The Stories We Find When We Get Closer: A LIVED approach to storytelling on the road to Alaska

Shots from an Art of the Stay storytelling shoot for client Black Tree Resort, while getting my miles in. Photo by my partner in the project, Kayte Demont of WCKD Collective

What happens when the storyteller doesn't just document the experience, but trains for it, participates in it, and lives it alongside the people whose stories she's there to tell?

In a few days, I'll be heading to Alaska on a client trip with VITAL Ventures, an adventure company that prepares people to take on meaningful physical challenges at every stage of life.

What's unique is that I'm not just showing up as a storyteller for the trip itself, I’ve stepped fully inside the experience itself to witness and document it, and I've been training for it for months!

Our team logged many miles (over 210, but who’s counting), worked through the training program which included 3 days a week of strength training on top of high mileage, weekly ascents and hill repeats, joined community check-ins, listened to stories, experienced some of the physical and mental challenges that come with preparing for an adventure like this, and even sat in on a presentation given by a renowned bear expert to prep us for the journey ahead.

And there’s a reason for all the training. Our trip includes a 4 mile shake out, 16-mile, 2,800 feet of elevation gain on Lost Lake Trail, followed by Harding Icefield - another 8+ miles and roughly 3,000-3,500 feet of climbing. On our last adventure day, we’ll trade trail legs for sea legs with a full day in Kenai Fjords National Park, kayaking beneath tidewater glaciers, fishing, wildlife spotting, and exploring Resurrection Bay.

So no, this isn't exactly a show-up-with-a-camera kind of assignment. The preparation is part of the experience - and increasingly, I believe it's part of the story too.

And that's exactly the kind of storytelling that my soul is meant for.

My client and inspiring leader Libby Harrington , founder of VITAL Ventures, guiding us on one of our group training calls. We learn so much from (and with) her!

The Story Starts Before the Trip

Historically, marketing has largely focused on documenting the outcome: the finished product, the launch, the destination, the beautiful hero shot.

But the stories that stay with us rarely begin there. They begin with deciding to say yes.

With preparation and anticipation. With uncertainty. With realizing somewhere along the way that you're capable of something you weren't entirely sure you could do.

One of the things I've appreciated most about working with Libby, is how deeply she understands this.

Libby and I are both graduates of the Transformational Travel Council's Experience Design Program, where we explored the idea that truly transformational experiences are intentionally supported before, during, and after the journey.

That philosophy has also deeply influenced how I think about storytelling. For my capstone, I explored how those same principles could extend beyond experience design and into the way we tell the story of an experience - capturing not only the polished outcome, but the anticipation and preparation before it, the human moments within it, and the reflection and impact that follows.

Because if an experience has an arc, its storytelling should too.

VITAL embodies this philosophy beautifully.

Long before participants set foot in Alaska, they're training together, building physical strength and confidence, creating community, and preparing mentally for what's ahead. The adventure itself becomes the immersion. And afterward, there's an opportunity to reflect on what happened, what changed, and what gets carried home.

I've had a hand in helping Libby further shape this journey too - strengthening the connection between preparation, immersion, and integration and how those ideas come through the guest experience and VITAL's storytelling.

But this time, I also get to live it.

Beautiful views from a training hike, Arapahoe Pass Trail, within the Indian Peaks Wilderness trail systems, outside of Nederland, Colorado.

THe IMMERSION: From StoryTELLER to Participant

I've supported VITAL's storytelling from afar for some time - shaping content strategy, elevating participant stories, helping translate Libby's vision, and finding ways to communicate the transformations happening inside this community.

Alaska changes that relationship.

I'll be hiking the miles. Feeling the exhaustion. Sharing meals and conversations. Watching people move through hard moments and breakthroughs. Carrying my own gear and, presumably, questioning some of my life choices somewhere uphill (I tease).

I'll be experiencing the conditions I'm trying to communicate.

For me, that's the opportunity of immersive storytelling.

You notice different things when you're inside the experience.

A nervous joke before something hard. The helping hand from a teammate when the trail gets tough. An unexpected wildlife sighting that stops everyone in their tracks. Team conversation that unfolds somewhere between miles. The moment someone realizes they’re capable of more than they thought. Those moments don't always make the itinerary but they're often where the real story lives.

Immersive content captures for clients from Left to Right: Jackrabbit Studios in Landers, California // Todos Santos Eco Adventures at La Isla Espíritu Santo Santo in Baja, Mexico // Costa Dulce Retreat Center in Escameca, Southern Nicaragua.

Looking back, there’s a thread connecting the different worlds I’ve found myself in: fashion, wellness, brand building, storytelling, travel. I don’t think I could have named it at the time, but I’ve always been drawn to the details that make something feel like something.

Fashion styling taught me to notice. I spent years behind the scenes styling and art directing, commercial and editorial shoots, learning how place, light, movement, clothing, and the smallest details could communicate an entire story without saying a word.

Then came INDA, a wellness brand I built out of my own relationship with plant medicine, nature, rituals, and healing. Suddenly I wasn’t just helping tell someone else’s story - I was sharing pieces of my own, building a world around what I believed in and finding a community of people who saw themselves in it too.

Those experiences eventually found their way into REWOLF, where story, strategy, creativity, and experience have become increasingly intertwined.

But the other half of this has nothing to do with my resume. I'm naturally an immersion person.

My family has called me Carmen Sandiego for years because keeping track of where I am practically requires GPS. Friends took it one step further with “Boodain” - a mashup of Anthony Bourdain (explorer and No Reservation travel show host), and my childhood nickname, “Boo”. I have an insatiable desire to know what’s around the next corner, what everyone’s eating, where the locals go, and what happens when you wander a little farther than you planned.

This curiosity has shaped the way I live, see and experience life, and ultimately tell stories.

I’ve resided on mountaintops in communities of entrepreneurs and artists, gotten my hands dirty on hemp farms on both coasts, moved between cities, traveled alone to places where I knew no one, and keep finding pulled back to distant destinations like Nicaragua - a hamlet and future part time home, that makes me feel wildly connected and alive.

I say yes a lot. Sometimes before gathering all of the necessary information. Sometimes to my own detriment. Almost always because I’d rather find out than wonder.

And I’ve never been particularly interested in simply passing through a place.

I want to stay long enough to catch its rhythm. Meet the people. Eat what they eat. Understand thei culture and its relationship to the land. Hear the stories that don't make it into the travel guide. Find the roadside spot you almost drive past, take the wrong turn, ask too many questions, and notice the tiny human moments happening while everyone else is looking at the view.

Because those are usually the things I remember. And increasingly, they’re the stories I want to tell.

This work feels strangely familiar - less like a new direction and more like everything I’ve been doing all along finally finding its way to the same place. Where the way I move through the world and the work I’ve built become part of the same story.

Why Immersive Storytelling Matters MORE THAN EVER

We're living through an interesting moment for creativity. AI can produce more content, faster than we've ever imagined. Our feeds are overflowing, and attention is fragmented enough that the phrase "attention crisis" has entered the cultural conversation.

And yet, what people seem to be craving feels remarkably simple: connection, meaning, nature, community, presence, transformation.

Something REAL.

Travel has always given us access to those things. Nature has a way of stripping away the noise. Adventure asks something of us. Shared challenge creates connection. And a thoughtfully designed journey or stay can shift something in us long after the suitcase is unpacked.

For travel, hospitality, wellness, and experience-driven brands, I think there’s something important in that tension. As the pressure to create more, faster continues to grow, I’m increasingly interested in going the other direction - slowing down, getting closer, paying more attention, and telling the fuller story around an experience. When people can genuinely feel what you’re creating, the right people are more likely to see themselves in it, connect with it, and ultimately become part of the community around it.

Because the closer we get, the more we notice what can't be captured from a shot list alone.

Being inside an experience gives us context. We understand what came before a moment, why it mattered when it happened, and what changed because of it. That allows us to tell richer, more lived-in stories - not simply what a place or experience looks like, but what it feels like to be there.

I keep coming back to the same curiosity: What is it about an experience that stays with us? What changes us? What becomes the story we tell years later?

Those are the moments I want to get closer to.

Snap by Art of the Stay creative collaborator, Kayte Demont of WCKD Collective, on location at our client’s glamping property: Black Tree Resort

The Stories Between Miles

This Alaska project is giving me an opportunity to explore that intersection from inside the experience itself.

I'll be documenting the landscapes and adventure, of course.

But I'm equally interested in everything around them: the months of preparation, the relationships forming within the group, the moments of doubt, the humor, the physical challenges, the confidence gained along the way, and what participants ultimately bring home with them.

Because the summit, trail, lodge, or destination is only one part of the story.

The experience begins before arrival and continues long after departure.

It's also one of the ideas inspiring a new hospitality storytelling project my creative partner Kayte Demont and I recently launched, called Art of the Stay, which I'll be sharing much more about soon.

For now, I'm heading to Alaska, trading desk time for trail time, stepping out from behind the strategy, and experiencing the story alongside the people I'm there to document.

Part storyteller. Part participant. Part strategist.

And, like everyone else on this journey, exploring what's possible along the way.