Merging Into Life: Adventure Travel for Beginners

[00:03:21] Kim: How did you go from being so green to now being someone who holds a record for visiting every single national park? That’s huge. What inspired you to do that?

[00:03:33] Mikah: Yeah, well, my dad passed away before he got to retire. He was 58, and I was 19. And I kind of was on this path of like you go to school, you work hard, you get good grades, and then you go to college, you get a good job. And then once you do that job, and you work your whole life, then when you turn 65, you get to retire and rent an RV and go to all these amazing places and do all this stuff. And it’s the payoff for a life’s worth of hard work. And when I saw my dad passed away at 58, he sort of suddenly got cancer out of nowhere, and after a three-year battle, he passed. And it just shook that, that sort of timeline for me. And it showed me, oh, you can do everything right. Like my dad was an award-winning campus minister. At one point, he had the largest Lutheran campus ministry in America. So, like he did everything right, and yet, he didn’t get that payoff. And so that, at age 19, really shook me, and my dad was a big fan of road trips. And so, a few weeks after his funeral, I got in his car, and I took my first ever independent road trip. And his sunflower seeds were still on the floor. It still smelled like his pipe. And I had an old-school atlas. This was like pre-cellphone GPS. And I took my first ever road trip, because I just thought I wanted to do something to honor him and connect with him. And then, that first road trip was so moving for me and so helpful and healing to get over his passing that I ended up doing one every year from then on around the time of his passing, April 29. And that’s kind of what inspired this world record journey is, every year, I did that, and I just learned more and more about how precious life is. And I really made it a goal that, when I turned 30, I was going to do one of my retirement goals to honor my dad.

[00:05:31] Kim: That’s incredible. So from your days when you were on the road constantly, did you ever have a moment where you just stopped and thought, I can’t believe this is happening. I can’t believe this was my life right now.

[00:05:45] Mikah: Yeah. I mean, I think one of the most amazing parts of that three-year journey was: There is a national park service site that more people climb Mount Everest every year than visit this national park service site. It’s actually the least-visited park service site in the entire system. And it’s on the Aleutian Island range of Alaska. So, sort of those islands that make their way — if you know where Anchorage is on a map and you head west — they kind of lead towards Russia. And so, it’s way out in the Aleutian Islands. It’s a super volatile place as far as weather, like they’re, you, you never really know what you’re going to get, which is why it’s so hard to reach. And to reach this national park service site, they recommend you have a week of waiting for like a three-hour window, because you need to have the weather be good enough in the town of King Salmon to take off in like a little sea plane, you need to have the weather be good enough in Aniakchak National Monument & Preserve, the park service site. And then the weather for like the hourlong flight in between has to be good. And so, getting there is just, it takes an amount of time, perseverance and luck. And I had only scheduled five days to reach Aniakchak as part of my whole three-year journey where everything was scheduled down to the day. And on that fifth day, the weather was not good enough. And I was just like, oh my gosh, it’s going to throw off months of plans. Like, I’m doomed. The pilot said we can try to take off, we can try to make it happen. I can’t guarantee anything. By the way, you have to pay us the $5,000 that it costs to rent this private plane, whether or not we make it into the park. And we ended up making it into the park. The pilot, he landed in the park, and he goes, “that’s the first time I’ve ever done this.” And we’re all like, “thanks for telling us after you landed.” So, that was one of those moments where you’re just like, I’m standing in a place that so few humans have ever stood, and we’re here right now, and like it’s not storming, and we think we’re going to make it back out alive.

[00:07:46] Kim: Wow, thank you for sharing that.

[00:07:48] Mikah: Yeah, it was a magical, magical moment. If people go to my website and go to my blog, there’s a whole blog that I write about it. And I made a video, and I interviewed all of us in the plane ahead of time. Like, do you think we’re going to make it? And I interviewed us afterwards. And it’s so funny to see people’s faces because you can just see like how much relaxed they are afterwards, having made it.

[00:08:09] Kim: Seeing that you’ve been through so many adventures, and especially with this epic adventure, how would you say, I mean, obviously you’re continuing with your travels, how would say the idea of adventure has evolved and changed for you?

[00:08:25] Mikah: Maybe, unless you grew up in Manhattan or LA, like, maybe you feel this way, but I always felt like there was way more out there in the world than my hometown could offer. And so, I sort of grew up with this like burning desire to just go everywhere and see everything and meet everyone. And I wanted to go to every location on the planet Earth and just experience everything. Sort of the older I get, I’m a little more selective now with my adventures. You go to enough cathedrals in Europe, or you go to enough museums in South America, or etc., etc. You start to see similarities. Not to say that every place isn’t special in its own way. Before you travel and see so much of the world, you have these ideas about how magical everywhere is going to be. For me, it’s more about intention of where I’m going. Rather than saying, I just want to check this country off my list or this state off my list. I try to pick an event that I know I’ll really enjoy, or a convention where I know I’ll meet people who have similar interests as me. And to me, that’s kind of more exciting, building my adventures now around people and around hobbies and interests, as opposed to just wanting to say, I physically covered every corner of the map.

[00:09:45] Kim: Let’s say that there’s someone out there who wants to start having more adventures, wants to start taking charge of their life. What would you say are some myths or misconceptions that you hear often about enjoying outdoor travel?

[00:10:01] Mikah: I’ve met so many people over the years from every walk of life. And to some people, enjoying the outdoors is a family reunion and a cookout. And they go to a state park and the kids are running around and playing with twigs and digging in the dirt and looking at ants. And to other people, it’s hiking a 14-er in Colorado, and both experiences are just as valid. So definitely don’t take yourself out of the race before you start. And don’t discount your interests just because they might feel simple. I live in Minneapolis, which has one of the best city park systems in the country. They say 97 percent of Minneapolis live within a 10 minute walk of a city park. And so I really love enjoying my city parks. There are so many ways to experience outdoor adventure beyond just the stuff you see in ads.

[00:10:51] Kim: I think sometimes one of the biggest challenges that people have when they’re planning trips, and you touched on this a bit earlier, is the myth of later, right? I think a lot of people also feel really guilty for taking time off work, and they feel like they’re never fully ready. How can we shift our mindset to start making space for these kinds of experiences?

[00:11:13] Mikah: It’s tough to anybody who is listening to this who feels that way. Like, I get it. I mean, we kind of live, we live in a culture where we’re sort of conditioned to work. It’s like you get a car payment or a house payment or student loans and you’ve got debt and you’re like, I have to work, I think, especially in the U.S. we are really conditioned to build our life around our job, and as I’ve traveled to other countries, they kind of laugh at us, and they’re like why don’t you take your vacation, or like of course you should take a vacation because then you will be well rested and you won’t burn out. I think it’s just it’s acknowledging that, and saying you know what I know there’s a lot of pressure but like the Earth will still keep spinning if I take a three-day weekend or the Earth will keep spinning. If I set an out of office for five days the more you do it, the less scary it becomes and then it’s easier to take your vacation days that you’ve been earned or that you earned or been promised or a part of your compensation.

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[00:12:37] Kim: What are some of the benefits that you have discovered by saying yes to something that initially felt, but maybe you were a little apprehensive or you were intimidated. I’m sure traveling to all 419 national parks was intimidating. What are some of the lessons that you’ve learned and some of benefits that you gained from pushing yourself?

[00:12:55] Mikah: I think, too often, we are motivated more by fear in all aspects of our life. Fear of what could go wrong, fear of what we might say, fear of something that could happen, and we don’t lead by love. We don’t lead with the assumption that everything will work out, that we will have a beautiful experience, that we will say the right thing. And so, what I love about travel is that it’s really helped me overcome that sort of fear of the unknown or fear of others that I think we’re just like evolutionarily made to have. And so, I think a great way to overcome that is to start small. Maybe start out with London, because it’s a foreign country. They have a different currency, but they still speak English. And so, go on a London tour first. And then you realize, OK, I can handle this. So then maybe the next trip you do Paris. And it’s a different language, but you’ve already gotten over those fears of those other things. And then maybe the next trip is Morocco. And so, by taking these baby steps, you can really start to conquer some big adventures, and they don’t become fearful anymore.

[00:14:03] Kim: I love that. Would you say that starting small would be a good place for someone, like, let’s say, someone who doesn’t have a lot of PTO or they only have their weekends to work with, along with starting small, how would you recommend that they start exploring?

[00:14:18] Mikah: I always advocate traveling based on your hobbies and interests. So pickleball is becoming a really big thing. I love pickleball. I was recently looking at a tournament in Columbus, Ohio, that was a pickleball tournament. And so, I think it’s a great thing to look at your hobbies, and say, I really like doing blank. Is there a gathering or a convention or a tournament or something around my interests, because then you go to those places, and you get to meet people who share your hobbies, and that opens up the location in a whole new way and just makes you way more comfortable. So, I would definitely look at your interests first. And when it comes to national parks, actually the cool thing is that every single U.S. state and territory has at least one national park service site.

[00:15:07] Kim: While we’re on the topic of national parks, what are the few national park sites that are in the northeast that people may not know about, but you feel like they’re totally worth visiting?

[00:15:18] Mikah: Yeah, there’s so many, actually, the Northeast with National Park Service sites. And I think a lot of people when they hear national parks, they instantly think Grand Canyon, Death Valley, Mount Rainier, these big parks out west. And actually, our National Park service manages lots of different sites. Like the Thomas Edison National Historical Park is in Northern New Jersey. That’s a really cool examination of like all of the inventions he had and all the impacts he had on American culture. You can go to the home of Teddy Roosevelt. His house is like full of all the animals that he killed on his safaris. And so, it’s kind of like going into a Jumanji game as you go into his house. That’s out on Long Island. There are sites like in Massachusetts, Cape Cod National Seashore is super beautiful. And you can pair that with a trip to Provincetown. So many people take the ferry out from Boston, but you can actually drive out that way to Provincetown, so you can go to all these spots along the seashore as you’re heading up there. There’s also some really quirky sites, like the New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park. That’s all about the history of whaling in America, and sort of our earlier years as a country, when the physical whale was used for a lot of products that we now don’t use whales for. There is the African Burial Ground National Monument, which is in in lower Manhattan, like surrounded.

[00:16:44] Kim: I’ve been to that one. Yeah, it’s really cool.

[00:16:46] Mikah: Really?

[00:16:47] Kim: Yeah. Yeah. That’s really, really cool.

[00:16:48] Mikah: Well, how’d you find out about it?

[00:16:49] Kim: I think I found out about it through a Google search, but I have been, yet all the way down in lower Manhattan, and it’s it’s really awesome.

[00:16:58] Mikah: Yeah, there’s actually a ton in the New York City area, like a dozen basically, and even things like Hamilton’s house. It’s on the northern edge of Manhattan. It used to be when he was alive, it was like the country. But Hamilton Grange, you can go to his house. And so, when I was in New York and saw “Hamilton” the musical, that day, before I saw the show, I went to the Hamilton Grange National Park Service site. And it just added so much to seeing the musical. So, I think there are a lot of fun things you can do when you’re traveling. Maybe you’re doing stuff that’s like a modern tourist popular event, and there’s a National Park Service site nearby that probably somehow ties into it.

[00:17:37] Kim: Yeah, I love that idea, too, of integrating it, being able to integrate a national park into what you’re already doing. For any newbie travel outdoors or anyone that’s new to just national parks in general, are there any go-to tips that you have maybe regarding gear or just practical tips that you had for people?

[00:17:58] Mikah: Yeah. So the No. 1 piece of advice I give people when they’re visiting a National Park Service site is, so often, you can drive into these parks, and so, people drive up, they pay their entry fee or they show their parks pass, they get the map from the ranger and they immediately drive to like the trail head they’ve been thinking about or to the location they’ve been wanting to go to. And I always say that’s the absolutely wrong thing to do. The first thing you should do is go to the visitor center, because at every visitor center, they’re either going to have a park ranger, or they’ll have a volunteer. And I always go talk to them because number one, there’s often trail closures, and you might drive 20 miles into the park, find out it’s closed, and then you wasted an hour of driving. So, I always talk to him to find out like today, what are the conditions? What are the things we need to know about? But then what I love to do is I will tell volunteer or the park ranger these are the things that really interest me. Maybe you say, hey, I’ve got some mobility issues, and I really like hikes that are one mile total, but I really liked loop hikes instead of out and back. And these people are going be able to basically design a custom itinerary for you on the spot. So, these are experts who can craft you a bespoke custom vacation with a snap of a finger. So don’t skip the visitor center and just go to what you think you need to go to. Always talk to the local experts.

[00:19:26] Kim: So before we go, can you share a little bit more about what’s coming up next for you. I think you have another documentary in the works. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?

[00:19:35] Mikah: I do. Yeah. For anyone listening right now, you can go online and type in “Canyon Chorus.” And that is the name of my current short film that is touring the world right now with the Banff Mountain Centre Film Festival Tour. So basically, one of the largest outdoor film festivals in the world has deemed my film was 1of the best 30 outdoor films of the year. And it’s only 16 minutes. And so, I tell people that it’s kind of like a Ted Lasso episode, like, you’ll both laugh and you’ll cry. But get on YouTube and type in “Canyon Chorus” or go to my website, mikahmeyer.com. You can watch it there for free as well. Based on the success of that short film, I’m working on a feature length documentary, which is called “Wild Goose Chase,” which is all about that three-year journey I did to every National Park Service site told through the story of a wild Canadagoose that followed me for four days and three nights. And many people believe that this goose was the spirit of my father, because geese are the most symbolic and important animal in Lutheranism. So, a lot of folk have heard the story of George the Goose and are convinced that it was my dad coming back to find a way to join me on this national park journey.

[00:20:48] Kim: That’s awesome. Thank you so much, Mikah, for joining me. This was a really awesome conversation.

[00:20:53] Mikah: It’s a pleasure.

[00:20:56] Kim: Big thanks to Mikah for joining me on the podcast. I’ve learned so much from our conversation. I couldn’t relate more to just being present in the moment and knowing that adventure travel is whatever you want it to be. You don’t have to go across the globe. You can still explore something new, even if it’s in your own backyard. Thanks for listening to Merging Into Life. Be sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with someone who could use a little encouragement to start their own journey.

The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are not necessarily the views of AAA Northeast, AAA and/or its affiliates.