The Bucket List Traveler
/By Cecily Mauran, produced by Out There Podcast
Released on July 15, 2021
Welcome to Out There Podcast. Our stories are written for the ear, so for those able, we recommend listening while reading along. Transcripts may contain minor errors; please check the audio before quoting.
(Sound of breeze blowing)
JESSICA TAYLOR: This is Jessica Taylor, and I am the advertising manager at Out There Podcast, and I’m actually in the middle of the Grand Canyon right now. And I’m out at Plateau Point, so I’m right above the Colorado River. And I’ve opened up my Peak Visor app.
WILLOW BELDEN: Peak Visor is our sponsor for this episode. Their app helps you figure out what you’re looking at when you’re out on adventures.
Let’s say you’re in a national park, and you see a mountain in the distance, and you want to know what it is. Peak Visor will tell you. It’ll show you the name of the summit, how tall it is, how far away it is...plus, loads more info.
JESSICA: It’s really cool to be able to see every single point and every single elevation of the entire canyon, all the way around me.
WILLOW: If you’d like to have your own personal mountain guide, check out Peak Visor in the app store. You just might love it.
(Out There theme music begins to play)
WILLOW: Hi, I’m Willow Belden, and you’re listening to Out There, the podcast that explores big questions through intimate stories outdoors.
Before we get started today, I wanted to let you know that we are currently accepting pitches for our upcoming season. The theme for the season is “Things I Thought I Knew.” If you’re an audio producer or writer, and you’d like to pitch us a story, head over to our website, outtherepodcast.com. We have all the details on what kinds of stories we’re looking for, as well as how to pitch us, under the “contact” tab. Pitches are due July 30.
(Out There theme music ends)
One of the things I think about a lot these days is the boundary between self-care, and doing good for others. How much self-care is appropriate, and when do you stop thinking about you, and focus on the greater good? Where’s the balance?
Today’s story offers a new twist on that question. It explores this division between self care and acts of service, and asks whether we’re looking at it the wrong way. What if self-care is NOT inherently selfish? What if doing something good for yourself, and doing something good for others, is a false dichotomy? What if you can have your cake and eat it too?
The story follows a woman named Linda Mohammad, who set out to visit all the national parks in the U.S. When she started on the project, she wasn’t trying to resolve any existential questions. She was just trying to get outside and get in shape. But the experience snowballed into something much bigger than that, and something much more beautiful. Cecily Mauran has the story.
CECILY MAURAN: Like all great adventures, it started with a Black Friday sale and a visit to the doctor’s office.
(soft music begins to play)
At least, that’s how it started for Linda.
LINDA: My full name is Nur Az Linda Mohammad, but I go by Linda, not because it's the easy thing to do. My mom, when she named me and my sister, she made it a point to give us a Malay name with some English name to it. So it works out.
(Linda laughs)
CECILY: Linda moved to the U.S. from Malaysia 17 years ago, and now she lives in the Central Valley of California. Her story starts in 2016.
She had recently decided that she wanted to be more physically active, but not just by going to the gym. She wanted to be outside enjoying nature. So when she found a CamelBak on sale, Linda started thinking about hiking as her new activity.
A few weeks later, she was at the doctor’s office browsing through a magazine. There she found an article listing all the national parks in California.
LINDA: So I thought, ‘Oh, well this is perfect. I got a Camelbak. I want to go hike. And now I have a list.’
(Linda laughs)
CECILY: A list. At that moment, Linda decided to set a goal for herself. She would visit all nine national parks in California.
This goal suited her. She is an engineer by trade, so working her way down a to-do list that required precise planning and logistics was the perfect challenge.
It didn’t take long to get the project off the ground.
First, she had to tackle the 100-degree heat of the appropriately named Death Valley National Park. Next up was Pinnacles National Park. And it was there, amongst the craggy rock formations, she realized this project was going to give her a lot more than just physical fitness and the satisfaction of checking off items on a list.
LINDA: It was a tough trail, but the more I hiked, the more I felt disconnected from all these racing thoughts about work and about, you know, family and other things that you usually, you know, think about. And at that time, it was just so peaceful, and I could hear my own thoughts about me, about, you know, things that I'm wondering about, but it's mostly like, it's about me and not trying to prioritize everybody, also anything else.
CECILY: That hike was liberating and empowering. It gave her the self-care she didn’t even know she was craving.
(music fades away slowly)
LINDA: And that was the moment that I got hooked on spending time outside, hiking, just being in my own thoughts and kinda, you know, fuel up that tank after a long week at work, or stressful week.
CECILY: From here on out, Linda’s project was full throttle. Every weekend she explored a new national park and returned home with a full tank, ready to start her work week. By the end of 2016, she had visited all nine of the national parks in California.
So naturally, she decided to keep going and visit all the parks in the US. All 59 of them. As a side note, there are now 63 parks, but at the time there were just 59.
Just to be clear, she was doing this while holding down a full-time job and leading an otherwise normal life. It’s not like she sold all her belongings and became a van lifer.
And it definitely wasn’t easy. But she made it work. Fueled by what she calls a…
LINDA: ...healthy obsession.
CECILY: Linda planned her whole calendar around the project.
(upbeat music begins)
She stockpiled vacation days and used long weekends for bigger trips, sometimes combining several parks in one trip. Long drives changed to red-eye flights as her park trips spread farther and farther across the country.
LINDA: Thursday night, I'll be at LAX, waiting to fly somewhere. And then as soon as you get to where I'm going, it'll be like 6 a.m. driving time to a national park somewhere. And I'll be back home by Sunday, close to midnight and you know, sleep for a couple of hours and then have to go to work on Monday.
(Linda chuckles)
CECILY: Sounds exhausting, right? And maybe even a little self-indulgent? Since often, when we have an action-packed weekend and get too little sleep, our work suffers.
But to Linda’s surprise, that wasn’t what happened.
LINDA: Before this, my performance review will always talk about how I'm meeting expectations, but I'm not really “out there”, literally. But all this experience outdoors and finding all this newfound strength and you know, challenging the limit and whatnot, it really shows up at work in terms of how I carry myself — my leadership style. And it really improved my performance.
(music fades away)
CECILY: And her work was just one of the aspects of her life that blossomed as a result. Working her way down that list of national parks was no longer just a side project but a driving force of her life.
LINDA: I feel so enriched. I feel so fulfilled by all the time that I spend in these parks. It kind of changed me as a person.
CECILY: Linda felt so much gratitude for what the parks had given her. She felt indebted to them, so she started volunteering with the National Park Service as a way to give back what she felt like she owed to the parks. For her, volunteering was a gesture of thanks. An acknowledgment of gifts given. And helping to protect and preserve the national parks was her small way of ensuring that she and others could continue to enjoy them.
So she started dividing her travels into two categories: some weekends she’d visit new parks, and others, she’d return to old parks for volunteer trips. She did things like guiding people at visitor centers, playing park movies, and her favorite task, swearing in kids as junior park rangers.
LINDA: Swearing them in…it’s like the cutest thing.
(Linda laughs)
CECILY: The actual park rangers thought she was crazy. After all, the John Muir Historic Site, where she was regularly volunteering, was not exactly in her backyard. She’d take a four-hour train at 6 a.m. just to volunteer for the day, and go back home that night. But Linda loved the chance to be able to give back, even just a little bit.
(soft music begins)
A year later in 2017, a friend took Linda on a volunteer trip to the Channel Islands national park. It’s a secluded set of islands off the coast of California that can only be accessed by boat. Picture dramatic rocky cliffs that plunge into the blue-green waters of the Pacific. She fell in love with the enchanting world of dolphins, whales, underwater kelp forests, and native foxes as friendly as dogs. It quickly became one of her favorite places to visit.
And because she loved it there so much, she wanted to enlist as much help as possible. So she turned to Instagram.
(music ends)
Linda had already built a significant following on Instagram through her page the Bucket List Traveler. And now, she began using it to recruit volunteers.
Over the years, those volunteers she recruited turned into friends.
Being an introvert, she never really imagined herself making friends through social media, but Linda and the people she met quickly bonded over their mutual love of national parks and conservation.
LINDA: We all have that genuine passion for the outdoors and for the parks. And because of that, we connected on a deeper level. And these are the friends that I will go on trips with, travel across the country with and, you know, some of them are lifelong friends, or will be.
CECILY: Her newfound friendships weren’t only about having fun and enjoying the parks together. They held a powerful significance. Her park friends shared the same values and ideals. They were park lovers like Linda. And through her, the park goodwill grew exponentially.
LINDA: To me, like the biggest honor is when I get, you know, two of my separate volunteer, national-park-loving friends connected and they start making plans without me.
(Linda laughs)
I think that's the best kind because now you know, the network just branch out and now they have new friends that share the same passion to go explore and experience all these parks.
WILLOW: Hey, it’s Willow. We’ll hear the rest of the story in a moment. But first…
(Sound of wind blowing)
JESSICA: So I’m looking all around me…
WILLOW: That’s my colleague Jessica. She’s out backpacking in the Grand Canyon.
JESSICA: And I’ve opened up my Peak Visor app, and I’m taking a look at everything around me. And I can see down where Phantom Ranch is, where I’m going to be tomorrow. Then on the opposite side, I see Bright Angel Point. That’s where we’re ending in three days. And it’s such a cool thing to be able to use the augmented reality feature to be able to point out all the peaks, all the way around me.
WILLOW: This episode is sponsored by Peak Visor, the app that Jessica is using. Peak Visor helps you plan out adventures — and figure out what you’re looking at when you’re out on those adventures. Their app has info on more than a million summits all over the world.
If that sounds appealing to you, check out Peak Visor in the app store.
And now, back to our story.
CECILY: Linda’s tank wasn’t just full; it was overflowing. She was in great shape. She was nurturing her soul. She had a nation-wide network of new friends. And now, she realized she could take it one step further and turn this project into something truly meaningful on a societal level.
(quiet music begins to play)
One of the things she had noticed over the years was that there weren’t a lot of women of color out on the trails. And now that she had this major Instagram presence, a lot of people were reaching out to her and telling her that she was an inspiration.
This came as a bit of a surprise.
Linda grew up in Malaysia where she was part of the racial majority. So when she moved to the U.S. for college, it was the first time she experienced being a minority.
Linda studied at Colorado School of Mines, which is a top engineering school. It also happens to be in a predominantly white part of the country. She got used to being the only person of color in the room.
So when she started her national parks bucket list, she wasn’t totally surprised about the lack of diversity in the outdoors. She also didn’t quite feel like it was her fight to take on. Yes, she looked different than most people on the trails, but she had never experienced overt discrimination or been made to feel out of place.
LINDA: It didn't quite bother me that I don't see people like me outside. I noticed it, but it didn't bother me because at that time, I just felt like, ‘Well, I'm just doing this for me.’
(music fades out)
CECILY: But as she got deeper into the world of park lovers on Instagram, she discovered accounts that promoted diversity on the trails. Accounts with names like Brown People Camping and Unlikely Hikers. They talked about the obstacles that a lot of people of color face in the outdoors…and used their platforms to push back against those obstacles and help people overcome them.
Linda started to realize that while the lack of other black and brown people on trails hadn’t stopped her from getting outside, not everyone felt comfortable or safe if they didn’t see other people who looked like them out on the trails.
LINDA: The last few years I learned, you know, when we talk about those spaces, how representation matters. And also, just because I don't experience any of the setbacks that other people of color experience, it didn't mean that it didn't happen. So it's just a lot of light bulbs that pop at the time.
CECILY: Linda realized it was important for her to just be out there. And not just for her own personal edification — and not even just to care for public lands. It was important because she was being a role model. She was visible. Somebody that other people of color and female solo travelers could relate to. The very act of visiting national parks as a woman of color was a challenge to the status quo.
LINDA: And the fact that I am out there, doing my thing, I think in some ways it does inspire some solo female travelers and people of color, a lot of friends from Asian and Hispanic and Black communities that find that connection and, you know, they will seek suggestions and advices and not just trails and trips, but also, “Hey, is this a safe place to go as a person of color who's a solo female traveler?”
(joyful music begins to play)
CECILY: In October 2019, Linda and a friend visited Everglades National Park, the final park on her list. Before walking out onto the trail, her friend said they had forgotten something in the car, so they doubled back to the visitor center. And there waiting for her was a surprise party that her friends had arranged with the park rangers.
LINDA: And it was a total surprise. There were cupcakes, the park made this certificate for first time, congratulating me. We have a small ceremony. It was, it was so awesome.
CECILY: National park friends who couldn’t be there had even coordinated ahead of time and mailed in postcards from all over the country. It was at this moment — surrounded virtually and physically by friends that she had found through her project — that she realized something important. She realized that what started as a way of doing something good for herself, became a means of sending good back into the world. She could have her cupcakes and share them with her friends too.
Linda was surrounded by the community that she had created, all because she had chased self care in the outdoors…and because she wanted people to feel as good as she did. For Linda, self-care didn’t just stop with the self; it was what drove her to give back.
LINDA: It always makes me smile, because I felt like for this community, I'm always happy to give: give information, give tips, give opportunities to meet up in hikes and do things, and for once like to be on the receiving end and be celebrated…
(music fades out)
CECILY: It was the perfect finish to Linda’s project. She had visited 61 national parks in just three years. Which, if you think about it, is pretty bonkers. It’s about 20 national parks a year. Most people don’t do that in a whole lifetime.
By then, Linda had joined the Board of Directors for the Channel Islands Foundation, amassed thousands of followers on Instagram, and was an official ambassador for several hiking and outdoors communities. She’s even become a brand ambassador for HydroFlask, the trendy water bottle company.
But in many ways, it was just the beginning for a goal-oriented engineer in search of a new challenge.
LINDA: It felt...I felt accomplished. That's for sure. But at the same time, it made me ask myself, what's next? What is going to be the next big bucket list?
CECILY: Linda’s current bucket list ideas include visiting all 50 states, taking all 30 of the Amtrak train routes, and visiting all 423 of the National Park units — which are places like monuments, battlefields, and other historic sites that are managed by the National Park Service. As of this interview, Linda had already visited 171 of them.
(music begins)
WILLOW: That episode was reported, written and produced by Cecily Mauran. Cecily was one of our interns last semester. She’s a print and audio journalist living in Brooklyn, New York. You can find her on Twitter @cecily_mauran.
Special thanks to Cara Schaefer for suggesting the story and introducing us to Linda.
(music fades out)
Coming up next time on Out There, we talk with Sarah Maslin Nir, author of a book called “Horse Crazy”. Her book is part memoir, and part cultural exploration. It dives deep into things horses can show us about ourselves, and our society. For example, we talk about the legacy of Black cowboys, we talk about gender stereotypes surrounding “horse culture”…and we talk about a fascinating phenomenon known as Breyerfest.
SARAH MASLIN NIR: There, in that room, I saw adults doing something that I don’t let myself do as a grown-up anymore, which was play. It was pure play.
WILLOW: Tune in on July 29 to hear that episode.
(folksy music begins to play)
Before you go, I have a couple of announcements. First, I’m excited to say that Out There received a major national award. Each year, the Public Media Journalists Association honors the best audio stories from across the country. We took second place in the Independent Podcast Division, for our episode “A Series of Unlikely Events.” That episode was reported and produced by our former intern Aja Simpson. And I just want to say: Congratulations, Aja! I’m so proud of you.
In case you missed that episode, it’s called “A Series of Unlikely Events” and I have a link to it in the show notes.
Also, if you are a writer and/or audio producer, I’d like to invite you to pitch us a story for our upcoming season. As I mentioned at the top of the show, the theme for the season is “Things I Thought I Knew.” We have all the details for how to pitch us, at our website, outtherepodcast.com. Just click on the contact tab. Pitches are due July 30.
A big thank you to Eric Biedermann, Maya Kroth, Phil Timm, Doug Frick, Tara Joslin, and Deb and Vince Garcia, for their financial contributions to Out There.
If Out There brightens your day at all, consider making a financial gift to the show. You can make a contribution in any amount — every dollar helps. Go to outtherepodcast.com and click support to make a donation now. Or you can find us on Venmo @outthere-podcast. Thank you so much.
(music ends)
Okay, time for a pop quiz. How many mountains are there in the world?
Any guesses?
Turns out, there are 1,187,049 peaks that have names. And a lot more if you count the ones that don’t have names.
If you’re anything like me, you probably like to know what mountains you’re looking at, when you’re out on an adventure. But a lot of the time, it’s hard to figure it out because hiking maps usually only show you the immediate vicinity.
Lucky for us, there’s an app out there that can help. It’s called Peak Visor.
Peak Visor is our sponsor for this episode.
Their app provides mountain names, elevation, distance, and a ton of extra information on more than a million summits all over the world.
Check out PeakVisor in the app store. You just might love it.
(Out There theme music begins to play)
If you’re new to Out There, check out the “Best of Out There” playlist. This is a collection of some of our favorite episodes of all time — and it’s a great introduction to the range of stories we do on the show. You can find “Best of Out There” on Spotify, and at our website outtherepodcast.com.
That’s it for this episode. Our advertising manager is Jessica Taylor. Our audience growth director is Sheeba Joseph. Cara Schaefer is our print content coordinator. Our interns are Melat Amha and Tanya Chawla. Our ambassadors are Tiffany Duong, Ashley White, and Stacia Bennet. And our theme music was written by Jared Arnold.
We’ll see you in two weeks.
(theme music ends on a last whistling note)
