I love this. I'm talking to a few different people, so I feel like I'm speed dating, but just for travel stories. So there's no pressure on my end.

Hello, welcome to a special mini episode of Women Who Travel. I'm Lale Arakoglu. This month, we're taking a break from our typical episode schedule.

Instead, you'll be hearing some phone calls between our listeners and me

about travels they've taken in search of something.

Last week, I spoke with Sinell about a food reunion 20 years in the making.

And this week, camping gone awry with a phone call from Jamie.

I want to love camping. I want to love it so much. I feel like I need more nature in my life.

I'm happier when I'm outside and at scenic places and hiking. I love

it. I love it. But I feel so good when I'm outside. But my few attempts at camping have been so

awful that I can't, I'm done. And in fact, yes, just last night, I was talking to a friend of mine who said she's going to go canoe camping in the boundary waters of Canada, like up near the border of Wisconsin.

It sounds intense. And I was like canoe camping. I'm like, that would be amazing. And then I was like, oh my God, I'd be so miserable. What canoe? Like just everything is in your canoe.

Picture that in the rain and with bears and, you know, oh my gosh, no. And with all your stuff.

Yeah, no, no, no, no. Before we get into the challenges of the outdoors and all the reasons that you just listed off as to why it seems like maybe, you know, you're not meshing right now. You haven't found your, you haven't found your rhythm. But you said that it makes you really happy. Why does it make you happy? It does. I don't know. There's just something about being outside. It's like stress relieving. And I don't know.

It's, you just breathe better and you're just, I don't know. It's hard to kind of put into words how I feel about it.

But it's, as someone who lives in an urban area, there's just something about just seeing the Great Wide Open and know people and trees and grass and

flowers and, you know, wild animals and wild flowers. And it just, it's so appealing and it's so

beautiful. And I want to emerge myself in it more than just for a day hike.

So tell me about one of these camping trips. What was your vision for it? And then what was the reality? So my very first camping trip, and this goes back to 1999, was in a field in Manchester,

Tennessee. It was a music festival called Ichiku Park, which

eventually became Bonnaroo. Oh, that's amazing. I love that. Also, just full disclosure,

I've only ever camped at a music festival, so it's all I know. Okay, so then you'll be able to

relate to this completely. This was a big open field in the summer, in Tennessee, in the rural Tennessee.

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