Humans Outside

If you love heading outside like it's your job, you might start looking for ways to make that literally true. If that's you, you're not alone -- it's the inspiration behind the careers of many members of the outdoor industry. But how do you make the jump from one industry to another? And is making nature your job a good idea?

Those are just some of the questions Jenna Celmer helps address through the outdoor industry job company Basecamp Outdoor and its Facebook-based networking group. In this episode Jenna talks through the why and how of making the jump into the outdoor industry.

Connect with this episode:

Visit Basecamp online

Find Basecamp on Facebook

Follow Base Camp on Instagram

Follow Jenna Celmer on Instagram

Join the Humans Outside Challenge

Follow Humans Outside on Instagram

Follow Humans Outside on Facebook

Some of the good stuff:

[3:31] Jenna Celmer's favorite outdoor space

[4:01] How Jenna became someone who likes to go outside

[7:05] What is Base Camp?

[8:27] How Jenna got involved in Base Camp

[12:51] Creating accountability in the outdoor industry

[15:50] Why it's easy for people in the outdoor industry to be taken advantage of

[20:00] Why does going outside make you want to make it a job?

[22:41] Is it easy to break into the outdoor industry?

[24:41] How to break into the outdoor industry

[27:17] What is networking?

[30:44] What does Jenna tell people who want to get into the outdoor industry

[34:04] What to expect in the outdoor industry

[35:03] Tips for breaking into the outdoor industry

What are your expectations for yourself? For how you get outside? For what you find there? For what you do there? As the weathers changes into spring and summer, it's easy to look outside and expect yourself to want to be there more or experience certain things when you get out there. But what would happen if you simply listened to yourself instead?

In this Outdoor Diary episode, Amy talks about getting outside without self-judgment and how hard it is for her to do so.

Connect with this episode:

Join the Humans Outside Challenge

Follow Humans Outside on Facebook

Follow Humans Outside on Instagram

Some of the good stuff:

[:45] The deal with expectations

[1:10] What the real problem is

[1:29] What I can control

[2:04] The balancing act

[3:13] Start listening

[4:37] Why spending 20 outside is perfect for this

[5:22] What I'm working on

[5:40] What I'm doing outside now

Spend enough time outside and you'll start to notice all of the things growing around you -- and that some of those things look delicious. From greens to berries, to gardening, fishing and evening raising chickens, nature in your backyard can be full of food. For today's guest Tamar Haspel, the possibilities of gathering or growing at least a portion of her own meals, an experience she calls "first-hand food," became the spark for a personal challenge to eat at least one thing she sourced herself each day for a year. In this episode Tamar talks about first-hand food, how growing and sourcing it connected her with spending time outside and how you can get started on a first-hand food journey, too.

Connect with this episode:

Join the Humans Outside Challenge Follow Humans Outside on Instagram Follow Humans Outside on Facebook Visit Tamar Haspel's website Read Tamar's book, "To Boldly Grow" (affiliate link)

Some of the good stuff:

[2:41] Tamar Haspel's favorite outdoor space [3:47] How Tamar became someone who likes to go outside [6:14] Tracking her first-hand food challenge [8:10] Going from city-dweller to farmer [9:33] Best and worst first-hand food experiences [11:59] Why first-hand food is such an appealing idea [14:17] Don't be afraid of foraging, Amy [17:54] How to balance first-hand food around the rest of your life [19:43] Amy is a first-hand mooch [25:07] How first-hand food has changed Tamar's experience of nature [27:41] Has it changed how she feels about her place in nature? [31:23] Why first-hand food doesn't have to be extreme [32:52] Is there a middle ground and what is it? [33:50] How to get help doing it [38:32] Tips for getting started [39:34] Tamar's favorite outdoor gear [40:33] Tamar's favorite outdoor memory

We all have a type of weather we just really can't stand. But what if you paused to find a reason to at least appreciate it? What would you find? In this Outdoor Diary episode, Amy talks about her recent experience learning to like the notorious wind in her part of Alaska.

Connect with this episode:

Join the Humans Outside Challenge Follow Humans Outside on Facebook Follow Humans Outside on Instagram

Some of the good stuff:

[:45] The wind as an Alaska origin story [2:32] The wind comes off the what? [3:39] Getting over it [4:08] Finding yourself in the wind and what to do about it [5:07] What you might notice

If you've picked up an outdoor habit or are tackling the Humans Outside 365 Challenge, you may have puzzled over how much time you want to spend outside every day. 15 minutes? 30 minutes? An hour? Or, like Amy, maybe you're shooting for 20 consecutive minutes.

When Amy picked that 20 minute goal it was based on a little research she had read about outdoor time "dosage," combined with picking a time she thought she could actually do. Since that time a host of research has come out about just how much time outside each week is beneficial. In this "best of" episode, social scientist Dr. Kathleen Wolf dives into just how much time outside makes a difference and why. Dr. Wolf is joining us again for another episode in Season 5, so now is the perfect time to catch up on what she told us the first time she came on the show.

Kathy holds a Phd in landscape architecture and environmental psychology from the University of Michigan and now does research at the University of Washington, where she's spent more than two decades researching the way spending time outside impacts those who do so. That makes her the perfect person for us to talk to on Humans Outside.

Here's that original episode from 2021.

Connect with this episode:

Learn more about Dr. Kathleen Wolf

Read Dr. Kathleen Wolf's long term project, "Green Cities: Good Health"

Find Dr. Kathleen Wolf on LinkedIn

Join the Humans Outside Challenge

Follow Humans Outside on Instagram

Follow Humans Outside on Facebook

Some of the good stuff:

[1:49] Dr. Kathleen Wolf's favorite outdoor space

[4:16] Kathy's journey to outdoor researcher

[6:58] What the research says about nature making you feel better

[9:24] What the research says about spending 20 minutes outside a day

[12:26] Is Amy too worried about dosage or doing something different every day?

[25:41] Does what you do outside matter?

[28:18] Is some of Amy's outside time worthless?

[32:23] A Seatac airport secret - shhh don't tell

[34:56] How people can get the most of their outdoor time

[39:07] Kathy's favorite and most essential outdoor gear

[43:11] Kathy's favorite outdoor moment

It happens: sometimes life is just busy. So how do you make time to go outside when you're busy? How do you keep it a priority? How do you fit it in?

In this Outdoor Diary episode Amy talks about how she fits her outdoor time into every day no matter what, and gives you a few tips for how you can do so, too.

Connect with this episode:

Join the Humans Outside Challenge

Follow Humans Outside on Facebook

Follow Humans Outside on Instagram

Some of the good stuff:

[:47] Why it's hard to get outside [1:45] Tips for making it happen [1:47] Write it down [2:37] Be specific [4:03] Remember your why

My favorite Humans Outside interviews are with people who teach me lessons so memorable that I find myself thinking about them months later when I'm outside. My interview with Max Romey was one of these, and why I've selected it as a "Best Of" episode.

There is no stopping Max Romey -- not when he's painting, not when he's filming, not when he's running and not when he's doing all three at exactly the same time. What he creates is better than brilliant and it's better than art: it's inspiration. In this episode Max shares with us his why, his world and insights into how you can find for yourself the same life fire he feels and the push to great creative in nature.

Good Stuff

[2:11] Max Romey's favorite outdoor space

[3:00] How Max became a person who heads outside

[5:45] How Max sees storytelling

[7:08] Max describes his art

[12:34] How Max found his place in the world

[19:17] How nature unlocks creativity

[27:02] How 2020 changed Max's projects and what he's working on now

[31:25] Proof Amy is very bad at Alaska state history

[38:40] How heading outside can help non-artists tap their creativity

[44:17] Max's favorite and most essential outdoor gear

[47:41] Max's favorite outdoor moment

Connect

Follow Max Romey on Instagram

Follow Max's Trail Bound Sketches work on Instagram

Follow Max Romey Productions on Facebook

Favorite outdoor gear: A jacket with a great chest pocket (we like this one from Outdoor Research) and a travel size sketchpad and watercolor set.

Most essential outdoor gear: A great running vest or backpack (this Adv Skin 12 from Salomon is still our favorite).

Just because nature is right outside your front door doesn't mean everything you want to do in it must be done alone or leaning only on your own experience and knowledge. There's a world of people out there who want to assist you if you just ask them. That can be a hard mindset for Amy, who likes to do things on her own. But asking for a little help has made her outdoor time much better than it was when she was trying to fly solo. In this episode she talks about two easy ways you can get help with heading outside.

Some of the good stuff:

[:45] Amy's solo mindset

[1:15] Why asking for help can make outdoor time better

[2:15] The first kind of outdoor help

[3:59] A second type of help

[5:00] Help from the Humans Outside 365 Challenge

Connect with this episode:

Join the Humans Outside Challenge

Follow Humans Outside on Facebook

Follow Humans Outside on Instagram

Even if you know next to nothing about Alaska, you've probably still heard of the annual Iditarod sled dog race, where teams of mushers travel with their dogs hundreds of miles across frozen alaska, racing to the remote town of Nome. The race kicks off the first weekend of March with a festival known as Fur Rendezvous or Fur Rondy. Mushing is more than a sport-- it's a lifestyle. And it puts those racing it into extremely isolated, middle of nowhere, survival situations as they make their way from Willow to Nome. So I wanted to know what that's like, and how it connects the musher to nature. And to learn that, I brought on the podcast Kristy and Anna Berington, identical twin Iditarod racers. If you're listening to this in early March when I'm releasing it, Kristy and Anna are both out there racing their individual dog teams as you're hearing this. And now you can hear our conversation from 2021 for a little bit of insight into what makes dog racing special, as well as the nuts and bolts of how it works. Kristy and Anna Berington's kennel, Seeing Double Sled Dog Racing

Follow Kristy and Anna on Instagram

Learn about the Iditarod race

Join the Humans Outside Challenge

Follow Humans Outside on Instagram

Follow Humans Outside on Facebook

Good stuff:

[2:36] Kristy and Anna Berington's favorite outdoor space

[6:40] What is dog racing?

[8:09] All about sled dogs

[10:12] Is mushing cruel to dogs?

[16:41] What do sled dogs eat?

[19:17] What is the iditarod?

[22:24] What are the costs of dog racing?"

[24:38] How dog racing connects them with nature

[30:15] About their relationship with the dogs

[33:14] Can you replicate the experience of dog racing in another way?

[35:58] How to have the same experience with nature

[37:03] Kristy and Anna's favorite and most essential outdoor gear

[41:39] Their favorite outdoor moment

If you've been contemplating an outdoor habit, you may have fallen into a trap Amy constantly finds herself in: thinking you have to go all in. So what's the real deal? In this episode of Amy's Outdoor Diary, she talks about her own "all in" habit and how it keeps her from trying new things.

Some of the good stuff:

[:45] What does "all in" mean to Amy?

[1:25] What all in looks like in Amy's life

[2:00] Why thinking about going all in might stop you from trying

[2:15] The dangers of this mindset for Amy

[2:41] Lessons from a recent interview

[4:20] Don't let this thinking keep you from doing this

Connect with this episode:

Join the Humans Outside Challenge

Follow Humans Outside on Facebook

Follow Humans Outside on Instagram

Read Tamar Haspel's new book "To Boldly Grow" (affiliate link)