Following Your Curiosity into Travel and the Outdoors with Allison Boyle

In this episode of Soul of Travel, Season 5: Women's Wisdom + Mindful Travel, presented by @journeywoman_original, Christine hosts a soulful conversation with Allison Boyle.

Allison Boyle is a backpacking educator and life coach. She is the founder of the outdoor blog She Dreams of Alpine and the creator of the outdoor coaching program, Become a Backpacking Badass, where she teaches women how to become safe, confident, and self-sufficient in the outdoors. Allison loves having the chance to talk about hiking and backpacking every day, and has become an inspiring outdoors content creator and entrepreneur.

Christine and Allison discuss:

· How one backpacking trip in Yosemite changed the course of Allison’s life

· Growing confidence on the trail

· How leaving the airport can be the first win of many on a solo international trip

· Going all-in on an identity of travel and outdoor experiences

· How one idea leads to another in entrepreneurship, and the power of following your curiosity

Join Christine now for this soulful conversation with Allison Boyle.

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To read our episode blog post, access a complete transcript, see full show notes, and find resources and links mentioned in this episode, head to the Soul of Travel Website. 

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Get to know Allison and explore the outdoors at She Dreams of Alpine.

​Join the waitlist for the next Backpacking Badass Program.

Connect with Allison on social media: Instagram / Facebook / Pinterest / YouTube

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Looking for ways to be a part of the Lotus Sojourns community? Learn more here!

Find Lotus Sojourns on Facebook, or join the Lotus Sojourns Collective, our FB community for like-hearted women. Find solo travel trips for women over 50 on JourneyWoman.

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Credits. Christine Winebrenner Irick (Host, creator, editor). Allison Boyle (Guest). Original music by Clark Adams. Editing, production, and content writing by Carly Oduardo.

Transcript

Christine: Welcome to the Soul of Travel podcast. I'm Christine Winebrenner Irick, the founder of Lotus Sojourns, a book lover, Yogi mom of three girls and your guide On this journey. We are here to discover why women who are seasoned travelers, industry professionals, and global community leaders fall in love with the people and places of this planet. Join me to explore how travel has inspired our guests to change the world. We seek to understand the driving force, unending curiosity and wanderlust that can best be described as the soul of Travel. Soul of Travel Podcast is a proud member of the Journey, woman Family, where we work to create powerful forums for women to share their wisdom and inspire meaningful change in travel. In each soulful conversation, you'll hear compelling travel stories alongside tales of what it takes to bring our creative vision to life as we're living life with purpose, chasing dreams and building businesses to make the world a better place. But the real treasure here is the story of the journey as we reflect on who we were, who we are, and who we're becoming. We are travelers, thought leaders and heart-centered change makers, and this is the soul of Travel.

Christine: Allison Boyle is a backpacking educator and life coach at She dreams of Alpine. She helps women become self-sufficient hikers and backpackers, and learn to use adventure to reinvent themselves. She is the creator of the Backpacking Badass program that offers adventure seeking women, the opportunity to gain the confidence and skills they need to start hiking. Travel and mountains are the tools she used to help shape her into the woman she wanted to be and force her out of her comfort zone. And she is happy to have created a community and life that allows her to do that for others. In our conversation, Alison and I talk about growing confidence on the trail and the ways she initially overcame the fear and resistance she felt when it came to being in the outdoors and traveling solo. We talk about how fear can be something we work with instead of suppress or avoid allowing it to tell us information about our circumstances and how we respond to them. She also shares how Liz Gilbert's book Big Magic has inspired her to notice the ideas that land in front of her and honor that they want to be brought into the world and the courage that gives her to claim them and move forward. She also talks about what it means to take the small steps in your business on the trail and in life, and how those steps are all equally important in changing the trajectory of our life and helping us to reach our goals. Join me now for my soulful conversation with Allison Boyle.

Welcome to Soul of Travel podcast. Today I am joined by Alison Boyle, who is a backpacking educator and life coach, and you can find her at She Dreams of Alpine. And I'm so excited for this conversation because I've been following you on Instagram for a while and I love your posts so much and I love the content and the education that you create. So I've been anxiously awaiting the conversation and happy to have you here today, Alison.

Allison: Yeah, thanks so much for inviting me to be on your podcast.

Christine: Thank you. We're both in Colorado for our listeners, and today we're getting snow. Colorado loves to make a big deal about potential snow and then it's usually disappointing, but I think today it's sufficient snow. It's

Allison: Delivering on that promise today.

Christine: Yeah, so it's really beautiful here where we are. Well, to start our conversation, I'd love to just turn it over to you and give you the opportunity to introduce yourself and tell my listeners a little bit more about who you are and what you do.

Allison: Yeah, totally. Like you said, I mean, my name is Allison. I am the founder of the outdoor blog called She Dreams of Alpine, and I'm also the creator of a program called Become an Outdoor Backpacking Badass, where we teach women how to become safe, confident and self-sufficient in the outdoors. And yeah, that's what I do full time. I'm an outdoor educator, I'm a life coach, and I get to talk about fun things about going hiking and backpacking and all that all the time. So

Christine: It's so fun. It is, it's great. And I really encourage our listeners, if there aren't familiar to find you on Instagram for so many reasons and we're going to kind of get into that as we go through this conversation, but I am really inspired both by your actual content and then the way that you show up in that space is really relatable and I think inspiring for other people that are wanting to use their voice and their platform. So we'll get to that. But before we get there, I want to start at the beginning of your journey and I'd love to hear from you, when did you first find yourself drawn to the outdoors and hiking and climbing? Is that something you always did or something you came into later in life?

Allison: Yeah, so for those who don't know me, I actually grew up in Texas and so I was from the Houston area of Texas, so I grew, for me that meant we grew up 0% outdoorsy. My family didn't do outdoorsy things. We didn't grow up camping even. I think maybe we set up a tent once in the backyard, but you can go inside and get popcorn and hang out and it was not a big deal. So I didn't really have any sort of desire to be outdoorsy or go outdoors. I did play some sports in high school, but I did just very typical things.

I first got introduced, I got my first taste of the outdoors. When I went to college, I went to UT Austin and I signed up for, or no, I think my very first thing was I got an internship in Colorado. It was my second or first year after it was in engineering, so it was one of my between first or second year. And they stationed me out here and I remember, oh, Colorado was the epitome of outdoor things and I was like, wow, so cool that I'm here. I'm going to do some outdoor things while I'm having my internship. And I think I did some camping and Rocky Mountain National Park, and my very first real taste of where I first caught the bug was I signed up for rock climbing in Garden of the Gods and I signed up for a guided experience. And I remember in my mind thinking about it in almost the same way you would think about signing up for bungee jumping or skydiving.

This is a once in a life experience that I was going to have outdoor rock climbing. And in my mind that was sort of something only professionals did. And then you went and got guided by professionals. But when I went, it was so fun and I remember bugging the guide all day. I was like, so how does this work? How do the bolts get on the rock? How does the rope get up there? Who does what? And I asked him all the questions and me and you were talking about this a little bit earlier, but I kind of went away from the experience and didn't do much with it. I went back to college and finished up in Austin and I did a couple things here and there, signed up for a couple trips, what do you call it, college hosted.

But other than that, I didn't really have any more brushes with the outdoors, and I think that was a lot with my insecurity and just not feeling like I belonged. And also, I used to have a really strong hangup around embarrassing myself or not fitting in or people kind of thinking I don't belong there. That really held me back when I was younger. Then my big step into it happened when I moved to California for my first job, and that's also around the same time I got divorced. I got married around 19 and I got divorced a few years later. And so I was going through this divorce and it was like for me, I entered in this year of yes, I just wanted to be a different person than I had always been. I wanted to say yes to the things that scared me because I was scared of everything.

It felt like I was scared of everything. I felt like I was shy all the time and I wanted to not be shy. I was just trying on a different set of clothes. I was like, I want to see how this feels on me instead of just only identifying this one way. And that's kind of when I feel like the universe or whatever you want to call it, kind of put this situation in my life where some of my coworkers were talking about hiking the Half Dome Trail, which is this iconic trail in Yosemite National Park, and I happened to be listening when they were talking about it and I was like, oh, what's that? And they told me all about it. I had never heard of it. I kind of knew what Yosemite was, and they were like, we have an extra permit, you should go with us.

And I remembered freaking out internally. I'm like, they do not want me to go with them. I'm going to be so slow. They're going to regret inviting me. All those things were running through my head, but then also I was like, but this is your year of yes, Allison, you're doing the scary thing. Let's just go for it and do it. And so that backpacking trip just kind of fast forward is kind of what changed everything for me because I saw this side of myself that was strong, did a really hard thing, was out of her comfort zone. I felt really alive in those moments and really present in a way I hadn't in a long time. So that is what got me really going into the outdoors and going all in on that stuff.

Christine: Yeah, I love hearing the way that you perceived yourself at that time because it's so different. Even before we were just hopping on here than my perception and why I wanted to speak to you, I was like, she's so confident and she's so bold in how she shares and shows up online, and I'm like, she just seems like such an inspiration for people to overcome all of the things that you probably have overcome to get to this place. But it's I think always helpful, especially when you end up following someone on social media to know their backstory or to not fall into the trap of believing that that's where they started. Totally. Because then that's where we're measuring ourselves up against and think, oh, well, I can't get there because look at all the things that she knows how to do or she's comfortable doing. And then were that person saying, oh, they just invited me because I was sitting here, not because they actually want me to go.

Allison: Exactly. I'm always telling my clients, I'm like, listen, there's no stupid questions. I have been there and I have been scared. I'm actually sometimes why am I such a fearful person? Why do I have so many fears? But now I'm kind of seeing that has served me really well into where I am today because I have learned how to overcome them or not even overcome them, but work with them more than just overcoming. I kind of think you don't reach this point ever where you're fearless in any of these things, but you learn how to be more courageous and more confident as you go. And so I think that confidence that you see now in me, a lot of that has come from the trail, me getting and growing that confidence outdoors has really had, and I tell my clients, it can have this ripple effect on your life and how you show up. Yeah,

Christine: Yeah. I listen to a podcast once a really long time ago about a female fire chief in California, and she was talking about fear and she said something along the lines of fear is just an alarm for you to pay attention. And then you look around, assess the situation and say, is fear trying to keep me safe or is fear holding me back in this moment and can I just acknowledge fear and then move past it? And that was a really helpful thing for me because I'm like, oh, it's not even something that's dominating this moment. It's just like, Hey, pay attention. I'm here and then what do you want to do with me? Not like you have to carry with me, me, with you everywhere you go.

Allison: Yes, totally. I have so many thoughts on this too because I think about fear a lot and I'm playing around with fear this year in a new way with some of my climbing goals that I have, but I was just thinking what you said. It's so true. Fear, whenever you experience fear, it's like it is a moment to pay attention. It's like, what is this trying to tell me? Am I actually in danger right now or is my brain doing what brains do and panicking a little bit because you're doing the uncomfortable unknown thing because our brains don't like when they can't foresee the outcome. And so anytime you do something new or outside of your comfort zone, your brain's going to freak out. So I kind of like to think of it as an old friend now. I'm like, oh, fear there you are a child in the backseat like, Hey, I don't want to go there. I don't want to do this. I need to pay attention, but I don't have to let it have the last word.

Christine: And I think this was on my thing to talk about later, but since we're already in this topic, the fear of the unknown. So when you combine fear and then the unknown space of being in the outdoors for so many women, it also comes up in the context of solo travel. And so there's so many different ways When we are this unknown thing looms in front of us, we can I think just become paralyzed because we don't even know what to expect, so we feel like we can't walk ourselves through it because this thing on the other side is just not something we're familiar with. So how do you encourage people to, I guess, work through that and manage that discomfort?

Allison: Yeah, I think the first most important thing, well, we talked about the very first most important thing is awareness. I think a lot of times when you're not, it's like, yeah, we're aware of our fear, but are we aware what's happening when fear comes up and how it's impacting the way we act and show up and the results that we get? So when we have this kind of awareness that fear can lead to us feeling stuck or frozen or there is a different option where we can keep moving forward, I think that's where we get all of our power, where we at that crossroads and we're like, oh, fear is here and I have options and the normal. And I think it's also really important to be like, it's okay if my response is to freeze right now. That's a very normal human emotional response to fear.

We are hardwired for it just decades and decades and hundreds of years of survival instincts. That's just innateness, but we also have our prefrontal cortex that can kind of see what's happening. And that is the moment where I tell my students where I think it's Dan Sullivan who first talked about this concept of four Cs, but I just did this little presentation with some of my clients in our program. But there's the commitment when somebody signs up for something like a new travel experience, they're going solo or a backpacking trip or something they've committed to and they're really excited about it, and it's like they can't imagine seeing themselves feeling scared. They're just all up in it. But then there's that moment the fear hits, and that's when you have to decide, I'm going to have fear. This fear is coming with me, but I can harness my courage, which sounds so general saying out loud, but when you're in the moment, you'll know.

You'll know. This is the moment where you just keep going and you're bringing that fear with you and you're going to figure it out along the way. Of course, in the outdoors, there are moments when we experience fear and it is an actual safety. It's like what you said earlier, is this something actually unsafe that I need to pay attention to right now? Of course, in those moments we do the thing that's going to keep us safe, but most of the time our fear is just all of the anxiety we have about going forward, what going to look like? What if we fail? What if people don't think it's a good idea and have too many opinions, all the different things that come up. We just have to keep trusting ourselves to navigate that as we move forward, and that's how we get better. How if you're willing to do that, if you're willing to feel fear and discomfort and all the things and keep going anyways, that's when you get better at doing it down the line. Like I said, I don't think it goes away. I still have lots of fear anytime I do things outside of my comfort zone.

Christine: I think that's really powerful to mention too, because I think we also in our own mind think I'm still doing this thing where I'm afraid I should have overcome this by now. Or again, looking and comparing, we're like, well, they definitely aren't still afraid. And so why I, I think it's so great to acknowledge that it's something there that we need. And actually it's often an indicator that you're challenging yourself, that you are putting yourself outside of your comfort zone. So where people get that adrenaline rush, some people actively seek that moment, but I think in our business or when we're traveling and we have that with us, we're like, okay, here's that moment where growth can happen. I tell my kids this a lot. I'm like, okay, I see that you're afraid, but this is a moment where growth is going to come from and it's okay if you say no, but if you say yes, you're going to be one step further ahead than you were in this moment. And so I think, yeah, we just have to really examine our relationship with fear.

Allison: And I feel like a lot of times what it comes down to is this, we have this kind of innate fear of failing and some capacity, whether that it looks different in different scenarios, but what I always like to remind my clients, I'm like, you're afraid that, so let me just pull an example to make it really tangible. Somebody plans a backpacking trip, and this is what happens a lot for my students, is they're excited, they're working through it, all the things. It's the week of their trip, they're getting ready, it's like it's real. It's happening this weekend or something. And then they get this pre-trip resistance, this feeling of fear. All the things come up, all the things that could go wrong, start flooding their brain and they're worried that they're not going to be able to do it in some capacity, see it through, or they're going to chicken out or they're going to feel too scared once they get to the trailhead, they're going to make it one mile out and have to hike back in.

I don't know whatever reason it is. And I'm like, okay, this is the moment you have to realize you can fail now by just not going and letting the fear win right here. Or we can keep trying to make those steps forward, trying to make that trip a reality in every way possible. And you can fail on the trail, that's okay, but at least you're not failing ahead of time. You've learned so much more. You've gotten a little bit further in the process, and I talk about it as, and I do this with myself with everything. I kind of make a, what if I just plan? And it's like, what if I just drive to the trailhead? What if I just hike out three miles and see how it feels? I can always hike back to my car or what if I set up my first campsite one night and if I'm not feeling like doing the rest of the nights that I have planned, I can just hike out, just kind of make these little baby steps to help your mind freak out a little bit less and it helps so much.

Christine: Yeah, I was going to say, oh man. I think our brains operate very similarly because I also play that game with myself and I never catch on. I'm just go ahead and do that one thing and then I'm like,

Allison: Oh, okay, I guess I could do that.

Christine: Yeah, very relatable. Well, I wanted to go back and talk a little bit about an experience that you had when you traveled to Thailand. And this is very similar to many of my guests where I travel is such an important part of our journey, and in fact a trip to Thailand is a really important part of my own journey and evolution and understanding who I am. But I'd love to hear from you about why that experience was so important to you.

Allison: So that trip was pretty close around, if I'm remembering my timeline correctly, that was several years ago. I think that was around the time after my half dome trip. And so I was kind of in this moment where I was ready and wanting to go all in, but still very new and fresh to all the things. And I wanted to also go, also wanted to just keep challenging myself and not slow my momentum down. And I remember I wanted to go on an international trip. I had never done a solo trip before and so was I kind of saw that as part of my next step of growth or whatever. And I didn't do it solo, solo. I wasn't traveling alone the whole way. I signed up for this climbing group that I was going to be meeting in Thailand, but it was the first time I'd ever flown by myself internationally, and I was like, you said you've been to Thailand, you show up to airport, you can't read any of the signs.

I made so many mistakes along the way. There was so much panic going on inside of my internal nervous system was freaking out almost every step of the way until I got there. But I was so proud. I navigated every single challenge that I encountered. There was this one moment I got to the taxi stand and I had printed out my, this is back in MapQuest still was kind of a thing. I had printed out my address in the MapQuest or whatever, and I handed it to the taxi driver and I realized that it was all in English, and I was like, oh my gosh, I did not think that went through. And that paper went around 40 different drivers. And then finally one came up to me and he was like, just get in the car. And I was like, this is how I die.

That's how I was thinking. And it was a 40 minute drive to the hotel I was going to, and I thought for sure, but they were very great. It was totally safe and it was fine, but I remember thinking that. But yeah, that trip was really monumental for me in the way, again, the way that I saw myself, the way that I knew I kind of started forming that belief was like, I can handle anything, and that is a really strong thought to have about yourself, and I kind of really got to solidify, no matter how scared you are, you can handle anything. Just breathe, think through it, you're smart, you've got this. That trip really broke through that for me. And then once I started building that belief, the climbing in Thailand and that whole experience and meeting new people, it really opened up a lot of what travel could be, which in the past had mostly been with parents and my ex at the time, and you always had your safety net when you're with those people. But when it was with myself and with new people, it was just me navigating the world. It felt like free fall sometimes, but it was cool to know that that can change you. And it was the first time I had really opened myself up to that much unknown. I don't know if your experience was.

Christine: Yeah, I love it. And I just was thinking even the airport, I was like, if I even make it out of this airport, it's going to be insane. And I remember walking and kind of right after you get your luggage or whatever and you're going out to where all the drivers are, and this was a long time ago, so I'm sure it looks completely different, but there's these huge glass wall and it's just sweating because of the humidity. And I'm from Montana and Colorado, so one that was bizarre to me. I'm like, the walls are wet. This is bizarre, and there's insects and stuff. And then just so many people, and then we knew that we didn't need a driver or anything. We had booked a hotel. I went with a girlfriend and we went for six weeks and we only booked one night. The first night we're like, we just need to know where we're going when we land and then we'll figure it out from there.

And then we got outside after telling everybody, no, no, no, no, no. And we saw it looked like 200 lanes of traffic between us and where our hotel. And I was like, oh, no. Okay. I thought the airport was hard. This is impossible. And then we just stood there for 10 minutes watching other people cross the road. I feel like this has been in movies too, but then we did that and then we got to the other side of the road and I was like, oh, we did that. And like you said, it's like we did that we could do anything. And then, I mean there were so many things that we did on that trip that were probably on the border of, I'm not sure how wise, and I really became so much more confident in my ability or just even my ability to actually talk to fear and be like, okay, we're doing this thing. We can't not cross this road. All of Thailand's on the other side of this road, right?

Allison: Yeah. What am I going to do, turn around and go back into the airport? I mean, I guess I could. That's an option. I'm going to make some steps forward first and see how it goes.

Christine: Yeah, so it was so good. And really after that, that really did change my identity and it also really changed how I saw the world. I really fell in love with the possibilities that the world held. And so that was the other thing is that I just knew if I could push myself, I got to experience these things that are just unimaginable.

Allison: Yes. It's like there's so much waiting for you to experience in life that is outside of your comfort zone. And it's just such a shame to think. I sometimes think about what if I had never said yes to the backpacking trip or gone on those things? These little moments really opened me up to the possibilities of life and the experiences that I've gotten to have my human experience and the emotional human experience as well. It makes you be able to do new things that you've never done before. Entrepreneurship you were kind of alluding to earlier. It prepares you for that.

Christine: Yeah, it's so important. I think whenever anybody asks what is one of the most important things you can do for pretty much anything, I'm like, go travel somewhere because it's just going to teach you something that I know you'll need in the future, just so it's such an important, I think, experience in our own growth. Hey listeners, it's Christine and I have an exciting announcement to share with you. The book Sojourn is Back in 2020, I wanted to find a way to bring women together in the absence of the travel experiences I offer with Lotus Sojourns. I wanted to create a space for connection, cultural understanding, growth, and most importantly, belonging. And it was magic, pardon the use of your lingo, Liz Gilbert, but it was big magic. We set out to read 12 books in 12 months, meeting virtually twice each month and having deep and passionate conversations about the books and all of the lessons we were learning, showing up for each other, being real and vulnerable and supporting each other in one of the hardest times of our lives.

Then we decided to do it again in 2023. We felt life speeding up and the book club was set aside. However, over the past few months, I've spoken with so many women and I've heard something in common from many of them. They've told me things like I'm running faster than ever in my business and in my life. I'm tired and not prioritizing myself. I feel like I need to heal. I am craving deep and meaningful connection, and I'm looking for a community of women where I feel a deep sense of belonging. And I'm here to tell you I'm filling it to all of these fields, and I have missed the special circle of women who came together for this unique journey through the pages of inspiring books. So here we are. I'm bringing it back, and I cannot wait for you to join me for this guided journey that past members have shared is so much more than a book club.

This year, we'll be taking two months to read each of the books on our list, and you can choose to join a two month, six month, or one year journey. So I hope you'll join us as we begin our next book. I cannot wait to bring the ever-growing Soul of Travel community along on this journey. You'll find more information about the 2024 soulful book, sojourn on my Lotus Sojourns website. Just hit any of the join us buttons on the page for more information and registration. I cannot wait to share this sacred space with you. Now let's head back over to our soulful conversation. I wanted to learn a little bit more so we kind of see where you're coming from, but how did you eventually connect the dots and when did this idea immerse that you needed or wanted to be able to support other women on this journey and started to take shape for you?

Allison: So after the half do and Thailand kind of experiences, I felt like really clear on what I wanted, and at that time it wasn't starting a business. It was going all in on that identity that I was starting to create for myself. And I did that for seven years. I just went all in. I spent almost every single weekend that I could. I did the whole weekend warrior thing outside doing something new. I was in my twenties too, so I had more energy. I was just traveling constantly, trying to go on as many trips as I could afford as well internationally and getting lots of experiences. And eventually I met my now husband. We met at the climbing gym and we just kept doing that thing. I'm trying to think about where this mostly pivotally happened, but I think it was about seven years into kind of doing that for myself and really kind of solidifying the adventurous identity, the courageous confident person that I was now starting to see myself as.

We were backpacking with some friends in Trans Catalina Island in California, and I remember having a moment with Michael. We were walking on the trail and I was like, what if we could do this all the time? In my mind I was like, what if we could just hike and travel and be free all the time? I feel like one of my guiding principles in life is freedom, time, freedom, location, freedom. That is a value I really like and pursue, and he was interested, but I was like, how is it going to work? But I got home after that trip and I am also kind of a nerd. I am a former engineer, so I put spreadsheets together. I made a plan on how we could save up for a year, and in that process of thinking we would take a year off to travel just to have an experience of we were going to live in a van, get a van, live in a van for a year and travel.

In that process, I kind of kept being curious about things and that curiosity of taking a year off led me to listening to lots of podcasts like Tim Ferriss podcasts, side Hustle School, I think was another podcast I listened to. I was listening or I was checking out bloggers like Pinch of Yum and Barefoot Theory, and I was getting all these ideas. Maybe I'll start a blog and make some extra income while we're on the road. That would be cool, and then I can share my adventures. So that's how she dreams of Alpine was born. It started off as a blog and a way of supplementing our income while we were taking a year off to travel or we were planning to, and as I was building that. So we saved up for a year, a year, year and a half. As I was building the blog and getting that going, I had another idea.

I was like, it would be so cool to be able to create a program that's geared towards women that is mentorship in the outdoors. Something I didn't have. I had to learn a lot for myself and get scrappy, and I was just really, I'm really good learners. So I did a lot of research, put things together, how to feel safe and confident myself, but I felt like the people I only backpacked with were dudes. And so a lot of my mentorship and their advice I didn't always love because there's just a different energy sometimes with guys and the way they push is not the way that I would like to handle certain things. And I started noticing that's a really big opportunity is to provide mentorship to women by women who understand where you're coming from, where all these fears are coming from. So the Backpacking Badass program was launched, first opened in April of 2019, and that is the same month I quit my full-time job, and then we hit the road full-time from there. So that's kind of how it evolved, and I always like to explain it to people by just following my curiosity. I didn't really have this grand plan for the business that you see that I have today. It really just started with one little idea led to another little idea led to another little idea sort of thing.

Christine: Yeah, I love that. And even as you were telling me that, I was thinking that already. I was like, oh, it's so great how clearly you're telling everybody that it started here and then it was like this and then this. Because again, going back to when you see this final version of somebody, you just have them starting and ending in that same space. You don't really see the full journey, which is why I have felt this podcast has been so important because I don't know why we do that. We all know that we didn't start where we are right now, but when we see someone, we're just like, that's it. That's the goal, and I can't get there. And you're like, no, you have to take 300 steps to get there. Totally. So those parts are also important. So I really love that you did share that.

And just to follow the curiosity I think is so important as well, because so many of us have these things that we're really interested in and we just kind of look at it and set it aside and then we're like, come back to it. And we're like, I really love this thing, but we set it aside again, and I think after having so many conversations, it's like when women pick that thing up or I speak with women, probably men do this too, and they're like, yeah, this is the thing, and then they start to figure it out. That's when they do the thing that has the most impact to themselves, the most impact for other people, the people that they work with because it's the thing they were supposed to pick up.

Allison: Yeah, totally. And I feel like I trust right now I do. I have the benefit of looking backwards now. I'm like, I trust curiosity so much now that it's a really big red flag for me. If something keeps coming up for me, I'm like, okay, I'm paying attention. I'm going to do something with it. You can't all obviously do every idea out there. You do have to have some focus sometimes, but I don't know if you've ever read Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert. I love the way that she talks about ideas and curiosity, and she talks about how they seek the most available collaborator to bring them to life. So I love thinking about ideas being alive, and they came to me for a reason because they thought I would be great to bring them into this world. And so I really like to trust that we all have a little bit of imposter syndrome.

Even though I had been backpacking and hiking and mountaineering and climbing for seven years when I had the idea to create the Backpacking Badass program, I'm like, who am I to do that had all this, but I think thanks to Elizabeth Gilbert, I'm like, okay, I'm just going to trust that this will unfold for me and be more clear as I go. And I still love that too. And I also love that she says that if you don't take an idea, you can release it and somebody else will pick it up. It's going to seek another collaborator. I kind of like that.

Christine: I am totally with you. I actually just started reading that book again.

Allison: Oh, I've read it four times.

Christine: It's so good. And I totally visualize just ideas flying around all the time, right? They're just everywhere. And sometimes one will land and I am like, oh my God, this is so good. Are you sure? Yes. I'm like, I don't know if I can do this one. And sometimes it's just this almost fully packaged idea and I'm like, man, that is so good. I just don't know that that one's mine. And I'm like, I hate to do this, but I'm just like

Allison: Going to let it go,

Christine: Putting you back out there. And then sometimes

Allison: I'm, sometimes ideas are persistent. Yeah, they are. They're like, no, you are the one. And you're like, I don't think I am. And they're like, no, you are the one. Yeah.

Christine: Or I'll be like, are you comfortable just waiting a little bit because I love you, but I'm just not sure yet. Yeah,

Allison: Totally.

Christine: Yeah, it's a beautiful, yeah, that's one of my very favorite just ways of thinking.

Allison: Yeah, it's so fun. It's so playful. I think that happened to me. So one of the other programs we opened up last year is called the Adventurous Reinvention Experience, and it's a more kind of intimate program that we do. It's creating a life that makes you feel as alive as you do on the trail. So it's like part coaching, but then part in person experience together. I have had that idea for three years before we opened it in last year for the first time, but that was one of those ideas where I was like, I'm not qualified. I don't think I should be doing that, or I don't know, I had a lot of stories about why I wasn't ready or it was too big or something like that. And then finally, I think the idea was persistent enough. It was like, you must bring this to life. And so I finally listened. Last year

Christine: I was just going through my computer and I kept finding all these folders, so I was trying to clean it up a little that were like women's travel program question, women travel company question mark. And then it would be named and there'd be a few more things. And I'm like, how many times did I try to do this before I did it? I almost didn't even remember the fact that I kept when I actually launched Lotus Sojo. To me, it was somehow the first time I ever tried it. Totally. And then I looked back and I'm like, oh gosh, you have lost your mind. You've tried to do this so many times, but talked yourself out of it over and over again. But the idea really wanted to be incubated here.

Allison: Yeah. I was like, I'm going to stick around. I still have faith in you. That one's still here.

Christine: Yeah. Well, I want to talk about, and we're going to jump from one of my favorite authors to another favorite author interestingly, but I talked a little bit about your social media and your content and how much I love it. Also, it's really valuable content. I mean everything from gear, what you would expect, but permit processes and all these things that are going to maybe be that thing that stop you. You're so good at just being like, here's the information you're going to need to take that next step. And I think many women have a hard time showing up on social media, showing up in that way in their business to create content. And I read that you love Daring Greatly and that idea of vulnerability, but I also think that's the relatability, right? Yeah. I would love to talk to you a little bit about how you kind of built that muscle to be more comfortable or to figure out what your voice was in this space and how to show up in that way.

Allison: Yeah, I think at first it was a lot of just, I think when you're first starting off with an idea and you're starting a business, so if we're talking to business owners more particularly, or people building a brand, it's like you know what you want to say, but you, you're working out how to you, you're in the baby lamb stage, you're getting your legs, and so you kind of have to just keep trying and putting things out there and it's not going to be perfect and it's going to sound awkward. It's not going to land all the time, and you just got to be willing to do that. You got to be willing to be the newbie first and keep putting things out consistently so that you get better and you hone how you like to say things or what resonates with people and what lands and your messaging.

I feel like it's naturally more clear the more you write and the more you're willing to write. So a lot of my, for me, I love writing, so I think I prefer writing versus speaking and being on camera and stuff like that because I really get time to think through things. So actually I write a weekly newsletter and a lot of things that I write or go into social media start from my weekly newsletter as ideas and concepts first, and then now I have a team. So I don't want to want it to be like, oh, Alison does all of these things and balances all this stuff really well in her business. I have so much support and help and social media is where I get a lot of my support now because that was something that I felt like I was spending a lot of time on.

My team utilizes a lot of the stuff I'm writing in my newsletters and repurposing stuff that we kind of talk about and teach in different areas. One of the benefits that I have is I try to employ people that are very much in this mindset and space themselves as well, so that we're kind of on the same page in mentorship and how we talk. Then the other thing that I do, I don't know if Simone Soul, she's like a coach. So she had this thing, I think it was a couple of years ago, she talked about called the Garbage Post Challenge, and it's just about writing. It's kind like what we were talking about earlier. When an idea comes to you, don't judge it, just go with it. And so now the way we function on my team is we have content planned two weeks ahead of time, but then I'm always jumping in and putting random things in.

So if you looked at this week, there's something I posted today that I wrote on Tuesday, and then there's something I wrote about the Great Sand Dunes that I wrote this weekend when I was traveling. So I just jump in and those are my garbage post challenge. Sometimes when I have inspiration and a thought that I wanted to get out there or I've written something for a newsletter and I'm like, I really want to share this on social media, I just put it there. And the final thing is I don't really care about metrics that much, and I think that really benefits me. Obviously as a business owner, we kind of pay attention to metrics, but social media is so hit or miss the way the algorithm lands. I just don't take any of it personally. So we posted something the other day that I thought was really cool and it got three likes or five likes, which is very low for our account, and me and my team member, we were just like, well, they ghosted us today on Instagram. We just don't take things seriously and we just keep going and we keep putting valuable things out there. So that's kind of what our thought process is around it. Yeah,

Christine: I think that's so good because again, going back to you're not going to start where you're ending up, so you do have to try it. You have to figure it out. You have to learn your own voice. I think it can feel really hard because especially for me in the tourism industry, I know when I started, I had already been in the industry for 18 years and I had worked with huge brands. So when I wanted to launch my travel company, I thought when I launch it, it has to look like that. And then I'm like, no, that's crazy. That company is 25 years old. They

Allison: Didn't

Christine: Look that, and they have a huge team. They do. Yeah. They're not just one person trying to figure out how to write a marketing plan and do social media and every single thing

Allison: Wearing all the hats,

Christine: And yet somehow that was just the pressure that I put upon myself to do that. And so I think it's so great to just think about, again, it's not going to be right the first time. It's just like when you take the first hike, you're going to bring the wrong something for sure, and you just have to kind of grow through it.

Allison: It's so true. I think everything, for me, everything relates back to the outdoors. So when I even think about social media, so with my clients in the outdoors, I'm like, what's your minimum viable plan for this worst case scenario, smallest version of this epic dream that you have that we can at least see that done and see it through, and then maybe you also get more done? What is that? And I think about that with social, when I was doing it fully by myself, I would sit down on Fridays and I would set a timer for an hour and I would think through what I wanted to post for a week. And if I wanted more, if inspiration hit me further, then that was fine. But sometimes you just have to be, I'm going to be consistent. I'm going to keep showing up. I think that's the most important thing is not to judge yourself.

If you put the Simone soul thing, if you put out garbage and nobody likes it, it's fine. It's going to last two seconds on social media. That's one benefit of the platform. You put out something and it doesn't land, nobody's going to remember it. And I think a lot of times we have this thing that everyone's watching us and paying attention, but I had to get over that really fast once we started doing more things, saying a lot of the same things in different ways sometimes. And I'm like, oh, but I've already talked about this topic before and I was thinking about myself as a consumer, and I don't read every single line of every email I ever get from somebody, but sometimes I'm emotionally available and ready for that message and I will read it. And there have been entrepreneurs I followed, and I noticed that they've sent the same email even several times throughout the year, but there was one moment where I read it, actually read it, and so I'm not afraid to say the same thing again and share the same message or with a slightly different twist because everyone's super busy with their own lives and doing their own thing, and it's kind of like the idea thing.

It's like, I'm going to be there when they're ready and they're ready to latch onto this idea if that's something that they want. Otherwise it's fine. I'm not going to take it personally.

Christine: Yeah, it's so good. That's so good both in giving yourself the permission to show up because we think 8 billion people are going to see our post and to do, and there's both the good and the bad of that, right? Sometimes you put your whole heart into it and you want all the people to see it, but at the same time, it's just not the reality of things. But again, we have a hard time. I think seeing the truth in that and then just also knowing that things will land for people when they're ready and when they start seeing the same post over and over, that's them getting that message. You do maybe need to tell them that thing three times and then they're like, yeah, I need to do this. This is the thing I've been wanting to do. I'm so glad that showed up again and reminded me. And so I think especially when we're really wanting to inspire people and work with people and help them through things, it takes that touch point over and over to get them to the space where they're ready to receive it

Allison: And also saying the same messages over. And that's how you get better at communicating. You're not going to get better at communicating if you are constantly trying totally different new ideas all the time because you're thinking that's what everyone needs. I think about Brene Brown sometimes. She studied vulnerability. That was her special. She went deep on that, and that's the thing that she didn't bounce around. She was very focused on that. And that's kind of what I want to do. It's like with this topic, with backpacking, with fear around that kind of stuff. And the more I focus on it, it's the more clear I get about talking about it and who I'm talking to.

Christine: Yeah. Oh, I think that's really, really good too, because if you just say, I can just imagine her sitting at some point in her collegiate years being like, I just want to study vulnerability period. And people being like, well, that's really interesting, or that's going to take five minutes, or whatever responses it might be. And in fact, as we all know, anyone who spans of her know it's been this incredible process and it's opened up so much for so many people. I am sure. In a way, she never understood when she first saw her Little Rock that had vulnerability written on the bottom, and she was like, okay, I'll go with it. And so I think in business, people will tell you to niche down or in storytelling or in connecting with your audience. And then at the same time, it also feels like they say, but don't leave all of these people out.

And so you're like, how do I both really narrow down and not leave people out? And I get this a lot too. You really only want to talk to women at this point in their life that want this kind of travel experience, and you only want to go to these kinds of places and you only want to have these kinds of experiences. And I'm like, yeah, that's all. And they're like, but what about this, this and this? And I'm like, yeah, but that somebody else is going to do that really good. That's someone else's thing that they fly by and grab, and it's just not my thing. But I think it takes a while to step into that.

Allison: Yeah, totally. And then when you're really clear who you're talking to, I feel like you're going to have more passion and more depth to how you're talking. And what I found is we teach beginners. We're not usually seeking out people who are totally confident and and really good on the trail because they probably won't benefit as much from going through a program like ours already there. But it's so fascinating. We focus on helping people who are brand new or getting started or want to be self-sufficient or want to go solo. That's kind of our messaging with our outdoor education, but we still get people that want to join in because we're so clear on that and how we talk about fear and all these different things. We still get people in all different walks joining us. Even people that if they had talked to me before joining the program, I'd be like, you probably don't need it. But then they'll join and they'll be like our best ambassadors inside of our community, they'll be lifting up everyone and be rooting them on, and they'll have learned some things to themselves. So it's really interesting how focus, actually still, I don't feel like you end up actually excluding that many people.

Christine: Yeah, that's so great too. And I think even people that maybe, like you said, if they've been hiking forever, but their story and their experiences, maybe where you started with, maybe it was more a masculine dominated space or they never felt that support and now they see that, so they might have all this other experience, but they've never experienced that, and that's what they want. So like you said, then they drop in and they're a huge resource in all these other ways, but they're still learning and growing. I know for myself, I love finding spaces like that too, where I'm like, no, people will be like, I don't know if you need this. And I'm like, I don't think you know what you have. Actually. I really need this. I understand I have these other skill sets, but the way you're talking about it is the way I want to experience it or the way I want to learn about it. So it still has so much value to me.

Allison: Or sometimes there's just one thing that I'm like, that is for me worth the price, or I think it's so important who you surround yourself with. So sometimes I'll join programs because I want to be in the room with the kind of people we work from home. I think you do too. So I don't work in an office anymore and get to be around people. And so who I'm surrounding myself is limited unless I create that for myself. And so a lot of times I'm putting myself in rooms where I'm going to be challenged to think a little bit bigger or in a certain way. And that's really valuable to me too, is just the energy of the women or the people surrounding me as well.

Christine: Yeah. Oh, that's so good too. I'm like everything. I just want to put an exclamation point at the end of everything in the conversation. Well, we're just about at the end. This has been, I knew I was so excited for the conversation, but also it didn't disappoint. This was our own big magic moment. It finally happens. So I'm grateful. I have a few rapid fire, rapid fire ish questions to end our call, and then I'll have you let our listeners know where they can find you if they're interested in more about your program. Great. The first question is, what are you reading right now?

Allison: So I'm reading, it's totally the big magic realm. I'm reading Iron Flame. Do you know what that is?

Christine: Yeah. I almost picked it up to take on spring break actually. I was like, Ooh, this looks very interesting and it might be nice to just read a book. That's fun.

Allison: So this is not usually my genre, or at least I thought it wasn't usually my genre, but everyone kept talking about Fourth Wing and I was like, you know what, I'll just pick it up at the library. And so I got at the library and I liked it, and then Iron Wing is the next one, so I guess I'm into dragons and fantasy stuff, so I didn't realize that about myself until this year. Curiosity led me there.

Christine: Yeah, well I read all the Hunger Games and I've read some other ones like that. Yes, the

Allison: Hunger Games are

Christine: Great. I was excited. There is one that's called Win Women Were Dragons, which you might really like because it's got the dragon element, but it has this really cool feminist edge to it as well.

Allison: Yeah, I've been really in a kick lately, the last year where I am learning and doing stuff so much that in the evenings I really just want to read for fun. And so I've actually been just really focusing on fiction lately and I have hardly read any nonfiction in the last year, so that's

Christine: Where I'm at. I did pretty much the same thing over the last year as well. I was like, man, I just need,

Allison: I say joy.

Christine: Yeah, I did, definitely. So I relate. What is always in your suitcase or for you, probably in your backpack when you travel?

Allison: Let's see, man, I'm pretty minimalist. I mean, I'm the kind of girl who will pack four books even though I'll probably only read one of them on my trip. So that's a fun fact for me. I'm getting better at it, realizing that I never really read four, but there's something about a physical book too. I can't switch over to Kindle very easily and even backpacking, I will bring Kindle on backpacking for the weight though, so that's probably something I always like having a book to read when I'm on long road trips. I like having an audible that I don't know.

Christine: Yeah, me too. I've always enjoyed it and I will bring my Kindle and then I'll be so sad that I don't have a book and then I buy one anyway.

Allison: That would be if I were traveling and not backpacking, I would want a physical book

Christine: To Sojourn is to travel somewhere as if you live there for a short while. Where is someplace that you would still love to sojourn?

Allison: Can you say that again? The beginning

Christine: To travel somewhere as if you live there for a short while. So really immersive.

Allison: I really loved New Zealand. I visited the North island once. I would love to live there for a while and see the south island and just slow travel there. That would be a dream. Something I hopefully will do one of these days. But then something else that comes to mind for me when you say that is I've always had this, I've had a really strong curiosity that I am going to see through one of these days. It's just kind of one of those pending ideas to sail and have my own boat and kind of try on that travel sort of lifestyle. It's very adventurous, but scares kind of the crap out of me a little bit, a lot for me to learn and that's kind of why I'm drawn to it. So that is probably one that's been on my heart. I consistently think about, oh, when am I going to get a boat?

Christine: As you sit in Colorado? Yeah, no water. I

Allison: Know that actually has been kind of brutal for my husband's from Puerto Rico and we're both, we've been here for two years now. We're both kind of itching. We're like, you can't get to the ocean here. I'm a mountain girl for sure, but I'm also, I love the beach as well, so I can't pick one.

Christine: Yeah, I like a mountain lake. I grew up on Flathead Lake in Montana. Cool. I don't know if you're familiar in New Glacier. So it was like beautiful mountains, beautiful water, and I have a hard time without water and I lived in Seattle, so it was also mountains and water. That's my happy

Allison: Space. I love the West coast because it has both. It's kind of really lovely for that.

Christine: Yeah. What is something you eat that immediately connects you to a place you've been?

Allison: That's a good question. Something that I eat that immediately connects me to the way, well, I feel like the most recent travel experience that we had was my husband and I did a three week in Ireland, Scotland and the uk, and it's been winter here lately, so I feel like anytime we're eating really homey kind of food like mash and steak and fish and chips, fish and chips for sure bring me back because our first time in New Zealand we had the best fish and chips in our life and I feel like we've been chasing that feeling for the perfect fish and chips since we been to New Zealand. We haven't had a better experience than when we were there, even in Ireland and Scotland and uk still New Zealand had the best. That's probably a better example. That's something we think about a lot. We're like, is it as good as that? One time we had it in New Zealand, but yeah,

Christine: I love when it's that obscure dish that you kind of know this might be the once in a lifetime moment or it's even something so simple that you just know it's because of the place. That's why it's so good.

Allison: Oh yes. And that just remind me, I was like, I've had so much good food abroad, why am I only thinking of just very generic kind of dishes? But there is this dish, this most simple thing and mind blowing thing I ever had was in Singapore. My friend is her husband's from Singapore. We went there for her wedding and they took us out to get breakfast one morning and it was like toast with this, what's it called? CAA butter. It's like this sweet coconut jam or something, and it served with coffee and it's served with kind of a runny egg. Oh my gosh. I dream about that. I dream about that breakfast all the time, and every time she goes to Singapore, I ask her to bring me back jars of kaya butter because I don't know what it is, but I love that combo.

Christine: That even reminds me of eating toast that's grilled over an open fire on the street when I was in Thailand. And you're like, what did they put on this?

Allison: And you're like, why is it so good? It's so simple.

Christine: It's so good. Yeah, you're like, it's really just bread,

Allison: But sometimes the simple meals are like the best.

Christine: Who was a person that inspired or encouraged you to set out and travel the world?

Allison: You know what? Okay. I'm sure there was somebody, I feel like I had a lot of, as far as people close to me in my life, there was a lot more, I'm thinking maybe in terms of outdoors, I had a lot of more, are you sure about this? It's not safe kind of messaging from people who are close to me in my life. But I will say one thing that my parents gave me when I was in high school was they did travel internationally some. So I'm really grateful to have those experiences with them, to see different cultures, experience, what it's like to fly internationally to places that don't speak the same language. Yeah, I can't think of, that's not a really great answer. I can't think of one person in particular of, I feel like a lot of what moved me forward was myself in that period of time just wanting to be different. I'm sure that there was somebody, I feel old now. I'm like, that was like 10, 12 years ago now. I don't even remember.

Christine: Yeah, no, it's okay. I actually, I did an interview one time, a solo episode, and I was like, I'm just going to answer all my questions. And I was like, I don't have I'm, I don't even know how I would answer that question for myself. I felt like it was just all these times reading National Geographic or just being so curious about the world that I just knew I had to get out there, but I couldn't think of a person that was like, go,

Allison: There are totally people now. People along my journey have inspired me, people to start my own business. Barefoot Theory is another blogger. She gave me a lot of courage in starting something in the outdoors in my business. Pinch of Yum, which is a food blog, gave me a lot of inspiration to start my business there. And now I'm thinking about some of my goals this year, like climbers that are inspiring me, like women like Hazel Finley and people like that. So I do find lots of little inspirational along the way, but I can think of just one.

Christine: Yeah. If you could take an adventure with one person, fictional or real alive or past, who would it be?

Allison: I am just a sucker for my best friends. I've been asked this question before in some way, and I just don't really have, there's no famous or historical person that I really think I would prefer to spend time with more than just my best friend, Ashima and Kara, A girl's trip somewhere with the two of them would probably top my list of great experiences anytime I'll do anything with them.

Christine: Yeah, I agree. I, I think that's even why I started my company too. Those moments when you get to spend that deep quality time with people that you love spending time with, or even if you're traveling with people and meeting 'em for the first time, it still seems like that connection happens and then it feels really, really special. I agree. I think that's a pretty amazing experience. Okay. The last question, you've kind of touched on this already, but Soul of Travel is a space for recognizing people in the industry that you admire. Who is one woman in this that you would like to recognize?

Allison: So I think I would like to recognize Nicole Snell. She is one of our, we partner with her a lot because she's doing really great work. So she teaches self-defense and I mean, her company is Girls fight, girls fight back, but she also does spins on it. She teaches self-defense generally, but she also teaches it in the outdoors. And I think the work that she's doing for women to feel confident in going solo and especially solo traveling solo trails, that is super important because one of the biggest fears we have as women and women coming in are like, what if somebody tries to hurt me and what do I do in those situations? So I think that's super important work that she's doing.

Christine: Yeah, I agree. Thank you. Thank you for mentioning her and thank you for this conversation. I really, really loved it. So thank you.

Allison: Yeah. Thanks so much for having me.

Christine: Thank you for listening to Soul of Travel presented by Journey Woman. I hope you enjoyed the journey. If you loved this conversation, I encourage you to subscribe and rate the podcast. Please share episodes that inspire you with others because this is how we extend the impact of this show. Learn more about each of my guests by reading our episode blogs, which are more than your average show notes. I think you'll love the connection. Find our episode blogs at www.souloftravelpodcast.com. I'm so proud of the way these conversations are bringing together people from around the world. If this sounds like your community, welcome, I'm so happy you are here. I am all about community and would love to connect. You can find me on Facebook at Soul of Travel podcast or follow me on Instagram, either at she dot sojourns or at Soul of Travel podcast. Stay up to date by joining the Soul of Travel podcast mailing list. You'll also want to explore the Journey Woman community and its resources for women travelers over 50. I'd also like to share a quick thank you to my podcast producer and content magician, Carly Eduardo, CEO of Conte. I look forward to getting to know you and hopefully hear your story.