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A Campfire Chat with Tom Thrash about Quests

This is a new thing I’m doing. Or at least something I’m testing out a bit.

My goal here is to have short, informal conversations with various interesting people I’ve met over social media. Not formal interviews with internet-famous influencers, just authentic conversations with the folks that comprise the online communities I value.

So many of us enjoy interacting with others online, but we rarely get to have an actual verbal conversation—even if it’s just over skype. So I decided to change that.

For now, these will simply be occasional chats—maybe about a specific topic (like this one), or maybe recounting a funny travel story, or just talking about a recent trip—that might happen around a campfire. Generally speaking, it’s safe to expect a heavy dose of conversation around travel and outdoor adventures.

I have vague ideas of turning this into an ongoing audio podcast, but we’ll see how it goes.

The Conversation

A little background

I first met Tom Thrash via a weekly twitter chat called #ParkChat. We bonded over our love of travel quests, craft beer, and—as you’d expect—national parks.

Tom and I talked about our quests last year via videochat, but our paths haven’t crossed just yet. Luckily, we expect that to finally happen later this summer during a #parkchat meetup we’re both attending in Sequoia National Park.

I really like the quest he’s doing to get to all the ski runs in Vermont, even the podunk ones. Those smaller quests can be a lot of fun, and as he mentioned, can be a perfect little excuse to get out of the house. I’ve done something similar here in Phoenix around the city’s ‘Points of Pride’.

Here’s a recent update Tom posted on where he stands on a number of quests:

Original embed is now broken, but here’s a screenshot and the original link: https://twitter.com/tthrash/status/1062060482721472517

You can follow his travels on twitter or instagram, or over on his blog.

If you enjoyed this, please give this post a like or a thumbs up on youtube. If you have some feedback for me, shoot me a quick email. Oh, and sorry about the loud start there.

Oh, and a quick message for Tom…

Kudos on snagging a Heady Topper for the chat. It was hard to concentrate every time you raised your glass for a sip…

What I wish I knew before starting my national parks quest

Travel quests are among the most powerful ways to get yourself out more. My personal national parks quest—visiting all 417 national park units in the country—has been the driving force for the vast majority of my own travel. And it’s been one of the most impactful endeavors in my life. I firmly believe that if … Read more