One of my favorite things to hear from friends is the phrase: “I had no idea this was here.” It happens whenever I drag them on a new hiking trail, bike path, or paddling adventure. And I’ve heard it quite a few times over the last two and a half years.
That’s how long I’ve been living in Atlanta, where I moved after five years working remotely in South America. My brother’s family and my elderly parents all moved here while I was out of the country, so it was the obvious choice when I finally migrated back to the U.S.
As an outdoorsy person, I didn’t know what to expect from central Georgia. I’d already been working in the outdoor media for several years, so I was keenly aware of its tendency to focus on the Rockies and the Pacific Northwest. But almost as soon as I arrived here, I began to realize just how much there was to explore. I found wild rivers overflowing with birds and wildlife, gorgeous biking trails through dense forests, and beautiful city parks with hidden ruins covered in graffiti artwork.
As I made friends and brought them along, I felt the pride of showing off these discoveries. And I did feel that I had discovered these places. Not because I thought I was the first. But because I have somehow managed to keep my sense of wonder, my curiosity about what’s around the next corner.
Modern life doesn’t make that easy. It’s not just the struggle to make ends meet or the fear of injury. More often, it’s simply that we don’t know where to begin. In the interest of helping my friends (and readers like you) get inspired to get outside, I’m sharing my own strategies for bringing exploration into daily life. I’ve developed these habits while living in various parts of the U.S. and in several other countries. They’ve helped anchor me to wherever I live, and fueled the creativity that makes life worth living.
1. Find A Green Space on A Map
Have we ever been more obsessed with “best of” lists? We made those back in my newspaper days, but now it seems there’s a “best of” list for just about everything, including places to get outside. There’s nothing wrong with those kinds of lists — I still use them from time to time. But I think it’s more fun to find places without being told, sort of like going into a movie without having to watch the trailer first.
One of my favorite ways to find places close by is simply checking Google Maps on my phone. The philosophy is simple: What’s green and close by? Let’s go check it out. I’ve found many of my favorite places in Atlanta this way, from quaint city parks and riverfront hikes to sprawling state parks and rarely used mountain bike trails.
This approach is even more helpful when living outside of the country, where outdoor opportunities often receive less attention and are harder to find through online sleuthing. You don’t have to use a map app on your phone, of course. You could also snag a physical one and reduce the screen time even more. But for most of us, the map is already in our hands. We might be accustomed to using it for driving directions, but it can also be a tool for finding someplace new and seeing what it has to offer.
2. Ditch The Maps & Get Lost
This one often sparks immediate hesitation — who wants to get lost? But to be clear, I don’t mean leaving the phone at home, although that can be fun, too.
I simply mean arbitrary movement: Pick a direction and keep going until you get tired. Or keep changing directions until you purposefully get lost. I love doing this on a bike. It’s surprising how often I realize that a beautiful neighborhood or park was less than a mile away, and I never noticed because I wasn’t taking the time to explore the area where I lived. And once you decide you need to actually figure out where you are and how to get home? For starters, you could ask someone for help. (Talking to strangers is pretty cool, and can open up all kinds of possibilities.)
Or you can simply use Google Maps. Or any of the 100 other options for GPS guidance. You can call a taxi. You can rent a bike. Exploring doesn’t have to mean ditching your phone. Instead, use it as a safety net. Human beings spent thousands of years finding our way around without computers in our pockets. Having a smartphone should make us feel more confident in exploring — not less.
3. Your Favorite Place Still Has Something New
We human beings tend to assume we already know everything. We’ll even visit a park a few times, and tell ourselves that we’ve got it all figured out. But this is nearly always a false conclusion. Our favorite places usually have more secrets to uncover and more trails to explore.
I’m especially prone to this fallacy. My drive to find new places often causes me to forget that I haven’t fully explored the places right in my backyard. I’ve reckoned with that in the Central Texas parks near Austin, Texas, at the vast Stone Mountain Park here in Atlanta, and in the city parks of Medellin, Colombia, and Cuenca, Ecuador.
Sometimes I think it’s a function of having too much information. We keep looking at our phones to tell us where to go, rather than simply wandering. The more I allow myself to return to a favorite park and roam without direction, the more I find new places, wildlife, and historic buildings to re-ignite my interest.
4. Join A Social Bike Ride or Hiking Club
Up to now, all my suggestions have been focused on approaches that don’t require any help or co-explorers. Which makes sense, because I tend to do most of my outdoor adventures all by my lonesome.
But I’ve realized how much more I can discover by joining up with others, be it social bike rides, hiking meetups, or run clubs. I also think these types of outdoor clubs have flourished since the pandemic, and I’ve seen plenty of proof of that here in Atlanta. My favorite by far is the social bike ride. You can, of course, join up with serious road cyclists intent on maintaining top speeds. But I much prefer bike rides that focus on changing routes every week, and exploring new parts of the city I’ve never seen.
5. Ask A Friend About Their Favorite Place
These meetup groups also offer a source of information that’s a lot more fun than the internet: other people.
One of my favorite examples of this is chatting with a fellow cyclist on a Monday evening social bike ride. We talked about how much we loved the road bike trails southeast of town, near Panola Mountain State Park. I had biked at least 30-40 miles of those trails, and thought I knew them quite well — until he asked if I’d been to the cathedral at the southern tip of those trails. I had not. When I made my way out there the following weekend, I enjoyed one of my best days in a long time. After 15-ish miles of biking, I arrived at the cathedral and spent a blissful half hour in air-conditioned silence.
I enjoy sharing my discoveries with others, and feel equal elation when someone else’s suggestion surprises me.
DIY Outdoors
You know the really great thing about exploration? There’s no right way to do it. These are just suggestions based on my own experience, not a definitive guide.
Finding our own path is as much about the “how” as the “where.” For me, I realize now that my favorite part of being outdoors isn’t about the athleticism of personal bests. It’s simply about finding and exploring a place I’ve never been.
So many times in my life, when I was feeling emotionally at sea, without direction or purpose, I found my figurative way by losing my literal one. And you don’t have to fly to the Himalayas to do it. All you need to do is walk out your door, and take the first step.
