Episode 1: Blue Yonder Overland Podcast Launch!
Welcome to the Blue Yonder Overland Podcast! In this first episode, main host, Jen, walks through her reasons for starting an overlanding podcast and what you can expect out of this season. She introduces her husband Mat and they talk about how they started camping, got into overlanding, and why they love it so much. Message us at blueyonderjen@ Instagram or Threads to suggest topics, guests or ask questions!
Show Notes and Links:
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Jen mentioned Mat works at Campworks, producing teardrop trailers.
Jen mentioned she did her first backpacking trip with Wild Society out of Kingston, WA- focused on equipping more people to get outdoors.
Jen worked for International Rescue Committee while in DC, Turkey, Uganda, and Seattle- they’re an amazing organization to check out if you want to stay up to date on current status of refugee admissions to US and how to help.
Jen referenced using the amazing resources provided by Washington Trails Association to find weekly hikes in WA.
Jen mentioned one of her favorite podcasts is the On Being podcast.
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Episode 1 Transcript - January 23, 2025
Lightly edited for clarity
Jen: Hey, everyone! And welcome to the very first episode of the Blue Yonder Overland podcast! I'm so excited to share this creative venture with you. I’ll be your main host, Jen, and my goal today is just to cover “What is overlanding?”, why I love it so much, why I’m starting a podcast about it and what sort of conversations and topics you can expect from this season of the podcast. I’ll eventually bring on my husband Mat, who will be an occasional co-host with me whenever I can tear him away from his day job which is actually making teardrop trailers that are awesome for overlanding, here in Colorado at Campworks.
For those of you brand new to the overlanding space, I have a pretty broad definition of it. I'm really talking about any time you're using your vehicle to get outside in camp and any time you're looking for a campsite beyond an established campground. So as I've gotten into overlanding with my husband, Mat, I found that it really involves this element of self-sufficiency. So bringing along the resources that we'll need for our adventures, whether that's shelter, food, thinking about how to have clean water, bathroom, carrying on our trash. But it also has this element of discovery and research. So it involves a little bit of a quest. You have to do some research ahead of time, either by reading maps, consulting guides or forums, checking us for a site and whether places are open. But there's this element of discovery in your own campsite, and that's one of the reasons we love it.
If you're intimidated by that idea, we're also going to be covering a lot of practical strategies and tips that I hope you get outside and camping in any fashion that fits your lifestyle and you or your family's needs, as well as just general tips to get outdoors more and how to have the right mindset for overlanding but also for finding adventure in your just everyday life, whether that's right outside your front door on your normal commute or venturing to your local state park or further afield. We'll cover everything and I hope to bring on guests that can speak to different experiences than I have had. So you'll get a very well-rounded idea of the types of adventures that you could have if you're looking to go beyond the campgrounds.
While I want to touch on those ideas about how we can cultivate curiosity in our everyday lives and think about how we can bring the adventures that we have on the weekends home with us in our day to day lives. I also want to provide some really practical guidance, so you might especially get a lot out of this podcast if you're interested in literally getting more nights camping under the stars, whether alone with friends or family, just more nights outside. If you're already into overlanding and are familiar with the idea of dispersed camping, but looking for a community, looking for more tips on where to go and find great sites, tips on how to pack better prep, better tips on cooking gear, rigs- we’ll delve into all of those topics over the course of our season as well.
I'll introduce Mat shortly and we'll discuss how we both individually got into overlanding and cover some of the top reasons why you should consider starting to overland.
I should also note that for a lot of these episodes, we're actually going to get the chance to record them while we're out overlanding this spring. So starting in mid-February, we are taking the leap to actually be full time in our teardrop trailer camping largely across the southwest of the United States. Given the springtime weather we'll be setting out from Denver, Colorado and heading to Texas first, actually where my college roommate lives, enjoying a wine weekend and some camping there. And then we have a couple different expos that we've got into this spring, including one in L.A. in mid-March and down in Phoenix, I believe that’s in the first half of April. And so we're building our itinerary now, trying to fit in as much camping as we can in New Mexico and Arizona and Utah and a little bit of California as well. All of those adventures will eventually lead us all the way back home to the Pacific Northwest, to Kingston, Washington, where we're currently renting out the house that we own, but expect to move back in around June of this year. So excited to see all of our Pacific Northwest friends at that point and get back to some of our favorite spots. In the meantime, lots of new spots to explore.
As I've been doing all of the prep work to launch this podcast and thinking about what the real purpose is, who the audience is, what types of guests I want to have on. I realized that it was important to define some of the values that I was going to try to shape the podcast around, and so I wanted to briefly share those as well. The first is simply curiosity. I want to always be curious about the backstory of people and places we're exploring. Adventure: I believe it's a mindset and it doesn't require leaving your hometown to find adventure can be found right outside your front door. Inclusivity: I believe we all have a story worth telling and I want to cultivate a safe space to tell it. Approachable: I don't think there's any stupid questions when it comes to overlanding. I will certainly be asking them. And with the mindset that we're all learning, right? And everybody's an expert in something, but not everything. And lastly, action: Start today. Start small baby steps, but start.
I believe there is such a magic in simply starting. And it actually goes back to a favorite quote of mine that I've had taped near my office computer wherever I've been working since about 2014. The quote, which was shared with me by one of my oldest and dearest friends, Candace Rose, who is currently living in Belgium, goes something like this and it's from William Hutchinson Murray:
“The moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves to. Whatever you can do or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.”
And I love that quote because I've just seen it play out so many times in my own life, where if I can admit the dreams that I want to go after, the adventures that I want to have, and start speaking them aloud to friends, putting them out into the world, going after them in the smallest of ways, but really trying to pursue them. It's sometimes shocking the ways that the universe seems to open up and provide the opportunities to actually have those adventures, go to those places, do those things. And so I am embracing that quote as I start what seems to be a crazy idea for me, this podcast. And as we embrace a life without a permanent address for a few months this spring.
[musical interlude]
Jen: Okay. So now I'm sitting down with my husband, Mat, across from me. Thank you for agreeing to be interviewed for our very first episode. This is exciting.
Mat: Yes, very exciting. And of course, I'll be interviewed any time- a member of any of your episodes.
Jen: Thank you. Okay. So I think where we need to start is at the very beginning.
Mat: It's a very good place to start.
Jen: So, Mat, tell me a little bit about you growing up? Did you grow up camping and spending a lot of time outdoors? Or what was that like? When did you get into it?
Mat: Yeah, we didn't do a lot or really any camping growing up. I think I had one year in the Cub Scouts when I was eight and didn't do any camping with them, but I would say I really started camping in college, going with friends, just starting with, you know, we would went to San Diego State and drive up to Joshua Tree and camp for a few days, that sort of thing. But as far as getting really into camping and overlanding, that didn't happen until I was sort of in the last legs of my time in the Navy and getting out of the Navy.
Jen: Okay. So. Joshua Tree, you said, was one of your initial camping experiences. Was that backpacking car camping?
Mat: Yeah, I did both. So it started with car camping that was the most approachable thing. Didn't take too much gear for college students and with friends that didn't have a lot of gear. So we just sort of, you know, got in my 1990 Mazda protege and stuff whatever we could in there and went up and camps for whatever that was worth. I did my sixth year at San Diego State. I did two backpacking trips that year. One was to Joshua Tree, which I did with the school, and the other one was to outside of Yosemite Park, the Ansel Adams wilderness. I did that with like an online group.
Jen: I want to explore a little bit of your background because I feel like that leads into the type of overlander that you are. So tell me why you ended up spending six years at San Diego State and where that led you then after graduation?
Mat: Absolutely. So I was aerospace engineering student. I was very lazy in high school, sort of grew up in college. And so that process pretty much cost me a year for the engineering degree no matter what, just getting off to a slow start. At a certain point I did really figure it out and I started working full time in addition to going to school, and it was just easier at that point to sort of take a slightly lower load, you know, say 15 credits instead of 18 credits and towards the end, I also joined the Navy.
Jen: Okay. So you graduated and went straight into the Navy, but specifically submarines?
Mat: Yes, went almost immediately after graduating to Officer Candidate School in Rhode Island, then started all my submarine training from nuclear engineering down in Charleston, in upstate New York, to a sub school in Connecticut, and then finally reported to a boat in Maine. Did some time in the shipyard there before taking it through the Panama Canal to San Diego. Spent a good almost two years in San Diego with the boat, did a bunch of workups and a long deployment there and then. Yeah, I finished up my naval career teaching at sub school up in Bangor, Washington, and that's where we met.
Jen: Okay. Wow. So your Navy journey really took you to basically all four corners of the U.S.?
Mat: Yeah, all four corners of the U.S.. And I spent almost three months, three months underwater or in Guam.
Jen: Three months underwater. Wow. Okay. So then your relationship with the outdoors during that time, did you still try to get out and camp or do things or how was it impacted? And kind of then when did you get back into outdoors if you had to kind of take a step back?
Mat: With the schedule, you know, there's a lot of those, particularly when you're attached to a submarine, a lot of work, a lot of time there. When I was getting outdoors, it was just for a hike or a bike ride, something like that, with a couple exceptions. And I one, I sort of alluded to having spent some time in Guam for that, I went and was temporarily assigned to the USS Chicago out there for one of their deployments. And that was sort of my first, you know, trip as a brand new baby ensign. And so went out and did a two month mission with them. They sort of operate on a different mission cycle. Anyway, getting back from that, it was sort of one of those experiences where I just wanted to be outside. So I pulled back in. I flew out the next day. That night I slept out on the balcony of one of the shipmate’s apartments there. And then when I got back, I had a few days off and I went up to my aunt and uncle's in Vermont and I just slept on their hammock outside. I just sort of wanted to be outside.
Jen: Can I ask what month of the year this was?
Mat: We got back in, I think it was late October, so it was pretty cold. My aunt was definitely worried about it when I said it was what I was going to do because it was in the high thirties, but you know, a bunch of blankets and some clothes- I was fine.
Jen: So basically it was just getting you ready for your eventual love of overlanding in winter?
Mat: Yes, yes, that's true. Winter is definitely my favorite season to go camping. I do really enjoy that brisk cold. There's a beauty in the silence of the winter. But yeah, that was sort of what I realized, I want to do more camping and then as I'm sure we'll all discuss, there was a journey in camping, as you've already mentioned, and in sort of leading up to this discussion, you know camping is a whole wide range of things. And starting where you're comfortable, whether that's a glamping experience at a state campground or car camping or backpacking, whatever it is. And yeah, so I started really with car camping at that campgrounds, you know, loading up my Subaru at the time, the tent and chairs and all the stuff that I thought was important that I realized wasn't and then slowly made my way into the dispersed camping realm because we got tired of the competitive site that is getting good campsites in, especially in Washington. Yeah. And, then discovered that that was just incredibly fun. And as I did that more, my gear, equipment and vehicles all changed. And now here we are today. About to go out for a few months and live on the road.
Jen: It's going to be awesome. Okay, so we've traced your journey from San Diego State and getting into the Navy, eventually making your way all the way to the Pacific Northwest and into overlanding. And I can tell you, my very first overlanding experience was with you and just seeing how you had set your truck up, if I didn't know already that you had been on a submarine, I probably could guess because of the intense way in which you packed and organized everything. And just everything had a specific little space it was supposed to go in. Half the time, it was probably labeled as well. You used magnets in places I never would have thought of to just take advantage of every extra square inch of space you had. I mean, you'd even bought, like, color coded koozies for us ahead of time because you asked me what my favorite color was and bought me a turquoise drink koozie. I mean, it was meticulous.
Mat: Yeah, definitely. You know, I thought it was one of the important things- I mean, there's the general level of organization which I took with every trip. But, you know, when you're going camping with other people, having them have their own things and know what's theirs and stuff, it just reduces friction.
Jen: And I guess it worked out for us. I liked it!
Mat: Yeah. I wanted to make sure you felt like you were a part of the experience and you weren't, you know, just along for the ride that you were there.
Jen: Yeah, well, it definitely helped me feel included and I think got us off to a great start camping together.
Mat: Yeah. What do you remember about that first trip?
Jen: I remember that it was the day after I had met your twin sister, actually, who happened to be passing through Washington. So I met Alex. And then the next day we set out for just a quick overnight trip. You said it was one of your favorite spots and it was fairly close, maybe a couple of hours drive, but it seemed like a pretty low key way to get out and camp together…like kind of testing the waters before we invested in like a huge trip together.
Mat: Yes. There's there's definitely parts of a trip that can be stressful. And so in picking where we went, the goal is to really eliminate any of the stressors. So I knew where we were going. It was like a known quantity. I had been there multiple times.
Jen: It was also an awesome spot, beautiful view! Well, not just a beautiful view. You also pulled out all the stops in terms of food.
Mat: I went a little overboard.
Jen: Ha! A little overboard? He packed an Ooni pizza oven and made me pizza with a view of Mt. Rainier and the Puget Sound. And did you also bring ice cream on that trip too?
Mat: Yeah, since it was only one overnight. I converted the fridge to fridge/ freezer and made sure we had some ice cream.
Jen: So I could have dessert. Yeah, utterly, utterly spoiled on my very first overland trip. But wow did that sell me on the experience!
Mat: Yeah. You know, the great thing and and why I think we don't backpack that often- there's something to be said about the carrying capacity of, in that case a Tacoma, and the ability to bring those extra things that are completely not necessary for the experience but add to the experience. And you know, it's one of the reasons I get frustrated when people really view camping as a very singular thing or why you're going camping, why are you doing X, Y or Z? Camping is really about getting outdoors and having a good time and whatever it takes to get you out there, don't feel guilty or anything about that. Just like, let's make it a part of your life and yeah, make it a part of your setup and…
Jen: Whatever's going to make you enjoy the experience, go for it, figure out how to bring it with.
Mat: At least in some form… All right, Jen. So we've talked about how I got into overlanding and we've talked a little bit about your first experience, but we didn't really talk about what your experience in the outdoors was before that trip. So what was that?
Jen: Well, it's funny you mention that, because right around the time that we kind of got reintroduced to each other out on the Kitsap Peninsula, I had just done a women's backpacking trip weekend because I had come to the conclusion- I had thought when I moved to Seattle in 2017 that I was going to get into backpacking all the time, but it was probably going to be with a partner. Like everybody I talked to, everyone you met dating, they all were into the outdoors, right? So just obviously find a backpacking partner and we'd be out there all the time. And when that finally hadn't happened, I was like, okay, well, I guess I'm just going to have to go by myself. So I need to equip myself with the skills to do this. So I went and did this women's backpacking weekend and loved it, had a great time, was feeling very empowered about like, you know, how to actually use a camp cook stove. And I had the bear canister like I had all the stuff then to go to do it. And then not very much time later than you took me on that overland trip, which just kind of ruined me.
Mat: And yeah, I remember us talking about before you went on that backpacking trip and it sounded like a great trip with a really cool group of people.
Jen: Yeah, it was put on by Wild Society, which is an awesome organization out of Kingston, Washington. They have a huge focus on getting youth out into backpacking and being familiar with the outdoor world. And they also have a few different women's specific camping trips. So that was a fantastic way to just kind of get used to things. So if you're a woman out there thinking about it and find a group like that in your area, oh my gosh. That was yeah, it was amazing. Just in terms of the level of confidence building of being able to ask like experienced campers about, you know, what I felt like were stupid questions. So that was kind of where I was coming from just before we got into overlanding.
I think going all the way back to, you know, growing up, my family pretty much did no camping. I'm trying to actually think of a time where we slept in a tent…cannot come up with one in my head. Yeah, but it's funny because now they have more- It's like since I went off to college, my parents got super into biking and they would do like multi-day bike rides and camp overnight. But it's like we didn't do any of that stuff growing up.
Mat: Yeah, we've had some fun camping trips with your folks.
Jen: Yeah. So I would say my biggest experience with the outdoors growing up was the summers where we would vacation at my grandpa's ranch in the Black Hills of South Dakota is where my mom grew up. And it was a working cattle ranch for her growing up you know, doing chores, doing roundups, driving cattle across pasture. And so any time we got to spend at the ranch in the summer was just it was so exciting to me because we would be largely left to our own devices, you know, fairly young and be kind of given free reign, like general parameters of where we could go, but we would go off exploring into the woods.
Mat: And it's absolutely beautiful out there, you know if you've grown up in a situation like that, you're pretty lucky compared to the concrete jungle folks. I can see how that definitely changes your potential desire or need or opportunities to get outdoors.
Jen: Well…yeah. And I think, you know, concrete jungle- I was pretty much in suburbia my whole life, moving around in the Midwest a little bit, in Virginia and back to the Midwest, but the only time I really felt like I was out of suburbia was visiting either my grandparents in Minnesota or my grandparents in South Dakota.
Mat: So we've talked about, you know, growing up in the summers, being out on the ranch and that sort of thing, this amazing experience. But what happened between our first date camping and that, what else did you sort of do with respect to the outdoors?
Jen: I pretty much just dabbled in some day hikes. I was out in Baltimore and D.C., so I would spend time outside in parks. But that was about it until I moved to Turkey in 2015. And there I was lucky enough- I was working for International Rescue Committee, a humanitarian aid organization and our country director, Frank loved to hike. So when he would do PTO, he would go and do stuff like the trek across, what is it?- the El Camino across Spain like that. That was his idea of PTO.
So he would lead weekly hikes. Sunday morning at 8 a.m., you'd meet in the town square of Antakya, Turkey. Anyone who showed up by eight, like he would leave within 5 minutes, he wasn't going to wait around for stragglers. So if you'd get out too late the night before, that was your problem. But yeah. I'm not going to wait around for you. You got to show up. You got to be able to handle, you know, what we do. So I started showing up every Sunday morning and we would just do these hikes, usually at least half a day, somewhere into the foothills. There was all these I mean, the history around Antakya is just crazy, you know, like Roman ruins. And we'd hike up into some of these hills and find ruins. Or you could see, oh, across that river valley, like that's the border with Syria. But also it's very different. It's so beautiful. So that kind of got me into a habit.
And then I was in Uganda for a year after that with no real good habits of being outdoors. I mean, it was just such a moderate climate that you spend a lot of time outside anyway, but I wasn't necessarily doing a lot of hiking or camping. A couple, I guess safari trips where we did camp in tents. The most memorable one of those nights being all the warnings that we got about hippos and needing to be very careful about any sort of food, like everything had to be locked away, kind of similar to bear canisters here in the states where it was like you should not have anything smelly in your tent or your tent will get run down by hippos in the middle of the night.
So from Uganda, I moved to Seattle, all still with the same International Rescue Committee. And once I arrived in Seattle, I realized I could reinstate my weekly hiking habit.
Mat: Great spot for hiking every week.
Jen: Yeah. So every week I would pick a new hike from Washington Trails Association. They had an amazing app as well, filled with tons of user data and reviews about whether it was snow packed or not or whether it was still accessible and mileage, all that good stuff. So every week I would just pick a new hike and drive and do it whether I had someone with me or not. And I actually found that I had to be pretty careful about who I went hiking with. I preferred to hike alone unless I found another hiking buddy who also enjoyed solitude. So yes, quiet hikes. Exactly. Like I want to be listening to a boombox or talking to you the whole time. I want to get outside to just be quiet in nature, which I think then leads me ultimately back to one of the reasons why I so enjoy dispersed camping and overlapping. When you introduced me because I realized like, Oh, this is the part of being outdoors that I really, really like where you're not around anyone else.
Mat: Yes, yes. When with dispersed camping, I mean, that's certainly one of my favorite things. When I decided I was going to go do it for the first time, you know, I remember just that feeling in the evening of quiet. And it's funny, the first spot I went to was by no means a good spot. I thought it was an amazing spot. And we've come to learn that, you know, it would now get probably a “C” or a “this is a back up if we can't find anything”. But the big thing that was amazing is after all the hikers were down (I was relatively close to trailhead), but after they were all done, I was just sort of out there by myself, got to watch sunset and everything and there was no one around. And we definitely had some great camp spots together where it's just like, okay, this, it's just us for a square mile.
Jen: Yeah, solitude for sunset. Watching the stars and enjoying the sunrise together.
Mat: Yeah, and we're both, I think, very courteous people. And so the ability to, you know, if you're cooking dinner or whatever, just being able to listen to music without worrying. Okay, am I annoying the campsite that's five feet away from me? Right, is also quite nice.
Jen: Yeah. So I want to explicitly then circle back, as we kind of wrap up our introductory interviews with each other, to we've touched on a little bit already just the reasons why we love overlanding or just anything else that comes to mind. You know, you've mentioned you were sick of sort of the competitive game- having to like reserve spots ahead of time, especially in Washington.
Mat: And I mean, not just the competitive game, but knowing when to do it. So if you're dealing with San Juan County parks versus Washington state parks versus federal.
Jen: Yeah, some are six months or nine months. Or like it opens on a certain date every year. Yeah. All the different rules. Yeah. It's hard to keep track of.
Mat: So just the flexibility of just knowing that you can go out and any time you don't have to have a spot reserve six months in advance and being able to go where the weather's good, you know, that's critical, particularly in the Pacific Northwest. The weather's bad everywhere. But sometimes if you drive a couple of hours one direction, you have good weather.
Jen: Yeah you can find some sunshine in the midst of an otherwise very…”the big dark” as we sometimes call it in Seattle.
Mat: Or do you want to go to snow or be away from snow events. Yeah, so, so flexibility.
Jen: We talked about seclusion a little bit, definitely being a highlight for us, just that you don't have anyone right next to you.
Mat: Yeah, I think hitting on the flexibility side, too, and I think this is the thing I like most about it, whether you show up with two, just the two of us, or whether we show up with friends or family, you know, it's it's very easy to make those adjustments when you're doing dispersed or overland camping and then not having to worry about. What are the rules about having an extra car. That's another friend coming. But we can only have one extra vehicle. What do we do with all that.
Jen: Yeah, and all those logistics and are dogs allowed in that camp?
Mat: Yeah. Because everyone has dogs but dogs can be a real headache to go camping with if you are going to the campgrounds. Amazing if you have dispersed camping.
Jen: Yeah, that's fantastic. And I like what you said too about it's really easy to bring friends and family. And I think it's not only one of the cheapest ways to go camping with friends and family, but it also just gets you really quality time because you're kind of forced to be- a lot of the places that we found aren't the best in terms of cell service and I kind of like it that way kind of forces you to have more offline interactions and deeper chats.
Mat: Yeah, yeah. I think a lot of times people ask, you know, why? What's the main reason that I like doing this so much? And I sort of always figured there's three things in life that you really have to do. You've got to work. You know, you've got to spend time with friends and family. And for me at least, I've got to get outside. And it's really great when you can combine two of them and ideally when you combine three of them, which is what we're going to be doing this spring.
Jen: Exactly. Which makes me very excited. The last, I think, point that stood out to me from our conversation are things we really enjoy about overlanding is just the joy of discovery and kind of getting to make your own map, your own customized track of your own adventures, the spots that you like, which might be different than the spot someone else would choose. Everybody has their own kind of variables of whatever they consider is most important to them. You know, maybe you want something that's by a river or a stream that's really important to you. Or maybe you want to prioritize only spots with an amazing vista mountaintop view.
Mat: Or maybe you're looking for seclusion. So getting into the trees or getting away from people.
Jen: Or maybe you're looking for spots near activities that you want to do near bike trails or cross-country ski trails. But either way, you get to kind of customize your own map of adventures. And I love just that sense of discovery. And then also I love geeking out, making a detailed map.
Mat: Yeah, it's funny. I would have assumed that at some point we would have, you know, stopped searching for new spots and just repeat. We have, I mean, tons of great spots in Washington State, but we almost always chose to go and search for new, even though I don't think we anticipated finding better spots. We anticipated finding great spots, but just new spots or you know is it by an activity? We love biking, we love hiking. We love being by the water. So can we find spots that allow this sort of thing or allow you to go into town easily. So, you know, we have a great spot near Leavenworth as an example. Maybe we want to go in and meet people who don't like camping and do something or get a nice dinner.
Jen: Yeah. So that's a good point. Discovery and…
Mat: Discovery. Yeah.
Jen: Tell me what you're most excited about in terms of the camping adventures on the horizon for us in 2025.
Mat: I think one of them is just the discovery side of it. I mean, I've never really driven or spent time in Texas other than driving through Texas. So seeing that, you know, we've driven through New Mexico a lot and haven't really ever been able to stop there. So discovering those new ones, but also, yeah, it really is the ability to not just bring our friends and family along for bits and pieces- I know we're working on getting some friends out to Texas to join us, but also through mechanisms like this podcast, sharing the joy of this with others and doing that while we're on the road is going to be a blast.
Jen: That's awesome. Yeah, it's a good way of putting it.
Jen: So now that you've gotten a chance to hear a little bit more about me and Mat and how we got into overlanding, I talk a little bit about why I'm starting a podcast and why I'm starting it now. If you'd asked me even a year ago if I might ever start a podcast, I probably would've laughed in your face, honestly. I think ever since podcasts have just exploded in popularity, especially over the last 5 to 6 years, I've developed almost this ornery reaction to it, which won't surprise anyone who knows me. Yes, I can be a bit stubborn, but almost like the more someone insists that I love something or tells me to listen to something, I often have the opposite reaction of what you might hope and decide that it's not for me. That's not to say I haven't loved some podcasts over the years.
When I first was commuting to a job in Washington, D.C. from Baltimore on the train for an hour, I got into podcasts at that time and really liked some of those. The ones that I tended to gravitate towards were ones like On Being, which if you haven't listened to it, do yourself a favor some time and go download an episode. The host, Krista Tippett, does this amazing job of getting these world class thinkers, leaders, speakers, poets, musicians, tech moguls, anybody and everybody, and talking to them about the way they find meaning in life and motivation for the things that they do and what's contributed to their sense of self and sense of where they are in the world. The other type of podcast that I tend to gravitate towards are those really focused on practical how-to knowledge. So this is something I was listening to when I was starting out my coffee business and learning about the different business structures like an LLC versus an S-corps, or even thinking longer term, if I wanted to try to turn it into a brick and mortar shop. What do you need to think about when you're looking for a commercial lease? So these really practical things that I could apply to what I was doing.
And that actually leads me to a gap, I think I found as I started to explore the overlapping space, and I just listen to a smattering of podcasts, kind of sampling what's out there and not finding a lot of them that were very approachable for beginners or people that were new to topics. And me and Mat always find ourselves in conversations with friends and family where we are usually advocating for getting outside or going on a camping trip or encouraging them to come along. Or maybe they're coming to us for advice on if they want to get into camping more, what gear they should purchase or they want to get a vehicle set up for overlanding, you know, where to start. And so we're always having these types of conversations in our personal lives anyway and thought we might be able to capture some of the things that we've learned and some of the advice that we're giving and put it out to a broader audience.
We've also talked about and started putting together some specific guides for areas of the country that we've gotten really familiar with. So we'd spent the last several years, both of us living in the Seattle area and then really exploring, especially the Olympic Peninsula. And Kitsap Peninsula is where we lived. And so around Olympic National Park and around Rainier, we've gotten pretty familiar with. So we'll be putting together some guides for that. And originally, I was thinking of this podcast as maybe just a short sort of series of audio guides to kind of go along with those location specific resources that might help people newer to the concept of overlanding or dispersed camping get into it and kind of walk them through, well, here's the basics that you need.
As I started writing out ideas for what those kind of maybe three or four episodes of an audio guide might look like, I ended up with a list of about 26 topics, and at that point I was like, “Huh, maybe I'm not talking about a limited series guide.” Maybe I'm actually talking about a full blown podcast. So that's when I started doing more research into the space and, you know, finding some, some gaps or I think an area where I can kind of fit in.
And that's the other thing to mention is that as I was doing this sort of sampling across the really in podcasting space, I wasn't finding a ton of women's voices or certainly like women as the main hosts. So that was just another area where we could be a little bit different. But also, keep in mind, you know, what I've loved about some of these other podcasts I've listened to and really going underneath the surface to unpack people's stories and not accepting whatever image they show the world at face value, but really trying to understand motivations. And I think that will allow me to unpack the more unique stories that everybody has hidden within them.
I'm going to try to be really clear about what you'll take away from the episodes. We'll do some nice summaries that I post online, and those will be paired with links and resource kits, really trying to empower you to get started with this information and really put it into practice. That's my goal. I'd love to see more people out adventuring because it's just been so awesome for us.
So in addition to talking a bit about why we're starting a podcast at all, I also wanted to briefly address why we're starting one right now, and the easiest way to explain it is just because we're going to be overlanding full time starting in February. Like I mentioned, we'll be setting off from Denver. So with all of that in the works, I realize there's a lot of things I need to upskill on to be on the road that much. And then while we're planning these trips together, both me and Mat, I also know that he's got a lot of irons in the fire for work this spring and could easily be called away to do on-site visits or expos or other things to do his work. And I still really want to do all these trips that I'm starting to plan, so I need to be prepared to handle them on my own. And that definitely means upskilling in some of these areas. So I'm really excited to dig into more of these topics and go a little bit deeper myself. And that's, you know, the impetus for a lot of where these topics are coming from.
The other big reason why I'm doing this spring is that I've done what probably seems like an insane thing and walked away from a salaried tech job. And I feel such a sense of relief at doing that, and I'm not sure exactly what my professional path is going to look like going forward. But I know that I really wanted to give myself some time to dig into creative ventures that I've just been putting on the backburner or not admitting to myself that I really wanted to do, basically since I was a teenager. I'll be writing a bit more, putting that over on Substack. And then this is another way for me to really get to create something. I also found that I really enjoyed the creative processes involved with starting a business when I launched my mobile espresso cart in 2023. And so I'll also be kind of restarting that endeavor this year as we get closer to moving back to Washington. But that's the other big reason is that I, at least for the foreseeable future, am just going to devote a lot of time to my creative endeavors and sort of see where they take me and see what they're with, where the adventures lead.
Now I'd like to preview some of the topics that we'll get into before I leave you with where you can find more information and resources and links from the podcast, as well as how to stay connected online and send us suggestions. So I'm planning out our spring full of episodes right now. So we're going to start at the beginning. We're going to start with how to find campsites and just sort of general things to keep in mind and specific resources and some of our favorite corridors to explore. Then the next episode we'll get into just the basics of what do you need to get started? Thinking about it from just a very simple perspective- what's the bare minimum that you need to be bringing along with you or packing in order to have a good time overlanding. We’ll delve into all sorts of extra stuff, I'm sure, as we get into future episodes. But want to start with the basics to get you started, cover that first.
Then I'm excited to have an interview lined up where we will discuss how to Overland Solo. So tips that you might want to keep in mind if you're going out solo, as well as how to brew up the best camp coffee of your life. Some of the other topics that will be diving into the spring include things like “Dirty Secrets of Overlanding”: how do you deal with actually going to the bathroom or your trash while you're out? How you can make camp cooking easier based on how you prep for it. We'll talk about some basic vehicle setups, avoiding pitfalls, things like seasonal considerations that you might want to take in mind, both for your vehicle or for just your comfort out there camping as well as how to travel with pets. I'm excited for that one since we will be traveling with our cat Juniper along with us, which should be very entertaining-hopefully. And then at some point this year we're going to get up to Canada overlanding and so we will be doing a special episode on Canada as well. But that's just to give you a sampling, I'm sure we’ll uncover a lot more questions and topics as well as guest speakers as we go.
So if you have an idea for a topic, you think we should cover- a burning question that you have about overlanding or a guest to nominate- feel free to get in touch with me at BlueYonderJen@ at either Instagram or Threads. I’m posting on both, and I'll be posting more about our episodes and upcoming topics as we go there. And then we'll be posting all of our podcast episodes online at BlueYonder-Adventures.com, and that's kind of where we'll house all of our business ventures related to any guides that we put together or we might put together a couple of hosted trips or consulting on planning your perfect trip in the future, and we’ll also include all of our podcast episode, show notes, links to resources that may help you out. All that good stuff will live there, but the simplest way to stay connected is just to connect with me as the host online on Instagram or Threads, and then we'll also be posting not only our podcast episodes, upcoming info, but also behind the scenes footage and photos from all of our journeys this spring at our joint Instagram account, BlueYonderAdventures@ on Instagram. So you can give us a follow there. Everything has Blue Yonder in the title, so it should be pretty easy to find that way, but excited to dig in right away on the next episode to simply how to find the amazing campsites beyond the campground. So hope you'll tune in for that next week!
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William Hutchinson Murray
“The moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too…Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.”
Behind the scenes with Jen recording the first episode, surrounded by inspiration!
