Surprise. This week's episode of Women Who Travel is not just on a Wednesday because of the long weekend. We are officially moving from our usual morning drops on Tuesdays. And starting this week, all new episodes of Women Who Travel will pop up in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you listen to podcast on Wednesday mornings instead. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss an episode. We really

hope you enjoy this one.

Hi, everyone, and welcome to Women Who Travel, a podcast from Connie Nass Traveler. I'm Meredith

Carrie, and with me, as always, is my co-host, Lala Airokoglou. Hello. Today, we are so excited

to be joined by Nikki Smith,

a true multi-hyphenate in the outdoors. She's a professional rock climber, a boulder, a photographer,

a writer, a climbing guidebook publisher. I'm sure I have missed other things that you do. But we are so

excited to have you calling in today, Nikki. Thanks for having me. To get started, you've been working in the outdoor industry for more than 20 years now,

but what first drew you to the outdoors when you were young, like before it became a career for you?

My father worked for the Bureau of Land Management and then Forest Service, and he was an archaeologist

and geologist by profession and degree. And then he was an amateur photographer as well. And so

we were just always outside looking for minerals or fossils or hiking around. My neighborhood

was always surrounded by farms and fields, and so that was

going to my playground.

When you were a kid, did it occur to you that it was sort of quite special and lucky to

be growing up in that much sort of outdoors and wilderness and to kind of have that access?

Not at all. That was all I knew. Growing up in Utah, I don't know.

I couldn't even picture traveling until later in life.

Like, I just never thought that would be something I would do.

That was just my world was the towns that I lived in at the time.

When do you feel like that switch clicked for you that, like, travel was a reality and something that you were really interested in pursuing?

That started to change once I got into climbing. I was 16, started climbing, and I started seeing these climbing magazines and climbing movies and saw these people going all over the place.

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