are my people. Like we have the shared commonality. We might come from all these different backgrounds, but we have the shared commonality. And that for me is what makes me feel the most safe and happy and included. So like.

Hopefully these discord channels can help you connect with people within the communities that you exist so that you don't have to work so hard to find that and those channels and those communities can get you connected with local organizations that might also exist right now. And then finally, I also have hyper local groups. So while I can't create a unique channel for like every single city or every single region of the United States and Canada,

I did create a channel for every single state and I can continue to build those out if one state gets really big. Like if we're thinking about Washington state, if we wanna create a Western Washington and an Eastern Washington channel, we can totally do that. But right now it's just the Washington channel. So you can connect with people locally because I do think that that is so critically important. If you are not ready to go out and adventure outdoors,

by yourself. You want to be able to connect with like -minded individuals in your local area. So this is a really good way to do that. And then finally, I have a bunch of channels for stuff like gear recommendations. So if you are looking for a new sleeping bag and you are a plus size person and you're like all these sleeping bags on the market right now are either way too expensive or like aren't for plus size bodies.

you can go to that channel and my gosh, if you're watching the video episode of this, I just got one of those AI reaction things that Zoom does, just so annoying. So I'm sorry if you're watching the video episode and just had to see that. So yeah, I mean, you can get gear recommendations. There's a channel about Leave No Trace. So if you've got questions about that or like what certain roles mean, we can talk about it there. There's a channel for you to share your pet photos, like.

There's just everything you could possibly want in this Discord community. And I thought I want to build the community that I wanted to be a part of. And I would love for you all to join it as well. I think it would be so fun and so great. And I know so many of y 'all are so incredible and have awesome knowledge to share. So please go to the Patreon and subscribe so you can gain access to that. That's not the only perk you'll get when you subscribe to the Patreon. You will also get bonus episodes.

So what I'm putting public and for free out on the podcast is all of the interviews with my guests, but I'm also gonna be producing podcast episodes where it's just me talking about topics that I wanna talk about. So a little bit more casual, a little bit less scripted, a little bit more about like my experiences and the strategies and tips and things that I've learned. I might even throw in a couple of just random sporadic episodes where I talk about like just shit I like, know, books I've been reading, things like that.

So if you're interested in just a little bit more casual conversation, I'll be putting bonus episodes up on the Patreon as well. And then finally, the other thing that you can get with the Patreon is voting, voting power. So I will be putting up, polls about like what topics you want to have covered next on the podcast. any guests that you might want to see in season two, season one is done filming and done recording, but season two will start.

Recording in November and December of this year so you can vote on different guests that you want to hear from you can vote on Merch designs like there'll be a whole bunch of stuff that you can kind of vote on and have your fingerprint on So I figured that's kind of fun. And then there is another patreon tier That's gonna have some other bonus things like bonus content and opportunity to ask me directly questions things like that a Download of my little hiking journal that I've created

that I really love. Yeah, just stuff like that. So head on over to the Patreon to check that out and subscribe. I hope to see you all in the Discord server. I think it's going to be a really fun time. And yeah, I'm just really excited. I just wanted to share my story about why Outdoorsy exists. What I hope you all get out of this podcast and this community is that you realize that you belong here.

that outdoorsy can mean whatever you want it to mean as long as you are outdoors. If you are kind, if you are curious, if you are respectful, and you are enjoying being in the outdoors, you are outdoorsy and you belong here. So thank you so much for listening to this first episode of outdoorsy. I can't believe it's here. Please go listen to the other episodes. Follow and engage with all of the incredible guests that I have on.

and just continue to support this podcast that we can keep uplifting these incredible stories and breaking down these barriers for people. I just want everybody to feel like they belong here because they really, really do. Thank you so much for all of your support so far. I truly would not have the confidence to do this without the support of everyone in this incredible community to date. And thank you. Thank you so much. So until next time.

I hope you get out there in whatever way looks good to you, feels good to you and makes sense for you. And just remember that you belong here.