where in the world is Maddy!?
guess where I am this weekend + some of my favorite articles from Hello Stranger
Right now, I’m out of town trying to backpack for four days out of my 35L backpacking bag! Wish me luck!
I’m also… wildly out of shape at the moment and shooting for forty miles. When I was 23, I had no problem hopping on horrible backpacking trips with no training. Now, I’m 28, and should probably change my antics.
leave a comment to guess where I’m backpacking! I will comp everyone who guesses correctly a lifetime paid subscription to my newsletter, which includes downloads of all my eBooks, and exclusive essays.
In the meantime, there are so many new people here in my little newsletter community! Hello, who are you👀?
I started this newsletter in 2021 and rocked about 30 readers for the better part of a year. I’ve written about paddling expeditions and body image, exploring the midwest and moving out of the PNW. Here are some of my favorite essays & articles from Hello Stranger, and where they fit in the story of this newsletter:
I wrote this six part piece about a year after my friends and I attempted to circumnavigate Isle Royale in October. Obviously and as you may be able to tell by the simple premise of the trip, things did not go well at all, and I was med evac’d for hypothermia.
That was almost four years ago now, and I’ll probably rewrite the story someday. Four years gives you a lot of perspective, and I think this trip really changed who I am as a paddler, and my approach to risk and taking care of myself on trail. I’ve had much better trips since this one thanks to the hard lesson the Lake taught me, and ultimately, I think we did the best we could with the hand that we were given.
In summer 2022, myself and two friends tackled a section of the Inside Passage with zero experience navigating tides! It was a blast, and full of misadventure. You can find all of the posts from that trip, but this one is one of my favorites. We had so much go wrong in the first two weeks of this trip it’s honestly very funny looking back.
I’m pretty selective in what I share location-wise on Instagram for a lot of reasons, which I cover in the article above. In same breath, I also spend a lot of time creating detailed, free trail guides and resources that cover all of the details of visiting every single trail I post on Instagram. Personally I think there’s a lot of nuance in the sharing locations vs not sharing locations online discourse that often gets glossed over in the name of painting it as “geotagging bad/gatekeeping good” and vice versa.
an open letter to anyone thinking of starting a blog
Everyone wants to move to Grand Marais, Minnesota. Here’s why you maybe wouldn’t like it.
And a recent one; come and enjoy all of the reasons that I am unlikable!!
Thanks for reading, hope you’re having a great Sunday, and thank you for being here!
Maddy
Let king forward to hearing about your trip when you return. I feel like you have hinted at where you are camping…and that maybe you flew there?! Hopefully you missed the snow dump this past week.