In the fall of 2021 the burnout, my friends, was real. That October, I determined that I needed to rapidly disassemble my day-to-day routine, yeet myself clear of everything that I considered normal, and not deal with… anything for just a little while, at least. The tool I used to break the chains that bound me to a cable modem and my three LCD screens was backpacking. Four years on now and it’s sort of stuck, and it’s all YouTube’s fault.
I grew up in the western suburbs of Chicago, and I am a suburban soul through and through whose knowledge of the outdoors comes from a handful of park district programs and a 1965 Boy Scout handbook that I thumbed through on a long car ride this one time. I also have a comically bad sense of direction that has, on multiple occasions, put me in literal, actual danger. Now I hike and camp and wander around in the woods for days at a time unattended, and it’s something that I can’t imagine my life without.
I’m healthier now than I was even just a year ago, and I have aspirations in mind that require me to be healthier still. But more than anything, I enjoy the solitude of a long, multi-day solo hike with an ugly, big backpack tied to my waist and hanging from my shoulders. When you’re literally so far off the grid that you can’t get cell service, the days get longer, and the food — even if it’s parboiled and floating in a Mylar bag — just tastes better. I am literally Calvin’s father now.
Backpacking has helped me turn a corner on both my mental and my physical well-being, and I could not have done it without these three channels.
Adventure Archives
Andrew Lin, Bryan Lin, Robby Huang, and Thomas Sinard are the four quirky knuckleheads behind Adventure Archives, which today boasts close to 220,000 subscribers. Their channel does exactly what it says on the tin: It holds a video archive of their various outdoor adventures, which range from benign two-day walks through the Midwest to epic tours of our country’s most beautiful scenic landscapes. Their latest effort, a two-hour-and-36-minute romp through the canyons of the Tetons, is well worth your time — and a celebration of their own 15-year journey into the outdoors.
While there are scores of self-indulgent vanity projects that do more or less the same thing on YouTube, these fellas show an uncommon level of humility in their work. They are not afraid to show their failures on camera, and they never come off as condescending. Adventure Archives also goes easy on the affiliate advertising, which has become a bit of a plague among outdoor creators on YouTube of late.
I have no idea what their backgrounds are in life, but I get a suburban vibe that tells me they didn’t have too much dirt under their fingernails growing up either. Just by showing up on my TV, they made me believe that a guy like me who sits behind a computer rolling dice all day can go solo backpacking and come home at the end of it all in one piece.
Homemade Wanderlust
Jessica “Dixie” Hawkins is a triple-crown hiker, meaning she’s completed the Appalachian Trail, the Pacific Crest Trail, and the Continental Divide Trail — three of the most intimidating trails in the National Scenic Trails system. She’s also one of the most generous educators I’ve found on the backpacking hobby. Much like the gang at Adventure Archives, she’s also incredibly humble.
While many other outdoor-focused channels on YouTube will sprinkle a little bit of wisdom into each of their dozens of videos, Hawkins is kind enough to put virtually everything she knows into one nearly four-hour master class online. She writes and then narrates her videos in a style that avoids jargon and makes no assumptions about the level of expertise of her viewers. It’s the same sort of voice I try to foster here in the tabletop section at Polygon, and she does it expertly and naturally, sharing a mountain of information that feels light and logical. Before I went on my first solo trip, I went through the entire thing over the span of two weeks with a pencil and a notebook, and I was infinitely better off for the experience.
It’s safe to say no other creator on YouTube has taught me more, or in more detail, than Hawkins has — including the fact that it’s important to know when and how to call for help in the backcountry when you need it.
Miranda Goes Outside
The longtime face of REI’s own YouTube channel, Miranda Webster is an absolute powerhouse on YouTube. Her spirit of adventure is infectious, and I’ve spent many a night watching her bubbly self bouncing down the trail, leaving nothing but joy and a sense of belonging in her wake.
Her perpetual positivity both confounds and inspires me, but it’s her sense of playfulness that has helped motivate the rest of my family to join me on some of my recent backcountry adventures. Her three-part series searching for the best backcountry toilets in the Pacific Northwest is — I’m being 100% f’real here — absolutely stunning. This is a woman who really knows her shit, so to speak, with a small but dedicated cadre of experts/best friends/co-workers to support her.
Despite occasionally crossing over into a very gear-focused run of episodes, her channel is a reliable source of good outdoor vibes and great information at the same time. She’s also not afraid to go outside her comfort zone and try new things. While I won’t be trail running or making dried toothpaste chunks to cut down on weight in my pack anytime soon, I’m absolutely behind her call to normalize mixing old-school camping gear with a more modern ultralight kit… if only because none of this new stuff fits my freakishly tall body anyway.
Good luck out there, Miranda, and here’s hoping a wandering group of Hall family hikers bumps into you on a trail next summer.
The post YouTube turned me into a backpacker. These are my 3 favorite outdoor creators on the platform appeared first on Polygon.
