About Us
We’re On A Mission To Make The Outdoors
More Accessible To All
Whether your adventure is halfway across the world or right in your own backyard,
Trailcations is here to help make your outdoor travel easier, safer and more enjoyable.
Hi! We’re Katie & Shannon, creators of Trailcations.
Trailcations: Trails. Adventures. Vacations.
Trails, rivers, mountains and more. From local weekend getaways to epic globe-trotting treks, let Trailcations help plan your next outdoor Trail Vacations.
Our goal is to help make your outdoor adventure bucket list come to life by providing tools to make wilderness travel safer, easier and more enjoyable for all.
We hope to inspire adventurers of all experience levels to travel to the world’s incredible wild spaces by providing trail-tested travel guides, delicious camping recipes, backcountry skills tutorials and detailed gear recommendations. And hopefully help you have a little fun while you’re at it!
Part of the profit generated from this site is given back to outreach groups making the outdoors more accessible, educational and diverse for all, as well as supporting various preservation, conservation and sustainability initiatives.
Life is short. It’s time to have fun in the outdoors, one Trail Vacation at a time.
Happy Trailcations Y’all!
❤️ Voodoo (Katie) & Princess North Star (Shannon)
P.S. Follow our latest adventures on our @trailcations social media channels!
The Trailcations Origin Story
(Cue dramatic montage music)
The idea of Trailcations had been kicking around my head since my first botched attempt to go on a hike ended up in:
1) becoming lost in the Green Mountains of Vermont
2) accidentally climbing a rock slide*
3) witnessing a friend throw himself down the mountain to avoid being crushed by a falling boulder the size of a microwave.
If we had common sense, we probably would’ve asked an important question:
What happens on rock slides?
Answer: Rocks. Fall. Down. And. Crush. You.
It was like a scene out of an Indiana Jones movie, but with two dumb city kids who probably should’ve stuck to whatever the bunny slopes version of hiking trails was. Looking back, walking through a suburban neighborhood would’ve probably been wild enough for us.
Luckily, everyone survived that day but the experience made me realize that I didn’t know anything about the outdoors. I was going to need to learn quickly or I would likely end up as a Search-and-Rescue statistic.
As I started my outdoor learning journey with a very limited budget, I couldn’t justify expensive adventure trips or pricey backcountry skills classes. Shoot, I was just trying to make the $5 in my bank account last until my next paycheck!
I struggled to find free step-by-step guides, videos or seminars to take someone who knew next to nothing about the wilderness, who’s grown up with rush hour traffic, pavement and strip malls, and teach them how to safely enjoy recreating in the backcountry.
Let me tell you: learning to survive (and thrive!) in nature has been one heck of an adventure.
I made a lot of mistakes.
Like A LOT.
But I never gave up.
Through trial and error and thousands of miles of trails, this former city girl learned a thing or two about the outdoors. Nature is beautiful, wild and unforgiving at times. But with a little research, some backcountry survival skills, the right gear, and contingency plans for when SHTF**, you can usually set yourself up to be safe and have fun in the wilderness.
And guess what? I’m still learning something new about the outdoors every time I go out in nature. From modifying gear, testing new trail foods or practicing survival skills, I am continuously trying to improve my wilderness experience.
The focus of Trailcations is to help you with your journey of continually improving your outdoor adventures whether the trail is through the snowy mountain peaks, down a wild river or traversing an urban city park.
From navigating rush hour traffic to navigating thousands of miles of wilderness, my outdoor education journey has been a wild adventure, and sometimes harder than it needed to be. Trailcations is the resource that I wish I had way back when I started.
I hope the Trailcations community helps you become a better wilderness adventurer.
Our goal is to help make your outdoor adventure bucket list come to life by providing tools to make wilderness travel safer, easier and more enjoyable for all. We hope to inspire adventurers of all experience levels to travel to the world’s incredible wild spaces by providing free trail-tested travel guides, delicious camping recipes, backcountry skills tutorials and detailed gear recommendations. (And maybe help you have a little fun while you’re at it!)
Happy Trailcations Y’all!
❤️ Voodoo (Katie)
*Hey, to our credit the trail was called “The Profanity Trail” so we assumed we were doing good because, despite losing the trail, we were definitely using a lot of profanity…
**SHTF = Sh*t Hits The Fan.
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Meet the Trailcations Team
Chief Adventure Officer
Government Name: Katie
Trail Name: Voodoo (or Food-oo when she’s hungry)
Katie is an outdoor adventurer with an engineering problem. Or maybe she’s an engineer with an adventuring problem? Let’s just say it depends on the day. Katie used to build jet engines but is currently pausing her technical career to accomplish a lifelong dream of hiking, biking and paddling the world’s greatest long distance trails.
As a city girl raised in the greater Boston area, Katie was a late bloomer in the outdoor travel world, not going on her first hike until she was an adult. She fell in love with the outdoors after discovering that the world is filled with magical wild places not dominated by concrete and highways. Even after thousands of miles of trails paddled, hiked and biked, she still is in awe of places where you can actually see the stars at night.
When she’s not in the backcountry, Katie can be found writing, tinkering with gear or concocting some sort of mad adventure usually involving food and trails. She is a big believer that time spent outdoors can help with trauma, mental health and overall wellbeing.
Katie met her partner Shannon while thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail and they have been inseparable since, even running away to get married atop Mt. Whitney on their Pacific Crest Trail thru-hike. (Sorry Mom and Dad!)
Most Embarrassing Outdoor Moment: Being trapped inside a confined (and very fragrant) Appalachian Trail outhouse for 30 minutes by an angry 7-foot-long rattlesnake who decided to use the bathroom entryway as his personal tanning bed!
Chief Motivational Officer
Government Name: Shannon
Trail Name: Princess North Star (…it’s a long story)
You’ll usually find Shannon with a smile on his face and a positive can-do attitude. On long tough runs, hikes or paddling trips, he’s definitely the guy you want to have motivating you with his jokes, hilarious stories and high energy.
As a country boy from Minnesota, Shannon grew up building treehouses with his siblings, working on his neighbor’s organic cattle farm and running his school’s videography department with his best friends. After spending time serving his country in the U.S. Army, he decided to pursue his passion for technology by starting his own website businesses.
Not long after returning from his deployment in Iraq, Shannon met a hiker who had walked the entire Appalachian Trail over six months. He was blown away that someone could actually do that and set a personal goal to hike it himself.
A few years later, with a pack that was much too heavy (60lbs!), he set off northbound from Georgia on his own Appalachian Trail adventure. Not long after, he met Katie in the Carolina mountains and they’ve been adventuring across the world together since.
Today Shannon’s pack weighs a fraction of what it did at the beginning of the AT. Even with thousands of trail miles under his belt, he knows that there’s always room for improvement. When Shannon is not working, he can be found hiking, trail running or enjoying a tasty microbrew. But if he steps in a large puddle of water, you’ll understand why he’s received the “Princess” part of his trail name!
Most Embarrassing Trail Moment: Slipping on a patch of ice and eating dirt on a winter hike when he could still see the car. A couple weeks later, running straight into a log on a trail run and could also still see the car. Bled both times and now it’s an ongoing joke that the most dangerous part of our adventures is when we’re nearing the parking lot!
Frequently Asked Questions
1. What is a Trailcation?
Trailcations, or Trail Vacations, are travel adventures focused on having fun outdoors. They usually involve a paddling, hiking, biking or running trail and a little bit of prep beforehand to ensure maximum enjoyment in nature.
For us, we realized that the majority of our enjoyment and stress relief came from playing in the outdoors, whether it was a complicated multi-week international hiking adventure or simply a stroll through a neighborhood park after work. We didn’t have a word to define the idea of unwinding in the outdoors so one summer night, over several glasses of wine around a backyard bonfire, the idea of Trailcations was born.
The beauty of a Trailcation is that you can spend as much or as little money and time on your outdoor adventure. Some of the best Trailcations we’ve taken have been afternoon trips exploring our local parks! It’s all about appreciating that life is short and using some of that time we have left to explore the world’s wild places (and try our best to have a little fun at the same time.)
2. How can we afford to travel so often?
We live very simple lives, spending much of our time working on online businesses and finding ways to save money on food, travel and gear. When we’re not living out of our tent on our Trailcations, we house sit to save money and opt to slow travel, meaning we spend several weeks or months in one area.
At times we do miss the fast-paced city living (and having steady paychecks!), but wouldn’t trade it for all the freedom and happiness that comes from being on the trail.
3. Have you ever been in danger?
Many times but we always try to be educated and prepared for adventuring in the local area. In South Florida for instance, when it rains you don’t walk under poisonwood trees as the water drops are so acidic they will melt your skin or gear (RIP Voodoo’s backpack). Hiking in Iceland you usually look for the highest point to evacuate to in case of a volcanic eruption as melting glaciers will flood the lowlands. In grizzly bear country, always talk loudly and carry bear spray in an easy-to-reach area as we’ve had several close encounters where we’ve only had seconds to deploy it.
Exposure, bad weather, gear failure and wildlife encounters are everywhere but in our opinion the biggest dangers in the backcountry are other humans. 99% are great, wonderful, friendly people. That other 1% though… Best words of advice are to always trust your gut and if a situation doesn’t feel right, pack up and keep going, even if it is 2am.
4. How do you get food and water on the trail?
We get asked this one all the time! On trails that take less than a week, we’ll usually pack all the food we need with us unless there is a resupply point that is easy to get to. On trips longer than a week, we’ll plan out a series of resupply points where we’ll either pick up a resupply box of nonperishable food items we packed before the trip from a Post Office or trail friendly business or simply go grocery shopping. Resupply points can be anything from hitchhiking or walking into a town with all the amenities to a hiker-friendly business like a hotel, hunting lodge or gas station convenience store.
Water is another story. We collect water from backcountry springs, rivers, wells or ponds and ALWAYS purify the water before drinking to avoid waterborne parasites and illnesses. To purify our water, we use a small portable water filter or water treatment drops like Aquamira with us. We’ve drank water from the most delicious cave filtered springs to muddy cow poop filled puddles with dead squirrels floating in them. Yep, you’re going to want that water filter!