Welcome to Wild Thriving

Content and information for those interested in participating in hiking and backpacking retreats

“They say total life transformations can’t begin on social media; and the anti-capitalist in me doesn’t want to admit that a targeted ad while scrolling Facebook woke something up in me; but on the other hand, I’m here to tell the truth, and the truth is, that’s what happened. It was just after Christmas of 2020, and I saw an ad from a company I had bought one pair of shoes from previously. But this ad was for their hiking boots, and I thought to myself, “I want to be the kind of person that needs to wear hiking boots.”

I’m not trying to argue that an ad or a new product can actually change your life. Though an ad was the sort of inciting moment here, what happened was I felt a pull in my gut, a knowing if you will, that I needed to get outdoors. The irony is my husband had been saying he wanted to hike more for years, and a good friend of mine has been hiking and camping with her kids for at least 20 years, and I’d told both of them, “no thanks, that’s not me” to multiple invitations …