10 years to the day before I wrote this, my wife Angel and I arrived at the Northern Terminus in Canada after hiking the PCT from Campo.  11 years ago I was 34 years old, stressed out but optimistic, and one and a half years into my career as a nurse. I’d retrained at midlife, sick of a decade in low-paid nonprofit work. I’d scored a good paying job at a prestigious hospital, and I liked it.  Angel was also a nurse, but she’d been working full time in the field since she was

It’s a core anxiety of our age. In our current global reality, you feel like bad things are happening and there’s nothing you can do about it…but also, you feel like you can’t just stand by and watch. You need to do something, you just don’t know what... This might be an unexpected plot twist, but hear me out. With all of the garbage going on, it’s a great time to familiarize yourself with the first truly American philosophical movement–the Transcendentalists.

I lived five months outside, mostly just walking. I read some. I journaled some. Angel and I had long, meaningful conversations with other weirdos that helped us understand what’s important in life...In the process, I was absorbed into a new way of living grounded in nature, creating things, simplicity, and actual human connection.

A concise guide to everything you should know before you embark on the route...a quick and dirty introduction to the essentials.