Happiest Outdoors with Taryn Eyton

Welcome to another episode of Weatherproof, where we explore the intersection of personal growth and outdoor adventure! In this episode, hosts Claudia and Hannah have a lively conversation with Taryn Eyton, the woman behind the popular blog "Happiest Outdoors," and the author of the recently released guide book "Backpacking on Vancouver Island."

Taryn shares her journey of transitioning from a career in law to becoming a successful outdoor writer, providing insights into her writing process, the challenges of content creation, and the evolving landscape of algorithms and SEO. From her experiences in guidebook writing to the intricacies of monetizing her content, Taryn offers candid and valuable perspectives on the joys and complexities of being an outdoor content creator.

Join us as we delve into Taryn's passion for hiking, her approach to ethical content creation, and the behind-the-scenes realities of building a successful digital presence. So grab your hiking boots and get ready to be inspired by Taryn's love for the great outdoors and her dedication to sharing valuable and authentic outdoor experiences and resources.

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Transcript

Claudia [00:00:00]:
Good morning, team. Today on the podcast, Hannah and I sat down with Taryn Itten, content creator and the woman behind the popular blog, Happiest Outdoors. Taryn gave us incredible insight into what it's like to write about the outdoors for a living. If you've ever dreamt of being an adventure writer or turning your passion for the outdoors into a career, this episode is for you.

Claudia [00:00:20]:
Welcome to Weatherproof. We are your hosts, Hannah.

Hannah [00:00:24]:
And Claudia. Join us as we talk about the raw, real, and relatable elements of outdoor adventure.

Claudia [00:00:30]:
Before we get into that, we are going to beg you to join our email list at weatherproofpodcast.com and to hit that follow button wherever you listen to podcasts.

Hannah [00:00:38]:
We are recording on the unceded territory of the Squamish and Lillooet Nations. We acknowledge and honor the stewards of this land on which we live, work, and play.

Claudia [00:00:47]:
Okay. Well, Taryn, thank you so much for being here. Welcome to the Weatherproof podcast.

Taryn [00:00:52]:
Thanks for having me.

Claudia [00:00:53]:
I was hoping that you would kick us off by giving us a little introduction about yourself and plug anything you want to plug because you have some really exciting things happening at the moment.

Taryn [00:01:05]:
Yeah. So my name is Tara Knighton. I'm a full time outdoor writer. I've been writing a website called happiestoutdoors.ca for the last almost 10 years. And my latest book, Backpacking on Vancouver Island, just came out a couple weeks ago.

Hannah [00:01:19]:
This is, like, such a fangirl moment for me because I have used your blog for planning hikes for years. I started with, like, In A Faraway Land. I don't know if you know that blog,

Taryn [00:01:30]:
that's it. Yeah.

Hannah [00:01:31]:
One that I use quite a lot, and they don't seem to write quite as much anymore, and then

Taryn [00:01:34]:
She was back to Europe.

Hannah [00:01:35]:
Oh, that that makes sense. And so finding kind of new blogs to replace those kind of holes of the same level of information and type of hacker that you can when you read someone's blog regularly, you can figure out whether you're faster or slower than them, whether what you think is hard is the same. And, yeah, your blog has been so useful over the last few years, so it's fantastic to meet you in person and be able to interview you on the podcast.

Taryn [00:02:01]:
Thanks so much. Yeah. I think it's interesting what you said about, like, getting to know someone through their writing. And I think a lot of people use apps to pick trails. And I do think that apps are great, but using books and websites where you know that it's one person's voice and their opinion and you begin to trust or at least understand their opinion can be really valuable.

Hannah [00:02:20]:
Yeah. When when one person repeated is like, this trail took me 3 hours, and it took you 5 hours. And every time you read that, you're like, okay, I I have an idea of how long this is gonna take me. Whereas, something like Alltrails, they're like, the average time is 7 hours, and, like, that is such a random number. Like, you really have no idea.

Taryn [00:02:39]:
Oh, and then people on all trails would be like, oh, I, did it in the opposite direction that you suggested and also did an add on and that took me 14 hours. And you're like, that's not helpful

Claudia [00:02:50]:
So you did an entirely different trip. You mentioned on your about me page that you were inspired to start your blog because when you were starting out on your hiking and backpacking journey, you couldn't find much out there.

Taryn [00:03:09]:
Yeah. I mean part of the reason I couldn't find that much out there is because I am old. So the Internet didn't have a lot of really helpful hiking information at the time, right? In in 2,004 when I did my first backpacking trip, there There were, some a few like personal journals about popular trails, but there wasn't really anything instructional or guide book oriented. So that's part of it. But even then when I started my website 10 years later in 2014, you know, like there wasn't really a lot for this region that was that was helpful in the way that I was looking for. And I was doing all kinds of research for myself, for my friends to plan trips, and I thought, why not share this with more people?

Hannah [00:03:49]:
I'm curious how you've seen that change, like, from 2014 to now. Obviously, I feel that ultras has either started since then or become popular since then. Things like fat mats and Strava that has so much information on it and even, like, Instagram guides that people make. How have you seen that change in the years since starting a blog?

Taryn [00:04:07]:
Yeah. I mean, I think all of the things you just said are definitely true. There's been sort of proliferation of alternative information sources, and a lot of them are great for different things. Like, Instagram and TikTok are great for inspiration. All trails and to some extent, Strava and that maps are good for, like, sort of filtering, sort of, you know, like, putting in in kind of the criteria. But I think that when it comes down to really getting a curated, opinionated guide to something, blogs and guidebooks are still where it's at. Blogs, I think, are maybe a little bit more popular than guidebooks because you don't have to pay for

Speaker E [00:04:45]:
for them.

Taryn [00:04:45]:
But I mean, I thought when I released my first guidebook in 2021, like, you know, it was a dream of mine to always write a book. I felt like, are people still buying books? The answer is yes. People are still buying books. And so, yeah, I think that it's it's a it's a medium that that continues even in the digital age.

Claudia [00:05:04]:
There's something really performative, I think, about fatmaps and Strava and Instagram and TikTok and I always feel like it's people putting themselves out there being like look at what I did or look at what I accomplished and and I love that. I love that people are proud of what they're doing and are and are keeping track, you know, for themselves of their accomplishments and things like that. Like I think there's lots of good out there in terms of the use of those apps. But from an information standpoint, from a this is the beta that you might find useful to get you, you know, out there. I think they serve 2 different purposes and I totally agree with you. Like, Instagram, TikTok, amazing sources of inspiration. I also feel like they can turn people off in the sense that if if you don't see yourself represented in those spaces or you think, like, I could never do that or I don't have the experience or I don't have the knowledge. Like, it has the ability to send you in the opposite direction.

Claudia [00:06:12]:
Whereas I think guidebooks and blogs, they're all about like, this is what I did. A to Zed, you know, off you go.

Taryn [00:06:21]:
Yeah. I would totally agree with that. And I think that for a lot of people, Instagram and especially Facebook are, like, it's just a digital scrapbook for people. Right? Like, they wanna remember the adventures that they had and the good times that they had, and they wanna share them with people around them and increasingly people around the world. But they're not usually setting up to explain to people how to have that adventure or some of the things that happened on that adventure that were not so awesome. Because when things are not so awesome, you usually are not taking photos and video.

Claudia [00:06:54]:
Yeah. It's true. Totally.

Hannah [00:06:58]:
How was that moment of, like, holding your first book in your hands after having that dream?

Taryn [00:07:02]:
Crazy. I was really excited. I am a I collect guidebooks, so I have a bookshelf in my office of, I think it's about a 150 or so guidebooks, mostly BC. And, like, hiking primarily. A little bit of, like, biking and travel and paddling, but hiking primarily. And so it was really, you know, crazy to be, at the time, 39 and being like, this is a dream I never thought will come true, and I've accomplished it before 40, which was really cool. Mhmm.

Hannah [00:07:35]:
That's amazing. How did you go from blog writing to guide book writing?

Taryn [00:07:42]:
So in 2019, I quit my full time job, and I didn't have a business plan. And I had been working on a guidebook research for 2 years or 3 years before that. And I wasn't really sure, you know, was I gonna try and go full time with my website? Was I gonna publish this guidebook I'm working on self published? And so one of the things that I did is I pitched Greystone Books in Vancouver, which is the publisher for a 103 hikes, which is the longest standing series of hiking guide books about the Vancouver area. It goes back to the seventies. I had all the editions, and I was like, this is the big dream. This is the publisher I wanna work with. And I had an acquaintance who had recently signed a book deal with them, and I reached out to him and I said, you know, can you put in the good word for me? And he did, And they met with me. And I got a book deal.

Taryn [00:08:37]:
And I was like, holy shit.

Hannah [00:08:40]:
That is amazing.

Taryn [00:08:43]:
And, yeah. I mean, like, I did not know anything about traditional publishing. I did my research and found out what was supposed to go in your book pitch documents and how, you know, what kind of sample chapters you're supposed to write. Because if you read anything online about how to pitch a book, they're like, here's how to pitch your fiction book. I was like, okay. That's not me. Here's how to pitch your memoir. Okay.

Taryn [00:09:05]:
That's not me. Here's here's how to pitch your, like, sort of researched, like, pop psychology or that kind of book. And I was like, k. That's closer. So I just had to kind of muddle it through. I still don't really know if I did it right, but they liked it.

Hannah [00:09:18]:
It worked. So it must have been it must have been somewhat. Right?

Speaker E [00:09:21]:
Yeah.

Hannah [00:09:22]:
That's amazing. Because I feel like guidebooks like, being a guidebook author is, like, the pinnacle of outdoor adventure writing. I've always looked at guide book authors as you really trust them. Like, they really know their stuff. They're gonna put something in a book and put it out to the world and be like, this is something that you can follow and it's gonna provide you it's almost like a safety thing, and that's amazing to achieve that

Taryn [00:09:46]:
Thank you. Twice. Yeah. And, yeah, I'm really proud of that, and I share that opinion. But I think it's also really interesting that we somehow think that having someone else say that it's okay to put it in a book and print it out makes it the best. Mhmm. Like, the best information about Theodore Doris could be in lots of different forms. Like, why do we think that one's the best?

Claudia [00:10:07]:
Very good question. I think sometimes if you're good at research or you like research, which I do not, you are maybe better equipped to comb the Internet and kind of manage the volume of information that's out there. Use your own critical thinking skills to to weigh what you're finding or filter through what you're finding versus those of us who just wanna go to Chapters or Amazon and, like, buy the book because we're, like, somebody's done all of this work for me, pitched it to a publisher, and the publisher has a team who's been like, yeah. This is worthy of publishing.

Taryn [00:10:45]:
Right. And this is worthy of publishing in the sense that this is something that we can sell to enough people to make money. Totally. Right? So like there is also a whole self publishing industry in the outdoors. Most climbing guide books are still self published. You know, like there is a lot of there is a lot of self published work out there that is not profitable for a publisher, but it is still really important work. Yeah. So I could have self published, I guess.

Speaker E [00:11:10]:
It's a

Taryn [00:11:11]:
lot of work I didn't want to do

Speaker E [00:11:12]:
with this.

Claudia [00:11:14]:
Yeah. Yeah. I could see that. How did you determine whether or not you could make a go of your blog as full time work.

Taryn [00:11:26]:
I didn't. I love that answer. So I put my job in 2019, and I said, I don't really know. I'm gonna use this here to try some things. My husband and I agreed that that's what we would do. And I also am really fortunate to be married and in a 2 income household and have the financial stability to do that. I know that's not the reality for a lot of people. And then when 1 year was up in February 2020, I thought, alright.

Taryn [00:11:52]:
Well, let's evaluate things. And then a month later, it became quite clear that it didn't really matter how I evaluated things. There were no jobs to return to If that was what I chose to do. So, I just kept plugging along. 2019 was lean. 2020 was lean. But by the end of 2020, when everyone realized that we were not going to be travelling far from our homes, we were going to be going outdoors a lot. Things became much more successful for me.

Taryn [00:12:24]:
And by the end of of 2021, I had replacement salary from my day job. So, you know, the pandemic was hard and awful. But for me personally, it was really good.

Speaker E [00:12:36]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Hannah [00:12:39]:
Does your have a background do you have a legal background? Like, what was your story to get to the point of quitting your job?

Taryn [00:12:44]:
So I have changed careers twice now. So I am trained as a lawyer. I'm trained in environmental law. I've never worked in environmental law because there are so few jobs. But I did work in law for about 2 years, and I graduated at the height of the 2008 recession. There weren't a lot

Hannah [00:13:03]:
of jobs. Mhmm.

Taryn [00:13:04]:
So I didn't last in law very long. After I finished my articles, I practiced for about 2 years, and, there just wasn't that much work that I wanted to do. And so I stepped away and changed careers and started working in house for Canada's largest, based in Vancouver, outdoor store that you can probably guess what three letter acronym it goes by. And I was there in their call center for a year and then moved to head office in a role that started out as really administrative and became much more about writing. So I was writing product descriptions for their website. So always been a gear person. And so I would write several thousand product descriptions per year for the website. So, you know, like, you know, you get the information about this sleeping bag, and you need to sell it to the public, but also explain to them what it's good for, what it's not good for, and why it's made out of that material, that kind of thing.

Taryn [00:14:03]:
So that's what I did. I also did, like, a little bit of staff training materials and a little bit of, like, how to choose content for the website. So I took what I didn't think were transferable skills from law, which is being able to write concisely and being able to research

Speaker E [00:14:18]:
Mhmm.

Taryn [00:14:19]:
And pull them into that outdoor realm. And while I was there, I really liked my job. I liked the people that I worked with. I liked the staff discount. Yeah. But I real realized really quickly when I was there that there wasn't a lot of room for growth. There were just there just wasn't anywhere to move up. It was gonna be pretty stagnant.

Taryn [00:14:41]:
So I started my website while I was there as, like, just a fun thing to have on the side. I was actually an Instagrammer first. So I'm a, like, early, early Instagrammer, like, 2013, I think. When there were not very many people on Instagram. And people were asking more about these pictures that I was sharing. So I was, like, well, I'll write some stuff down about my trips. So I was writing these, like, me and my friends went on the psych and it went like this kind of blog post. Nice.

Taryn [00:15:07]:
And over the years, that transitioned into what you see on my website now, which is, you know, how to guides, how to hike this trail, how to choose this kind of gear.

Hannah [00:15:19]:
Amazing. Do you prefer writing blogs or books?

Taryn [00:15:23]:
I prefer writing blogs, I think. Just because it's I mean, I do really appreciate my editor that I work with for my books, Lucy. She's amazing. She really makes my writing better. But, you know, you have all kinds of constraints. Right? Like, it needs to fit a certain number of words. You know? Like, there are style considerations about, like which I've actually adopted for my website, like, about, you know, description of some landscape and stuff in a in a certain manner. And it just needs to be so freaking short.

Taryn [00:15:54]:
That's really my biggest problem. Like, if I had released my book as a if I had written a blog entry about every single hike that's in my books and then just been like, yes. This is this is it. Here are, you know, 17 photos per per hike, and here are 14 maps, and here are and they would be it would have been like a 1,000 pages. Because no one would want to buy or print. And like I don't think that I'm leaving anything critical out when it comes to writing the book. But I know that the kinds of questions that people ask are not gonna be covered in a book. So, like, in the book I might tell you, like, it's a point to point hike and here are the parking lot locations on each end and here is the shuttle company.

Taryn [00:16:44]:
But I don't have room to say like, oh, if you're leaving in the morning, I think you should start on this end. And the shuttle cost more if you do it with this many people. And you know, like, the kinds of questions that people want to know the answers to.

Claudia [00:16:55]:
Yeah. And I think that, again, is one of the big differences between something like publishing a guidebook and maintaining a blog is there's no interactivity with your audience, right? Like you buy a book you read it, that's the end of the interaction.

Taryn [00:17:14]:
And for the website, it's honestly quite similar. For the amount of hits that I have received from my website, like, tiny fraction of those people email me, leave a comment, DM me on Instagram. You know, like, I receive maybe 1 or 2 follower interactions a week across all platforms Mhmm. Which is crazy when tens of thousands of people are reading it every month.

Hannah [00:17:36]:
Yeah. Well, like, until I followed you on Instagram in the last couple of months, I had read your blog probably 100 of times, and it never interacted. So, yeah, I guess that's just it's like a blog is like a consuming thing, whereas Instagram maybe tends to be a bit more of an interaction.

Taryn [00:17:53]:
Especially old Instagram. I know that we all have our frustrations with when things change. Yeah. And, yeah, Instagram definitely used to feel a lot more like a community to me in a way that it doesn't anymore.

Hannah [00:18:04]:
Yeah. That's fair.

Claudia [00:18:05]:
Okay. I have 2 questions. 1, what do you think holds people back from interacting more with your blog let's say? And what do you think has changed on Instagram over the course of your time there?

Taryn [00:18:18]:
I guess your first question is like, why do I think people don't leave comments? Mhmm. I mean, I could say that the ego reason is because I gave them all the information they wanted to hear.

Claudia [00:18:27]:
Love that. You should stick with that. I think that's

Taryn [00:18:31]:
true. No. I mean, I think that a lot of people it is interesting blog comments in general are really on the decline. Like, the hate the golden heyday of blogging. I missed it. It was, you know, a little over 10 years ago, sort of the 2010 turn, you know, then. And lots of people follow blogs religiously. They left comments on blogs.

Taryn [00:18:49]:
People just don't do that anymore. Quite often, someone will read my blog and then go find my DMs on Instagram. So go into a completely different area of the internet and then send me a message there. So for some reason, leaving a comment in a blog is a thing that people just don't wanna do. They don't think that's where you talk to someone. And that's fine, right? I wanna talk to people wherever they're at. You know, leave me a comment, send me an email, send me a DM, whatever. We'll connect.

Taryn [00:19:13]:
Whatever way is most convenient for you. Except me via Facebook Messenger, please. Instagram as much anymore is because it is a much larger platform. Everyone's on it. I think, you know, sort of 10 years ago, there were less people on it. There was less content to consume. You could scroll through everybody in your feed, all the things that they had posted in, you know, 20 minutes. And we're all, unfortunately, probably spending way more than 20 minutes a day on Instagram scrolling.

Taryn [00:19:49]:
And the amount of content you'll be served is endless. And you'll also be served a lot of content with people who you don't follow. So you maybe don't have a connection with, so you don't feel the need to send them a message. And then also Instagram rewards engagement. So lots of people are posting things that are designed to get engagement. They're designed to get you to leave a comment and we all know that and see that. So we're like, oh, I don't wanna play that game.

Claudia [00:20:15]:
I really feel that and there's part of me that wishes I would I could just engage knowing that I'm supposed to engage and then that's fine. But I'm very much that person of like, I don't want to play this game. And I'm curious if that's like a pendulum swinging the other way and and what will emerge out of that pendulum swing or if this is, you know, just like I'm not the right age bracket for Instagram anymore.

Taryn [00:20:43]:
But who is then? Like, who is? Like, anybody who's under, you know, 25 is supposed to be on TikTok. Yep. I mean, for me and for my business, being on social media is not optional. Yeah. So, yeah. I mean, sometimes I'm happy to be there and for the most part, I am. But I've definitely gone through periods of time where I've just been, like, I'm not gonna open this out for a month. I don't I don't want to.

Taryn [00:21:09]:
And it's really hard as well from a business perspective to measure ROI. Like, you know, like, if if your goal with Instagram is to drive traffic to your business, which in this case would be my website or have people buy my books, I can see that data. Right? Like, you know, you can look at your Instagram analytics and see who people are clicking your links, and they don't. Right? And so it's really easy to say, well, nobody wants to buy through Instagram from me, so I'm not gonna do it. But then there's also the hidden part, which is that people hear about you and you become familiar to them and trusted to them. And then when they have something they wanna look up or they do wanna buy a book, they're gonna do that. And you just can't know how many people are are doing that. So being on Instagram for that reason, you know, is also important.

Claudia [00:22:02]:
Yeah. It's almost like the brand piece. Yes. Right? Not necessarily just marketing and access, but building your brand.

Taryn [00:22:10]:
Which was really hard for me because before I went full time with my website, my last name was not on anything. So, yeah, I have a unique name. I'm the only Teranitan in the world. It's an uncommon first name and an uncommon last name. And I wanted to be somewhat anonymous. I wanted to have my privacy. And I realized that was not going to be possible. And so, yeah.

Taryn [00:22:35]:
It is really strange when your brand is your face. Yeah. And, like, and I'm not an Instagram model. Right? Like, in the way that those people's brands are their face.

Claudia [00:22:45]:
Yeah. But I think almost regardless of what you look like anymore, that's how Instagram works is your face is your brand.

Hannah [00:22:53]:
It's recognizability. Like people wanna feel like they know you. Yeah. It's that like parasocial relationship element.

Taryn [00:22:59]:
Yeah. And people ask me all the time, like, oh, like, can I go hiking with you? Do you offer guided hikes? And I'm like, well, no, I don't offer guided hikes because I used to be a lawyer and there's all kinds of insurance information. But also, like, you know, like, I want to believe that people are good. And I'd love to say to everyone who asks me, yes, I'd like to go for a hike with you. But I'm a person like everyone else and I'm a woman. And, you know, I don't always feel safe with strangers. Just like people don't feel safe with strangers. So even though you feel like you might know me, I don't know you.

Hannah [00:23:30]:
Yeah. And when the brand is you, people think they know you.

Taryn [00:23:33]:
Yeah.

Hannah [00:23:33]:
But they know Internet.

Taryn [00:23:36]:
And there used to be, in the early Instagram days, there used to be this thing that Instagram I don't know if they developed it or just helped promote it, but people used to organize Insta Meets. Mhmm. So people used to meet up and go shoot photography together in a city or people used to do their hiking. And I did it a couple of times. And it was fun to meet people. But I also made sure that I brought friends that I knew to feel safe and like everything was great. Right? And those like I didn't have any any problems but it it is a way that old Instagram did feel more like a community in the way that it doesn't now.

Hannah [00:24:11]:
Yeah. Totally.

Claudia [00:24:13]:
Yeah. It's got that real, like, one way mirror kind of thing happening.

Hannah [00:24:19]:
Talking about Instagram and putting information out on the Internet, how you talked about starting this because you wanted to give information to people that that was otherwise hard to access. How do you balance gatekeeping versus sharing knowledge?

Taryn [00:24:35]:
Yeah. So that's something that I talk about a lot in my work. So the idea that a place is too vulnerable to share and that only locals get to know about it or only experienced people get to know about it, I think is really problematic for two reasons. 1 is the internet exists and someone else will talk about it. So you don't get to keep it a secret. It's not gonna work. And number 2 is that's not nice. So we were all beginners once.

Taryn [00:25:01]:
We were all new to a place. We all deserve to be able to enjoy the outdoors. So I think that keeping places a secret and gatekeeping is not something that we want to encourage. But then, of course, people say, well, I'm gatekeeping because this place is too fragile, or this place is gonna get crowded. And I think that the solution to that is sharing information about responsible recreation and wilderness ethics. So I volunteered with Leave No Trace Canada since 2006. I'm a Leave No Trace master educator, which is the highest level of Leave No Trace education. And I really find that telling people about a place, about how they can respect it, and what to expect when they get there is really more helpful than telling them, well, I'm not gonna tell you where that is.

Taryn [00:25:46]:
So if you'll tell someone, hey. I'm this you know, I'm sharing information with this place, but it's ecologically vulnerable. So maybe you shouldn't go after it's muddy because the trail is a mess, or, hey. I'm sharing with this information with this place. People like to camp there, but there's no toilet. So if you're not prepared to pack out your waste or to dig a cat hole while away from trails and water courses, then this isn't for you. I feel like that's, you know, really much more valuable. And also explaining to people, you know, when we talk about wilderness ethics, it's not saying like don't have a fire.

Taryn [00:26:16]:
It's not allowed. It's you're gonna get in trouble. It's not a helpful statement saying, you know, like, this is a really vulnerable alpine ecosystem. The plants take a long time to grow. The fire scar on the soil is gonna last 30 years. The wood here, you know, is you know, that tree is tiny, but it's a 100 years old. If you cut it down, it will take a 100 more years to grow. That's why you don't wanna have a fire here.

Taryn [00:26:35]:
People are like, oh, okay.

Hannah [00:26:38]:
How do you approach it in terms of, like, resources? I shared a reel yesterday on, like, O'Hara, which has a whole network of people dedicated to looking after that area and has a bunch of resources for that, versus a hike where there is no toilets, there's not much of a path. Do you approach it differently depending on how many resources are already in place?

Taryn [00:26:59]:
Yeah. So for my books, because they're the most widely shared and the most enduring, like, I can't edit them, like, I can't a website. True. For overnight use, I do not promote areas for overnight use that do not have a land manager. So that means a park, club, in some cases, a First Nation who, if there are in a lot of cases, they are formally stewarding the trail and putting up signs and establishing campsites. But in other cases, they there may not be those things in place, but they do have a formal agreement to manage the land. For example, Semaphore Lakes. 7 4 Lakes did not used to have any protection, near Pemberton.

Taryn [00:27:40]:
It used to be just crown land. The trail was unofficial. It had no designation. It had no protection, and the area was getting really overused. There were no toilets, and that was a huge problem. There was just human waste in a lot of places. And so lots of people were saying, you know, like, let's fundraise and build a toilet. And, unfortunately, that's not allowed because it didn't have any designation.

Taryn [00:28:05]:
The first step is to get it designated as a recreation site under the sites in Charleston, BC, and then and then it can have infrastructure. So that happened in 2021. Tourism Pampers had got some COVID funding and got that done. And so now that's a place I'm comfortable talking about for overnight use, like, you know, publicly and widely. But without that, I so, you know, I specifically excluded, 704 Lakes from my first book because of that. Whereas on my website, I'm a little bit more open about what I'll share because I can edit it, because I can include tons of information about, you know, where things, you know, like, what are the things you can do to protect these places that just won't fit in the book.

Hannah [00:28:49]:
Yeah.

Speaker E [00:28:49]:
Do you

Claudia [00:28:49]:
ever go back to those places and kind of gauge where they're at from a usage standpoint or from a resource kind of impact standpoint and go back and edit?

Taryn [00:29:01]:
I don't know that I've been doing what I do long enough to see really, huge changes. And then I think a lot of the changes that I've seen over time can probably be attributed to COVID increases in use Yep. More than anything else. But, yeah, for example, 7 4 Lakes again. I wrote a post for a website in 2014. It was if not the first post on a website, then the second. And it had information about my trip to Sema 4 Lakes. It was really thin on content because it was like, me and my friends went to Samoa Forelakes for my friend Katie's birthday, and it snowed.

Taryn [00:29:39]:
And there was a bunch of information at the bottom of the post about how it didn't have any protection, it didn't have any toilets, how you it was fragile up in meadow, you just stay on the trail, all that stuff. I hadn't been back until last summer. And I went back with my mentee from the mountain mentors program that I volunteered with last year. And I picked it because I wanted to see it again and because I knew it was a good location for her because it had toilets and bear cashes now, but it also had some off trail exploration we could do past that. That's what we were looking for, that kind of balance of, you know, like, more beginner friendly backcountry and, you know, things you could push. And it was interesting to see, you know, the the toilets and and bear caches had only been in place for, I think, a year at that point. And there didn't seem to be as much human waste, which was great. But I also wasn't looking to dig a hole, which is when you accidentally find someone else to poop.

Taryn [00:30:33]:
Yep. But the it was a little bit disheartening to see how braided the trails through the meadows have become in the sort of 9 years I had been away. And I think that's the thing that's going to continue to happen without a lot of stewardship in that area. But at least the human waste problem has definitely been mitigated. They do, I think, have plans for formalizing the camping a little bit more there than it is already. Right now, they have signs saying, like, tenting area, but then there's no no cleared areas in the tenting area. So people are still you know, you still have to choose your campsite by choosing the one that has the least amount of fragile plants on it. But with, you know, over a decade of use, there are lots of places like that.

Hannah [00:31:18]:
Writing a guidebook on Vancouver Island hikes, I can imagine it's it's not as well known of an area maybe than this area in terms of people getting out, especially beginner hiking. Did you get pushback from locals or people in the areas about you exposing their secrets and that kind of stuff?

Taryn [00:31:39]:
Not yet, but I think it's coming. Because I'm going to Vancouver Island for a book tour for 4 days in May. So there's definitely, you know, like there there's definitely some places in Vancouver Island that are well known and highly trafficked, like the West Coast Trail or the Juan de Fuca. And people get upset about how hard it is to get a reservation for the West Coast Trail or how busy it is on the one of Fuca. And then there are other places, yeah, that are less known outside of Vancouver Island residents or residents of a particular region of the island that I think people may be upset to hear are in a book. But I don't care because yeah. Like, I think, like, you know, it is one thing to say, like, this is our special locals place and we liked it better before but the reality is we live in a world where travel is easy and possible and if you live near somewhere beautiful, people will want to come look at it. So all you can do is be welcoming and maybe help people understand how they can respect it and protect it.

Taryn [00:32:42]:
And I'm also really careful in all of my work to recommend that people spend time and especially money in trailhead communities because I think that it's really shitty to visit somewhere and use all of the infrastructure and be like why I paid my $5 overnight permit. I'm done. You know, I'm not gonna buy dinner. I'm not gonna buy gas. I'm not gonna stay in a hotel. You know, all of these things.

Claudia [00:33:07]:
Or even worse, find ways to skirt the small fees that they are meant to pay.

Hannah [00:33:13]:
Yeah. I mean like and one

Taryn [00:33:14]:
of the reasons that hiking and backpacking are so popular is because it is cheap. Right? Once you have the gear, which yes, can be expensive, but you know, shoes and a day pack, to go on a day hike are achievable for most people. You know, it's pretty inexpensive to go. And I do recognize that not everybody is going to have discretionary income to spend in trailhead communities but if you have it and most of us do who spend 1,000 of dollars on finding the lightest backpacking gear available You know, like stop in those trailhead communities and show them some love.

Claudia [00:33:44]:
Yeah. Absolutely. You spoke on one of your blog posts about not wanting to write a book that far from home again. What was that writing process like?

Taryn [00:33:56]:
So the first book, at at the time I was living in Vancouver and the book parameters were 3 hours from Vancouver, roughly. I think we exceeded it in a few places, but roughly. And that was really manageable. Also, the timeline was longer because we didn t have an editor or a public book contract at the time. The Vancouver Island book was researched in 2 summers, 2021 and 2022. And it was challenging because, well, firstly, there were COVID travel restrictions, especially in 2021. So I wasn't able to get to the island. And I, you know, wanted to be really respectful of those.

Taryn [00:34:29]:
I know, you know, technically I was travelling for work, so maybe perhaps it was allowed. But, you know, I wasn't gonna do it. And the ferry takes time. It takes money. The island is large. Yeah.

Hannah [00:34:42]:
Yeah. Very.

Taryn [00:34:43]:
So, yeah. It was really time consuming. And it was really hard because there's only, you know, sort of 4 to 6 months of really prime hiking season. And, yes, I could have hiked some of these trails out of season, but then if they're covered in snow, I can't see the things that people need to see when they're hiking in in the right season. And if it's pouring rain, I don't get any good pictures. And a lot of the ways that people decide if they're gonna buy a guide book is they pick it up, and they flip through the pages, and they go, oh, pretty.

Hannah [00:35:13]:
Very true. We all like picture books that hard. Guilty. So, you hiked all of the trails that are in both of your guidebooks. Of course. Is that always the approach for like, does every guidebook writer do everything that's in their books?

Taryn [00:35:28]:
I don't know a lot of other guide book writers. I know 2 that I've connected with. And yes, that's definitely the case. I mean, I think that what I've done, and I'm sure lots of other guidebook writers do is if you do end up where you have a weather issue or some kind of issue that prevents you from completing the trail the way that you hoped, you do rely on other people to give you information or photos in some cases. So I definitely have relied on my community to and friends to to help with filling the gaps of things that I wasn't able to get to. Because writing a backpack backpacking guide book, you know, like, you're out for, at a minimum, 2 days. Right? Like, some of the shorter backpacking trips I would do is a day hike and, you know, visit the campgrounds but not stay in them. Mhmm.

Taryn [00:36:14]:
But a longer one, you're out for a minimum of 2 days. And if you don't get all of the research that you need, it's hugely time intensive to go back and do it again. It's not like if you're researching some other kind of non fiction book and you're like, oh, I missed that at the library. Go back tomorrow. It's gonna take an hour. Yeah.

Speaker E [00:36:30]:
Would you ever or have you ever been in a situation where you hiked it once?

Claudia [00:36:35]:
Hiked the trail once and were like, oh, I need to do that again? Like, I didn't get the experience or you sort of still have lingering questions? Like, how does that work?

Taryn [00:36:46]:
Yeah. I mean, I've definitely had that happen and, like, you know, like, I've been in with weather or time or injuries, not being able to do the day hike that you can do from the backcountry campground. Right. And in those cases, yeah, I've reached out to friends or guides in the area. Like like like hiking guides people, not books. And I who know the area well, I've been like, hey. You know, like, can you help me out with some information here? I wanna make sure that I'm getting this right. And, like, I'll send you a book when it's out.

Claudia [00:37:14]:
Oh, cool. And so what is your note taking process like?

Taryn [00:37:19]:
Oh, it's bad. So,

Speaker E [00:37:22]:
on

Taryn [00:37:23]:
the one hand, I am blessed to have a very good memory.

Hannah [00:37:27]:
Okay. I'm so jealous.

Taryn [00:37:28]:
I I don't know if it's, nature or nurture because my dad and his mom both have a really good memory. So I don't know if it's genetic, or I just learned how to do it somehow from them. But, yeah, I don't have to take super detailed notes to remember things. So when I'm on the trail, I do 3 things to help me make notes. So first is I take pictures. So I take, like, the pictures that will make it into the book, the pictures of the views and the lakes and the, you know, the things that are pretty. And I take ugly pictures of toilets and signs and bridges and bad parts of the approach road and that kind of stuff. The second thing I do is I use the Gaia GPS app on my phone.

Taryn [00:38:10]:
Although, I did use a standalone handheld GPS for my first book. And I mark waypoints of important things that I with a little bit, like, a sort of, you know, three word description of why I made that waypoint. And then I use the notes app on my phone. Usually, I make notes sometimes at lunch, but usually at the in the tent at night after I'm done for the day. And it's usually not very much notes, like like, maybe 6 or 8 bullet points per day. It's not a lot. And, thankfully, because of my memory, that's enough to trigger me when I'm writing to get the all of the information together. The first book, I did all of the research first and then all of the writing at the end.

Taryn [00:38:52]:
That was not a good move. The second book, my method was every week that I was home, I spent all day Friday writing for the book. So I had one day a week that was ready for the book, and I would write whatever was the oldest trip I hadn't written about yet.

Hannah [00:39:12]:
So it didn't have to be that week, it just had to be like the

Taryn [00:39:14]:
Yeah. So, I mean, often I was up to date, and I was writing last weekend's trip, or last week's trip. But sometimes, yeah, it was too you know, I had 2 or 3 hikes in the hopper I was trying to push through. Yeah.

Hannah [00:39:26]:
And so your partner's a software engineer. He's not in this business with you. Does that mean that most of the time, are you hiking on your own during the week, or are you pulling friends in that have weekends off? Like, how are you how are you doing it?

Taryn [00:39:39]:
Yeah. So I did all of the research for my first book with friends or with my husband. The second book, I did a little bit alone, but hardly any. And, yeah, it is a puzzle for me, a logistical puzzle, which thankfully I perversely enjoy, to put together a schedule of who's available when, who can take time off, when, when's the right time to do this hike, and how can I get a cat sitter for my 19 year old cat while I'm away doing this? So, yeah, my husband does, especially the first book, he he did a lot a lot of it with me and especially because it was done when mostly when I had a full time job. So it was weekends, vacations, some unpaid leave, actually. The second book, he did less of it because I was a little bit more flexible with my time and was able to go out with friends who had flexible time as well. But it is a really interesting dynamic because I'm working, and these people are on vacation. And a lot of times they literally have requested time off and these people are on vacation and a lot of times they literally have requested time off from work to be where we are.

Taryn [00:40:38]:
And so they are like, oh this is awesome. I am going to like sit and enjoy this view. I'm, like, yes, but we need to go take a picture of that toilet.

Hannah [00:40:47]:
How do you balance that with your friends to have fun and and do the things they wanna do on a trip like that?

Taryn [00:41:00]:
For the most part, most of my research trips are done with friends who are, like, decades long friends, backpacking friends, who know my job and understand it. But also who know that the benefit to them is that they get a very highly organized trip to a beautiful place, and they just need to show

Hannah [00:41:22]:
up. Claudia's

Speaker E [00:41:23]:
like, I'm in. Yeah.

Claudia [00:41:24]:
That goes a long way. I love planning trips. I do it for work. I would love to just be able to like, come here, I've got my stuff, like, you do you. Let me know if you need me to pose anywhere, like, let's go. Yeah.

Taryn [00:41:36]:
Like, that's the minimum that I'll ask them, like, oh, can you stand right there? Just okay. You're done.

Speaker E [00:41:41]:
You've got to go for the day for 30 seconds.

Claudia [00:41:46]:
Oh, that's great.

Hannah [00:41:47]:
I'm curious, do you feel a lot of, like, pressure and responsibility in terms of accuracy and what you're sharing. Because having read a bunch of your post to plan, trips that I've done, like Lake Ohara, for instance, I read the blogs and I read based on, you know, what elevation was like, how hard the trail was, you know. The amount of times I, like, download, like, kind of a PDF version of a blog post so that this trail intersection that's not very clear, we have to keep an eye out for that. And so 1.5 kilometers in, you're, like, looking at the thing and being like, oh, no. It's a little bit further up. We need to keep an eye out for this tree that has a yellow ribbon on it. Like, how do you manage that responsibility?

Taryn [00:42:24]:
Yeah. I think it's definitely it's definitely challenging, and it's definitely also one of the things that if somebody's gonna leave you a comment, that's what it's gonna be about. You screwed me. Yeah. Or an office that it's not you screwed me. It's that I think you're screwing me. Like, well, you said it's this much, but Parks Canada says this much, and this other blogger says this much. How much is it? Oh.

Taryn [00:42:45]:
So GPS technology is not magic. I do feel a lot of pressure that way, but not like in a bad way. I mean, I just it's more of just it's a responsibility and it's being ethical to give people the best information. And so I do update everything on my site annually to make sure that if things change, you know, like, there's new information. Sometimes, there's nothing to say, but sometimes, often, it's, you know, it's harder to get parking and the fee went up. Yeah.

Claudia [00:43:17]:
But so are you scanning the Internet for things like park closures and trail updates and

Speaker E [00:43:24]:
that sort

Taryn [00:43:25]:
of thing? Yeah. So, I kind of always watch for stuff like that. And I was sharing it a lot on social media, but I was finding people weren't really seeing it. And so, I guess, 3 years ago, a little more than that, I launched a newsletter, the Backpacking and BC newsletter, and it goes out every other week. And it has a whole section with all of that kind of information, all of the trail closures and that kind of stuff. I mean, it's got lots of other stuff, you know, like tips, trail suggestions, gear deals, that kind of thing. But, yeah, it goes out to 6 and a half 1000 people every other week. And, yeah, it's one of the the ways that I really am able, I think, to connect with people because you're in their inbox.

Taryn [00:44:01]:
You're in the thing that they're in every day. You know, find out what's happening with their world rather than an app that they maybe are looking at on the toilet. Right.

Claudia [00:44:11]:
So you might spend a lot of time on the park's website?

Taryn [00:44:14]:
A little bit, yeah. I mean, I have systems now to make things more efficient.

Speaker E [00:44:18]:
Can you

Claudia [00:44:18]:
please share those systems? Maybe just like one, like your top tip.

Taryn [00:44:24]:
Yeah. I think, like, my top tip is if you're gonna go somewhere, anywhere, just look at the park website of the place you're going because they want you to know if it's closed or something changed. Their websites generally, they're getting better, but are not well designed and user friendly, but they are trying to tell you. And they also often don't come up high in Google search results. But yeah, they are there. That information is there. It's usually if there's something very important it'll be at the top of the page. Yeah.

Claudia [00:44:53]:
What would be your recommendation to folks who aren't big on research, or who are easily overwhelmed by Internet searches, or Internet results in trying to find the information they should have before they set off.

Taryn [00:45:07]:
Yeah. So I guess like if you're that kind of person and you're trying to decide where you want to hike, I think using a book is great because you know that that person has hiked lots of trails and chosen the ones that they think are the best. So you are not going to get any stinkers. You are not going to get any ones where it turns out that like 3 quarters of it was walking on an old road with no views. Because there is lots of those out there. And they are worthwhile if you live nearby or, you know, you like that kind of thing. But for most of us that is not where we want to prioritize our time. If you have a hike in mind that you want to know about, I think that, you know, like there are lots of good resources out there.

Taryn [00:45:39]:
Obviously, I want to tell you to look at my website first. But I might not have the answer. I think that the best thing to do is to formulate your search query, like a question. So, you know, like, how long does it take to hike to Garibaldi Lake? And, like, if that's the thing you want to know or, like, how much water should I bring to Elephant Lakes? And those kinds of questions you will get an answer that will take you to a website that has the information you are looking for. Because yeah, like if you are like if you just search elephant lakes, you will get tons of stuff. But if you are like, what is this thing I need to know about this part of my trip? You will find it. And with the caveat, don't just look at the Google search result, click through to the website it's coming from to see if it's up to date.

Hannah [00:46:22]:
Yes. Look at the date at the top, when it was last updated.

Taryn [00:46:25]:
And maybe, if that Google search result returns a Reddit answer from 10 years ago, maybe you think that it's maybe not true.

Hannah [00:46:34]:
So listening to you talk about, you know, the research that you did for a book and and the writing, it's like dream job. You hike for a job and then write about it and and help other people get into hiking as well. What's the plan from here? You've just published your second book, your blog is obviously getting a bunch of traffic, you're building your newsletter, where to now?

Taryn [00:46:55]:
Yeah, that's kind of a tough one. So after my first book came out, or actually while I was getting ready to release it, I was getting that question a lot. And my answer was, like, oh, another book. And, you know, like, I really jumped into writing the second book maybe a little too fast. I didn't take a break. And so I'm excited to take a break. And I think that's, you know, like a healthy way to be. Mhmm.

Taryn [00:47:17]:
Yeah. I'm definitely looking at, you know, continuing to to build my website. I do freelance writing on the side too, so I'm continuing to do that. I write for destination Vancouver primarily, but I have a bunch of other smaller clients sometimes. And then I think the other thing that will be happening hopefully in a few years is that backpacking in southwest BC will be old enough and popular enough that it will need a second edition, a revised edition. So I'll get to go out and do some other research for that. We'll see, you know, if some of the hikes need re hiking or if some of them have changed in a way that makes them not great for the book anymore and there's something else I can include

Claudia [00:47:55]:
instead. Cool. That's exciting. Do you have any favorite little luxuries that you bring with you on trip?

Taryn [00:48:06]:
I mean, I always eat garbage because that's a good excuse to, you know, eat the kind of calories that you just can't eat all the time. So, yeah. Like, I love, like, fuzzy peaches candy and, like, Hawkins Cheezies because they're harder than Cheetos, so they last better in

Speaker E [00:48:26]:
your pack. Mhmm.

Taryn [00:48:26]:
I occasionally bring a chair, although I'm really finding that's not worth it. My husband really likes to bring his chair, and I find that if he stands up and off, I can sit in it for just a few minutes every day to make me feel like I got the luxury of a chair without having to carry it.

Claudia [00:48:45]:
I was finding that I was like bringing my chair and then I was always standing up and moving around, and I was actually never sitting in it. And so then I just got annoyed. I would, like, set it up as soon as I got to camp, and then potentially not sit in it at all.

Taryn [00:48:58]:
Yeah. I mean, I love having a chair. But on a longer hike or any like, anything where, like, the weight of your food starts to become an issue, I'm I'm not carrying that thing. It doesn't it's just not comfortable enough to add that extra kilo. Yeah. As far as the other luxuries, it's not a luxury exactly, but it's like a I think it's maybe a good example of my personality. I bring a digital thermometer. In between resets, it will tell you, since the last reset, the highest and lowest temperature you experienced.

Taryn [00:49:31]:
So I can know how hot it was and how cold it was and then plan my year accordingly for my next trip. Cool. Because then because you're like, oh, I was so cold last night. But, like, is it because I brought the wrong bag? Or is it because it's colder than I thought it was gonna

Claudia [00:49:45]:
be? Interesting. Oh, I want one.

Taryn [00:49:48]:
Yeah. Mine is from ThermoWorks. The people that make the Thermapen, the like fancy pants instant read thermometer you might use for steaks. Yep. And it's yeah. Like, it's I think it's about $20 once you do the conversion for American dollars. It's it's, you know, well worth it.

Speaker E [00:50:04]:
Do you

Claudia [00:50:04]:
have an affiliate link on your

Taryn [00:50:05]:
website? Probably, yes.

Claudia [00:50:06]:
Excellent. I'll go find

Hannah [00:50:08]:
it. I'm curious how much you hike for yourself. Do you ever go out on trips and just not take photos of the bridges and the trail and just enjoy it? Or is it always, like, you've been doing it for so long that it's just naturally part of how your brain works when you're hiking, that you're always looking out for blog posts and guidebook stuff?

Taryn [00:50:25]:
Yeah. It's really hard because I will go out with friends and be like, oh, I haven't actually read about this place before even though I've been here lots of times. Maybe I'll just take a few photos, maybe I'll just take a few notes and then it works its way into being a blog post. So I'm really trying hard to be more conscious of of that and yeah, enjoy things more for myself. And I do hike for myself most days of the week. Living in Squamish, the trails are half a block from my house And I do finish most workdays with a sort of 30 minutes to an hour walk on the local trails. It's just a way to decompress and, you know, connect with nature and see, you know, what's blooming now and, you know, if the little toadlets are out and all that kind of stuff that is the reason that, you know, we're into this kind of thing is because we're interested to see what the natural world around us looks like.

Claudia [00:51:19]:
Do you have a a favorite hike?

Taryn [00:51:21]:
So this is a question I get asked a lot, and I would offer that asking a guidebook author that is like asking a parent to choose their favorite child. However, I do answer the question. So I have lots of sort of favorite hikes in different categories, but the easy, you know, one hike answer is Garibaldi Lake. It's the first mountain hike I did as a kid. I was 12. I saw my first glacier in person. It's somewhere I return to at least once a year. It's changed a lot since I was 12.

Taryn [00:51:52]:
The the glacier is smaller and the amount of people are greater, but it's it's still beautiful. And while those switchbacks are they never get any more fun, I do think that the the reward is is worth it.

Claudia [00:52:06]:
Do you have a unicorn hike?

Taryn [00:52:08]:
Not really anything here in BC that I think with my job, like, nothing is really unattainable in that sense. So, like, there's things that, like, I'd like to do. Like, I'd like to go to Mount Ezeiza in Northern BC and hike the volcano and stuff there, but it's, you know, it's like float plane in and that kinda logistics, and it's just making it happen. But, yeah, I'd also like to hike the Tour du Mont Blanc, you know, around Mont Blanc in Europe. I just haven't found the time to make it happen. The longer hikes, the more logistically challenging hikes like that just get pushed aside a little bit because, you know, like, I have the time, but my friends might not. That might be the priority. And, yeah, as I said, I have a 19 year old cat, and I have to arrange care if I'm away from her.

Taryn [00:52:50]:
Yeah. So Yeah.

Hannah [00:52:52]:
Do you focus most of your adventures and writing and everything in BC because of accessibility or because that's what your audience like, you've built your audience around BC?

Taryn [00:53:03]:
Yeah. It's it's both of those things for sure. So that, yeah, that most of my readership, existing readership comes from BC. So it's good to write about things that are here. It's also something we haven't really talked about too much, search engine optimization. Mhmm. So that's a huge part of my business, ensuring, in short, that if you search for something on Google, that my web site comes up high in the results, ideally in the one of the top three spots, because that means that you visit my website, which means that you are shown an ad, which means I make some money, which means I get to keep doing this. So, yeah, I don't do a lot of, like, unpopular hikes or things that are, you know, for example, there's lots of gorgeous stuff in the north.

Taryn [00:53:45]:
People are just not going up there in the same way. So it is not as popular. So there are not as many searches for it.

Speaker E [00:53:52]:
So it

Taryn [00:53:52]:
is not as profitable to write about. So, yeah, that is kind of the reality that, you know, I can do a trip that I think is fun knowing that it's not going to be very profitable or choose one that's gonna be maybe less desirable for me, but will be more profitable. And I make both of those choices. Yeah.

Claudia [00:54:13]:
I did have a question about how you make money, and this is just my kind of lack of knowledge around vlogging and the Internet, I guess, in general. But, so you have ads on your website and you make money when you get traffic?

Taryn [00:54:27]:
Yeah. So I can give you a breakdown. So of percentages. I'm not gonna give you numbers. So, yeah. So my website makes 80% of my income. About 10% of the rest is from freelance work and then 10% of the rest is from books.

Speaker E [00:54:40]:
So the books are 10% of my income and I make

Taryn [00:54:40]:
nice money, you know. So, get from that is books are not very profitable. For my website, about half of my website income comes from display ads. So, yeah, if you visit my website, you see display ads. The more time you spend on my website, the more ads you look at, the more money that I make. So I make a certain amount of money per 1,000 impressions, a 1,000 people who see an ad. And I have an ad network that organizes all that for me. I'm not, like, going out and being, like, hey.

Taryn [00:55:12]:
Would you like to put an ad on my website? Like, I don't have time for that. And which also means that the ads that you see are personalized to you. The ad network is using cookies, you know, to be like, you recently searched for a skirt for that event you're going to, and now it's gonna show you ads for skirts on a blog post about hiking. And you're, like, why am I seeing ads for skirts? I'm, like, do you need a skirt? And then the other half of the income from our website is from affiliate links. So that is if I say, I recommend this ridiculous thermometer. It's, you know, this is how I use it. Here's where you can buy it. If you click through to that website and buy that thermometer, I make a small percentage of the sale, usually between 1 10%.

Taryn [00:55:55]:
But also, if you click through to that website and buy anything else from that website, I make a small percentage of the sale. Cool. If you click through that website and don't make a purchase but decide 3 weeks from now that you'd like to go back and buy something from that website, I might still make some small percentage of the sale. Awesome. So that's how it's, yeah, I'm able to and lots of people who have blogs are more ad heavy or they do a lot of sponsored works. There's lots of ways to make money from having a blog, but that's how mine works.

Hannah [00:56:23]:
And do you think there's still space in the kind of blogging writing world for people? Do you think it's a saturated market? Like, what's your approach to that?

Taryn [00:56:32]:
So I don't think that it's a saturated market. I mean, it's certainly a lot more competitive and busier than it used to be. People are starting all the time, but people are quitting all the time. Mhmm. It's also a bit of a treadmill because things keep changing. So you need to be comfortable with pivoting and trying to keep up. Since since the fall, the Google algorithm that determines what and lands at the top of search results has been changing a lot. It's very volatile.

Taryn [00:57:03]:
A lot of people's businesses has been affected rather negatively. Mine has a little bit. And so it's maybe because of that not the best time to be starting. But I do think that I I would say that it's not totally saturated because as long as you're going into it saying, like, what do I have to offer that is different? Right? Like, what what can I say that somebody else isn't saying that people want to hear? So, you know, like, in the outdoor space, are you a beginner and you wanna share tips for beginners? You know? Are you a search and rescue volunteer and you wanna share preparedness from that lens? Like, there's all kinds of lenses that I don't have. Like, for example, I don't have a dog and I don't have a baby. And lots of people hate with those things. And I can't speak to that. And there's lots of people I'm sure who could rate great content geared towards that, and I'm not writing.

Hannah [00:57:54]:
That must be pretty stressful, like the the Google algorithm changes. Is it the kind of thing where you can lose everything overnight?

Taryn [00:58:04]:
Yeah. Theoretically, people in my industry have lost 90% of their traffic and therefore their income overnight. So, yeah, that could happen to me. And that is terrifying, but also just part of being in this business. You know, like, there's lots of things that could happen in other industries. You know, like, you could work at a lumber mill for years, and then the price of of wood changes, and they close your mill. And now the job you worked at for 30 years is gone. Right? Like so it's not just this industry.

Taryn [00:58:31]:
It's many industries. But the only thing that I've done, I guess, to try and mitigate that is to diversify. So I do have income from freelance work, which I could lean on more heavily, and I do have book income. And I do a few other things that don't make very much money. Like, I do do, like, custom trip planning for people. Like, they'll call me and we'll have a Zoom and plan their trip together or also in the minute itinerary afterward if they want to. So there's things like that that I do that make a little bit of money. But if, you know, if this all doesn't work out, I probably will just go back to working in an outdoor store again.

Taryn [00:59:05]:
It doesn't make as much money and the hours are shit. But I really like how the people get gear to go outdoors.

Claudia [00:59:11]:
Yeah. Yeah. I did some time, in retail. I worked at the same outdoor retailer as you did in the call center as well. I've worked for a couple other outdoor gear companies, and the thing that kept me in it is how satisfying it is to pair somebody with the right piece of equipment. And there were times I created, like, friendships with people who came back to tell me how amazing their trip was as a result of this piece of gear that I sold them. And, like, that's so

Taryn [00:59:50]:
fun. Yeah. And I think, for me, like, so working I worked part time in that outdoor store in Halifax, so I was going to law school. And so I had that experience of, you know, connecting with people and helping them with their trips. And then when I became a lawyer, nobody ever wants to see their lawyer. Something very bad in their life is happening. They're getting divorced. They're getting sued.

Taryn [01:00:11]:
Something bad is happening. Right? Nobody's excited to see you. So transitioning back into a role where I was helping people basically plan their vacations and selling them toys they didn't need but wanted was pretty good.

Claudia [01:00:23]:
Yeah. Yeah. I believe it. It's unfortunate that you don't make that much money in that industry. No. You know, that you're often thinking about ways to spend your paycheck before you've earned it because you're confronted by those toys.

Taryn [01:00:37]:
They gave us this benefits statement when I worked at the Halifax store while I was going to law school that was, like, supposed to help you show, you know, like, how much you had saved on your employee discount and, like, as a perk. Because they were like, oh, you know, you're not full time, so we can't offer you full time health care. And, like, here are the perks. And I was like, I've spent 80% of what I made. Really? I was also in my early twenties and I was building up gear. I didn't have any. So, I mean, it was a great way to get set up.

Speaker E [01:01:09]:
Yeah.

Hannah [01:01:10]:
I'm curious about the writing. Like, do you feel when you're writing that you have to write in a specific way to please the algorithm and and meet those structures? Or do you feel like you have freedom and creative expression and, like, you enjoy it?

Taryn [01:01:25]:
Yeah. So, I mean, the way that I write is very prescriptive, which partly, I think, is of my own doing. So, you know, I am, yeah, definitely reading to make sure that readers can get the information that they need quickly and concisely, not as concisely as it could be maybe sometimes. You know, because I know that, you know, like the example, unfortunately, for recipe bloggers, right, is people who are like, just where is the recipe? I don't care about your personal relationship with spinach and how you and your grandmother something something. Just tell me how to cook it. You know? And I know that that's the same with writing about hiking. Like, I might intersperse a little bit like, oh, you know, I brought this because it was cold and it's often cold there this time of year and here's my experience. This one sentence funny story about how I didn't, you know, bring the thing and it was cold.

Taryn [01:02:09]:
But I'm not going to give you the like grandmother and my spinach kind of situation because people don't want that. So yeah, that creativity and storytelling is not there in that way because of that. But I also feel like I've been doing this full time for 5 years and have honed my voice in such a way that it feels very natural to write that way. And to write in a way that is more creative or storytelling is would be hard for me now.

Hannah [01:02:37]:
Yeah. Like a repetitive practice of a certain way.

Taryn [01:02:40]:
Yeah. I mean, I think it is an interesting way to sort of flex that muscle that I, maybe, am not flexing. Because, you know, maybe I perceive it anyway as not being what people want or not being something that will make me money.

Hannah [01:02:55]:
Yeah. Totally. Are there things that you've done differently that have, like, saved your website from the 90% downturn in traffic that didn't for other people or is it just like lack of the draw?

Taryn [01:03:07]:
It's really hard to say. So, like, traditionally the algorithm favored personal experience and expertise. And so I was really careful to only write up places that I had been, that I had photos of that were mine, that I could say this was my experience, this is what I recommend based on what I Mhmm. You know, like, it is what pleases the algorithm, but it's also the right thing to do. You know, like it is what pleases the algorithm but it is also the right thing to do. You know, like I I don't want to tell you about like, you know, 15 best places in Thailand. I've never been to Thailand. Like, who cares? But there are lots of people writing that kind of content that does well for them.

Taryn [01:03:51]:
And they enjoy it because they like researching 15 places in Thailand.

Claudia [01:03:57]:
I like that you keep coming back to what is ethical because I really think that we're losing sight of that a little bit in this digital era. And I I think especially, you know, with meme culture and how participatory the Internet is from our our cultural standpoint, there there has to not there has to be, but I like it when there are, like, parameters and guidelines or criteria upon which we can evaluate some the quality of these things and ethics rates high on my list. I wonder how high do you think ethics rates on kind of the general population's radar when they're going out and searching for this kind of information? I don't

Taryn [01:04:44]:
think they think about it. I don't think they think about it too deeply. Right? I think that they think, like hopefully, they think, like, oh, this person seems to have actually been there, and maybe I've looked a little deeper, and she's done other things that I know about or I trust. Right? I I don't think that they think too deeply about it. But I also think that there are people who define what is ethical differently than I do. Right? Like, there are people who write about 15 places in Thailand who think that what they're doing is completely ethical because they did a really good job of researching it. And, like, I, you know, like, I'm not gonna disagree with them on that. Right? Like, they probably do have the best research, 15 things to do in Thailand from someone who's never been there.

Taryn [01:05:22]:
But there are also people who I encounter this online occasionally who are, like, I don't trust anything she says because she's monetized her content. Right? She's just doing that for money. She doesn't care about trails. She doesn't care about the environment. She's just pouring out our nature to make money.

Claudia [01:05:43]:
That's intense.

Taryn [01:05:44]:
Yeah. I don't know. Like, it doesn't make me feel nice to hear that.

Claudia [01:05:48]:
I bet.

Taryn [01:05:49]:
But, yeah, like, at the end of the day, I need to be comfortable with myself and what parameters I've I've set for what I will and won't do and how I will talk about things. And that's, yeah, that's all I can do.

Claudia [01:06:02]:
Did you map that out at the beginning, or has that been a bit of an evolution really, what feels

Taryn [01:06:08]:
right to me. You know, like, I used to be a lot really what feels right to me. You know, like, I used to be a lot more even more cautious than I am now. I would be like, oh, I don't wanna write about that place because I'm not an expert enough. Or I shouldn't write about bear safety because I'm not a biologist. Or you know what I mean? And I think that those criticisms are valid. I am not an expert in a lot of the things that I write about. And like the 15 things to do in Thailand people, I am a good researcher.

Taryn [01:06:40]:
So for me, the balance is, like, can I write about something I'm not a complete expert in because I am the person that can help people get this information that they need to hear? And needing to hear about how to store your food in beer country is maybe more pressing than 15 things to do in Thailand.

Claudia [01:06:56]:
Yeah.

Hannah [01:06:57]:
I often think that with some

Speaker E [01:06:58]:
of the

Hannah [01:06:58]:
stuff that we share on the podcast, and on our Instagram, like, we created a reel a while ago on, like, how to check all of your avalanche safety equipment to make sure that it's ready to go for the season and the start of the winter. And I had a bit of, like, oh, I'm not an ACMG guide. I'm not sure that I should be the person that's doing this. But, also, if you're the person that has the time and the voice and the platform to be able to share that, the ACMG guide or the expert might not have that, and so providing the research the information is well researched and you're doing the best you can to be truthful and accurate. Getting that information out there, like your your blog posts on hikes, people saying, well, you know, you're just doing it for money. It's like, well, to enable you to have the time to be able to write the helpful information to help people go on their 1st backpacking trip, you need to be paid for that because otherwise, you would have an entire second job, a full time job, and that's not possible.

Taryn [01:07:53]:
Yeah. So Yeah. And it's it's true. Like, I mean, I I do this full time. This is my job. There's no way I could do this if I wasn't paid. And people often say, like, oh, well, you know, she's she's a professional hiker. Or on the other end of things, like, oh, she she doesn't actually hike all of those things or she doesn't look like she could hike all of those things.

Taryn [01:08:12]:
And to that, I would say, like, yeah. I'm not a professional hiker, but I did hike all of those things. And the hiking of it is not what makes me an expert. Right? Like, it's not that I am able to physically put one foot in front of the other in at whatever speed I am doing it. It is that I have the writing skills and the SEO skills and kind of the photography skills that you don't. Right? Like that is why you are not and the time. That is why you are not doing this for a living. Mhmm.

Taryn [01:08:39]:
It is not that I am like a good hiker.

Hannah [01:08:43]:
And I think it's easy to look at content creation and be like, oh, it took you 5 minutes to write that blog post and now you're making all this money from it. And it's like, no, it took years of honing a skill and learning how to manage SEO and spending the 3 days it took to hike the trail and taking the time on the trail to take the photos and take notes of the things that are important and then to be considerate in how you share that information and learn the leave no trace principles and how to communicate that to people. And and it's not just whatever they read in 5 minutes on the Internet.

Taryn [01:09:17]:
Yeah. The amount of time that it takes to put together a blog post is a lot longer than you would think. Like, I have systems. I'm efficient. But it's still I would say the shortest I could write a blog post is maybe 6 hours, and that would not be a hiking guide blog post. Or and that or maybe something that's a short day hike. For a, like, multi day hike blog post, maybe 4 or 5 days. Like, of, you know, 7, 8 hour workdays is was what it takes.

Taryn [01:09:44]:
Because it's, yeah, it's it's doing the writing. It's going through all of those stupid photos of toilets I took. Right? Like, I'm taking hundreds of photos, so you need pick which ones to include. You need to edit them. It's, you know, looking at maps. You know, it's all of these behind the scenes things that are happening.

Claudia [01:10:03]:
And I think people, like, again, you know, they don't think too intentionally about things like ethics. But also nobody's thinking about, like, I wonder how long it took her to manage all of the media that she came back with from her hiking experience in order to even just like get to the blog writing stage. And that I have such a hard time with people who think that just because you're posting on the Internet means that you don't have the experience or the expertise

Taryn [01:10:37]:
content, should just go and try and make their 1st Instagram reel. If you've never made an Instagram reel, like, suddenly, it's like an hour's gone by and you still hate it. And you're like, how did this happen?

Claudia [01:10:49]:
Yeah. And you need to get to a point where you kind of just let yourself off the hook. You're like, I've spent x number of hours on this reel. If I don't publish it, then all of that is for nothing. So, like, it's going on the Internet.

Taryn [01:11:00]:
And, of course, content creators will get better and faster at it, so it's not taking them an hour. But when you're learning a skill like that, and it's it's

Claudia [01:11:14]:
Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, we've talked about this before in the context of, like, being able to monetize our podcast and have it, you know, earn us money. Like, I can't wait until the time where we're popular enough where we can outsource all of the things that we don't wanna do that we're not good at, or that we don't enjoy spending time doing, or that could be taken off our plates in order for us to spend that time doing other things like research or going out and finding guests.

Taryn [01:11:41]:
Yeah. I would love to be able to hire an assistant. That's my goal at this point. And, yeah, I I was almost there financially, but with the volatility now, I'm I'm back to to being, like, very conservative financially about it.

Speaker E [01:11:55]:
Yeah.

Claudia [01:11:57]:
Other than an assistant, what sort of another goal that you have in terms of success that you'd like to see in in the future?

Taryn [01:12:04]:
I have, like, monetary goals for myself. So, like, you know, I would like to make more money than I did the previous year. Usually, that's that's a goal. Mhmm. One of my goals this year was to speak at a conference, which I'm doing in June. So I'm speaking at the Travel Media Association of Canada Conference about affiliate marketing.

Speaker E [01:12:21]:
Mhmm.

Taryn [01:12:21]:
And so

Speaker E [01:12:22]:
Oh, yes.

Taryn [01:12:22]:
Yeah. Thank you. I'm excited. It's a organization that's existed

Speaker E [01:12:25]:
for a long time, but

Taryn [01:12:25]:
it's existed for a long time, but it's traditionally very print media heavy. Mhmm. And they've kind of realized, how much they need to include digital publishers in the last few years and have become more welcoming to that. And also kind of realized, you know, like, how successful digital publishers can be, digital media personalities can be. That it is, you know, like, not the perception that people have of, you know, like, oh, you're just taking some selfies in front of something you travel to and you make money magically. So, yeah. I'm speaking on a panel about monetizing your website. I'm speaking about affiliate marketing to a group of people that some of whom will not even be familiar with that concept because that's not the kind of world they're from.

Claudia [01:13:07]:
That's exciting.

Taryn [01:13:08]:
Yeah. So I'm looking forward to that. And I also get to go to Newfoundland, which is great. So

Claudia [01:13:13]:
Beautiful. Taryn, is there anything you wanna add before we sign off?

Taryn [01:13:22]:
I feel like I just talked to myself for well over an hour, so there can t possibly be more.

Claudia [01:13:29]:
Well, it was fantastic.

Taryn [01:13:31]:
Thank you.

Claudia [01:13:31]:
Thank you so much for being here and and I really appreciate like all of your insight and your your expertise and and your blog is so helpful.

Taryn [01:13:42]:
Thank you.

Claudia [01:13:42]:
So thank you for the work that you're doing.

Taryn [01:13:43]:
Thank you. Yeah. Thanks for having me. It's really fun.

Hannah [01:13:46]:
Well, that's it folks. Thank you for listening. We hope it was time well spent.

Claudia [01:13:50]:
We would love to hear your thoughts on today's episode and all about your adventure stories. If you are blogging or monetizing your work in the outdoors in any way, message us at weatherproofpodcast.

Hannah [01:14:03]:
If you love today's episode, please share it with a friend and follow the show wherever you listen to podcasts.

Claudia [01:14:09]:
Happy adventuring.