- New York Times bestselling travel book author.
- Winner of 2015 gold Lowell Thomas Award for best travel book, 2021 Silver National Outdoor Book Award, three gold Indie book of the year awards, and more than 20 others.
- I’ve also written three books about music. I’m a pianist (classical, church, and pop/rock music) and a piano teacher. I also play bass guitar, hammered dulcimer, cello, and guitar.
- Claim to fame: I was one of the first women to hike the “Triple Crown” (all 8,000 miles of the Appalachian, Pacific Crest, and Continental Divide national scenic trails) — and I’ve hiked a total of 18,000 miles on 6 continents.
- Superpower: Learning new stuff and sharing it with others via books, how-to articles, public speaking, and teaching.
Click to visit my book page, magazine page, photography page, music website, and bio.
Read the Wikipedia article about my work.
Writing News
April, 2023. My newest book, Hiking America’s National Parks, was published by Rizzoli. Photographer Jonathan Irish provided the images; former Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell wrote the introduction.
October, 2022. Curious about what it takes to hike the entire Appalachian Trail? Start here: The Appalachian Trail: A Beginner’s Guide, written for Outside, earned an honorable mention in the Lowell Thomas Awards for travel journalism.
August, 2022. For years, I’ve been taking pictures of a tree in my town. So have lots of other people. Elma — an American elm that survived Dutch elm disease, perhaps by virtue of bring socially distanced in a farm field — has made it into the Library of Congress, the Guardian newspaper, and now, into this story I wrote for Berkshire magazine.
March, 2022. Walk into the past with me with this Saturday Evening Post cover story about America’s National Historic Trails.
November, 2021. America’s National Historic Trails won a silver National Outdoor Book Award. It also won the gold history book of the year award from the Foreword Magazine/INDIE’s awards program.
The book came out in late 2020, and received wonderful media attention, including write-ups in Outside, People, Frommers, USA Today, Afar, Prior Club, BookPage, and Forbes. People magazine included it in its list of the best coffee table books of 2020. Bart Smith took the photos, and Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan wrote the foreword. I am so grateful to them and the fantastic team at Rizzoli! This is a book for anyone who is interested in the intersection of American history and the landscape.
June, 2020. Covid-19 has changed everything for everybody. It has been especially challenging for those of us with medical conditions. My essay in the Saturday Evening Post on having surgery for thyroid cancer at the beginning of the pandemic describes the weird new normal — and the unexpected gratitude I found as everyone I encountered made the best of a world that had changed overnight.
2019: Not exactly news anymore, but I’m keeping this article here because it’s one of my favorite pieces. National Parks at 100 was the March/April 2016 cover story for the Saturday Evening Post. It won silver in the 2017 Society of American Travel Writers (Eastern Chapter) writing contest.
June, 2018: My book, Great Hiking Trails of the World (Rizzoli, 2017) won gold in Foreword Magazine‘s 2017 Indie Book Awards in the nature category. The book also made it into the New York Times Book Review, USA Today, the AP, and People magazine.
BucketTripper.com
This travel website features adventures around the world with a focus on adventure, eco-tourism, independent travel, historic sites, and building bridges and understanding between different cultures.
Etc.
In the sidebar you’ll find strategies and recipes for the keto way of eating. The strategies are here because so many people have asked me about my weight loss; the recipes are here because they are really really good and I am going to want to find them again some day.