Wild Ideas Worth Living

The day before his 26th birthday, Tom Turcich walked out the door of his home in Haddon Township, NJ. He was setting off to walk around the world. Seven years and over 25,000 miles later, Tom returned home. Four months into his trek, he adopted a dog, Savannah, to keep him company. The pair’s adventure was filled with highs and lows - kindly interactions with strangers, health scares, beautiful sc...

Over the past few years, alpinist, filmmaker, and climate activist Graham Zimmerman has watched his home in Bend, Oregon get consumed by smoke over and over again. As someone who loves spending time outside, Graham wondered what exactly he could do to help. He created the podcast Wildfire to dig deep and investigate the raging infernos that threaten our homes on planet Earth.  Connect with Graham:...

The Boogie Board Wave Chasers is a club of women between the ages of 55 and 95. Five days a week, on the beaches of San Diego, these women charge waves, and have the time of their lives. Boogie boarding keeps these women young. It is a workout to swim against the current, hop up on their boards, and get up off the sand. Most of all, together, these women have built a community that cheers them on,...

In 2018, writer and journalist Katie Arnold took the ultrarunning community by surprise when she won one of the toughest ultramarathons in the country, the Leadville 100. When an opportunity arose to compete in this famous 100 mile race, Katie committed to training for Leadville her way. Her training was “unconventional”, but it totally worked. At 46 years old, Katie completed the course with one...

Chalk artist David Zinn is known for leaving anonymous work on sidewalks, under rocks, and in other unexpected places. He walks around Ann Arbor, Michigan with a little wooden box of brightly colored chalk. As David strolls the neighborhood, he looks for features of the streetscape– oddly shaped cracks in the pavement or chunks of brick missing from retaining walls– to use in his drawings of whims...

Mario Stanley started rock climbing in his early twenties and quickly fell in love with the sport. He became a climbing coach and an outdoor guide, and now runs his own company, Highpoint Expeditions. Climbing gave Mario’s life a sense of direction at a time when he was feeling lost. He’s learned over the years that it’s about more than scaling to the top of a wall. Climbing is an exercise in free...

Laurie Watt is an ice climber and mountaineer who became a professional adventure guide at age 55. She spent most of her adult life indoors- parenting and working as a physical therapist. In her forties, she found her way into the mountains. Now, Laurie  is teaching us all that getting older doesn’t mean that we have to forgo our wild ideas. Some of us might even get better and wilder with age. Co...

Silvia Vasquez-Lavado summited Mt. Everest in 2016, and was the first Peruvian woman to do so. Her trip up the world’s tallest mountain was part of an incredible journey toward healing - from sexual abuse when she was a child and from alcoholism as an adult. Her book, In the Shadow of the Mountain, tells the story of her childhood in Peru, her immigration to America, and her climb up Mt. Everest. ...

Group runs changed Iman Wilkerson’s life and contributed to the confidence she needed to go after her wildest ideas. Now, she is channeling her inspiration into supporting others to connect with their local community through running. In 2020, Iman created The Run Down, a web-based app that brings together local runners and shares different routes to explore in their community. The service started...

Getting outside can be intimidating — it feels like there’s a lot that can go wrong. Luckily, Miranda Webster, host of the REI YouTube series Miranda in the Wild , is here to show you that it doesn’t have to be hard or scary. Miranda is like your best friend from middle school, and she’s been working at REI since she was 18 years old! It took her some time to find the right role, but hosting a vid...

Mylo Fowler is a landscape photographer who takes pictures of his homeland, the Navajo Nation. The images he captures are stunning - they feature the rock formations, plants, and skies of the southwestern United States. His photography holds layers of meaning that celebrate and preserve Navajo culture, and he’s also figured out how to use his photography to bring electricity to people who live on...

Noami Grevemberg is an activist, podcaster and entrepreneur. In 2016, she and her husband Dustin left their home in New Orleans and moved into a 1985 Volkswagen Van. The pair has figured out how to make van life sustainable for them. They make a living as digital nomads. They do their best to practice a zero-waste lifestyle. And Noami has created a platform and community of BIPOC and LGBTQ van lif...

When we get out in nature, we can come up with ideas that change the course of our lives. For David Sacher, a 19,000 mile bike ride from the top of North America to the bottom of South America gave him the time and space to dream up his next wild idea. As he pedaled through the Andes mountains, he came up with a business idea: VITAL, a unique 24-hour climbing gym that runs on trust and community....

In 2019, Brittany Washington was burnt out. She was ready to pursue something a little more wild, and she was thirsty for knowledge. In January of 2020, Brittany left New York City for a trip around the world. She was in Bali, Indonesia in March of 2020, when the world stood still with the COVID-19 pandemic. She was stuck. During the year that Brittany spent in Bali, she continued to seek out adve...

For Chris Burkard, photography has always been more than just taking spectacular pictures. He’s used his craft as a way to tell stories, inspire people to adventure outside, and most of all, to push himself to the edge of his comfort zone. He’s caught freezing cold-water waves with professional surfer Pete Devries. He’s biked with champion mountain biker Rebecca Rusch. He’s hung off cliffs in Moab...

For Raquel Gomez, getting outside has always been a way to be playful and adventurous. She’s done a lot of hiking, rock climbing and camping around the U.S. Raquel also has a passion for working with kids — she’s a youth climbing coach and has worked as a Wilderness Therapy Guide. But building a career in the outdoors wasn’t easy for Raquel. She loved to get outside as a kid, but didn’t see many o...

In the summer of 2018, many of us were glued to news for updates on the Tham Luang cave rescue. A Thai youth soccer team and their coach were exploring the Tham Luang caves when the monsoon rains came early. The rising water trapped the boys inside a cave. While the rest of the world was watching from afar, cave diver Rick Stanton was diving into the situation head on. His team was able to guide a...

Helmets reduce the likelihood of getting a serious head injury by 60%. Even though they make it safer to ride your bike, skateboard, one-wheel, or even roller skates, a lot of people don’t wear them, citing bulkiness and inconvenience. Gloria Hwang felt the same way, so she designed a more exciting, user-friendly helmet and launched the product on Kickstarter. Since the first sale, her company Tho...

Steph Jagger’s mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease in 2015. Despite their complicated relationship, Steph decided to take her mom on one more adventure — a two week camping and road trip through three national parks. In a time when she needed comfort, confirmation of her own identity, and strength to confront her mother’s decline, Steph turned to Mother Nature. Her new book, Everything L...

Davis Smith is an outdoor adventurer and mission-driven entrepreneur. That’s why he founded Cotopaxi in 2014. Best known for their bright colors, Cotopaxi doesn’t just make good gear, they make gear for good. The brand is committed to minimizing their impact on the planet, and maximizing the benefit for the people who live here. Davis spent a lot of his childhood in Latin America, and his parents...

At 10 years old, Nicole Ver Kuilen was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a rare bone cancer, that led to the amputation of her lower left leg. Nicole has always been an athlete, but the prosthesis supplied by her insurance was holding her back. In 2017 Nicole completed an ultra triathlon down the western coast of the United States, walking, biking, and running over 1,500 miles to raise awareness about...

Max Lowe is an adventure filmmaker whose award-winning films have screened at festivals like Cannes and Tribeca. He’s also the son of the famous mountaineer, Alex Lowe. Late last year, Max came out with his biggest documentary yet, a personal story called Torn . It tells the story of his iconic father’s death and how it has impacted his family. Connect with Max Lowe: Website Facebook Vimeo Instagr...

Lucienne Nicholson is passionate about the inherent human right to spend time in nature. Lucienne discovered her love of the outdoors during her childhood in Haiti, where she spent summers on her grandmother’s farm. After immigrating to the United States in the 1970s, she was greeted with the harsh reality of segregation — nature became inaccessible. Lucienne vowed to fight against this lack of ac...

Florence Williams is a science journalist known for examining the relationship between nature and our mental health. A painful divorce prompted Florence to put her research to the test in her new book, Heartbreak: A Personal and Scientific Journey. She started to investigate the impact of breakups on the brain and body. Florence conducted self-experiments and interviewed experts to explore the que...

Erin Parisi is on her way to becoming the first openly trans person to climb the highest mountain on each continent, a series known as the Seven Summits. So far, she’s climbed five of these peaks, and she has just two left to go. Taking on just one of these peaks is a massive ordeal in its own right, but tackling all seven of them takes intense training, logistical prowess and a hefty financial co...