I grew up in San Antonio, Texas, and for a long time, Texas was basically my whole world. Not because there wasn't plenty to explore there, but because I just didn't have many opportunities to leave. Eventually that changed. I started taking solo trips to music festivals, visiting states I'd never been to before, and figuring out what it was like to travel on my own. That was really the beginning of everything.
Not long after that, my partner and I left Texas and moved to California. Since then we've gone back to Texas, Ohio, and now Washington State. Along the way I went from working as a veterinary technician to building a career in the cannabis industry, and with every move we found another excuse to explore somewhere new.
The drive from Ohio to Washington really changed something for me. Watching the country transform outside the window, one state after another, made me realize I didn't just want to travel anymore. I wanted to experience all 50 states. Not just the famous landmarks either. I wanted to find the places most people never even know exist.
I've always been fascinated by the weird, the mysterious, and the overlooked, which is exactly why Atlas Obscura has been one of my favorite travel resources for years. Long before this program existed, I was using the Atlas Obscura website and app to find hidden places everywhere I went. So when I saw the Adventurers Program, it honestly felt like a perfect fit. This is already how I love to travel.
This summer I'm exploring Washington State, hunting down the hidden, the haunted, the quietly magnificent, and the genuinely bizarre. Trolls under bridges. Victorian castles on bluffs. Mummies behind shop windows on the waterfront. Shrines to licorice. The kind of places that make you stop and say: wait, this is real?
I want to inspire people to just go. You don't have to have it all figured out. I didn't. You just have to start and then keep going. Follow along and let's see what we find! :)
