How Outdoor Group Travel Nurtures Mental Health

 

 

Kelly Kimple the CEO of Adventures in Good Company, a community of women with adventurous spirits who support each other and relish time together in the outdoors joins eHealth Radio and the Health News and Mental Health Channels.

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Listen to interview with host Eric Michaels and guest Kelly Kimple discuss the following:

1. Share a personal experience or anecdote from your own outdoor adventures that highlights the profound impact of nature and group travel on mental well-being?
2. What unique mental health benefits do guided adventures (like Adventures in Good Company) offer, especially for women, that may not be as readily accessible during solo trips or other forms of travel?
3. Adventures in Good Company emphasizes creating supportive environments for participants. How do these group dynamics contribute to building a sense of community and connection among women, fostering positive mental health outcomes?
4. Can you elaborate on how acquiring new outdoor skills, alongside expert guidance, contributes to boosting confidence and overall mental well-being?
5. Outdoor adventures, while transformative, can pose challenges. How does Adventures in Good Company address the potential stressors associated with travel, and what strategies or support systems are in place to ensure participants feel secure and comfortable throughout their journeys?

Raised in rural New England, access to nature was abundant and outdoor adventuring came naturally to Adventures in Good Company’s CEO, Kelly Kimple. Even though her parents were not particularly outdoorsy, she took advantage of every opportunity to ski, hike, paddle, and explore the mountains, trails, rivers and lakes around her home. She followed this passion out west to the University of Montana, graduating from the Davidson Honors College with a double major in Wildlife Biology and Botany. Over the next decade, in addition to checking a lot of the national parks off her list, she pursued a career in conservation biology. She went on to receive a master’s degree in Natural Resource Management at the University of Arizona, and then moved to Fort Collins, Colorado to work for a non-profit doing research on bird population trends.

While still a conservationist at heart, she was looking for a change from research, and after trying her hand at program administration, business development, and marketing for several years, she was fortunate to find her true calling in the adventure travel industry. She joined Adventures in Good Company in 2018 and the next year was presented with an opportunity to purchase it from the founder, Marian Marbury. While the timing was challenging - closing on the sale at the start of 2020 - the pandemic allowed her to uniquely establish and build trust and to successfully move the company from founder-led to founder-inspired.

AGC had its best year ever in 2022 and Kelly is excited about the direction AGC is headed. She remains committed to the company’s founding values, including valuing emotional and physical safety, personal choice and individual goals, healthy relationships with other people and the environment, and valuing women and their way of knowing. She embodies the idea that women’s strengths are an asset to the outdoor and travel industry. At the same time, having experienced the strain and expense of balancing motherhood with career goals, Kelly is also committed to creating a supportive workplace for AGC’s all-female team, and it’s what drives her to continue to grow the business and to provide even better opportunities for women to achieve both their personal and professional goals.

Kelly thrives on the connections she makes with the team and the travelers, and in seeing the joy and empowerment that AGC trips provide for women. It is a privilege to do this work and to offer life-altering, confidence-building adventures that enable women to experience nature, travel the world, step out of their comfort zones, and accomplish things they never thought possible for themselves.

 

 

Website: https://www.adventuresingoodcompany.com 

Social Media Links:
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/adventuresingoodcompany 
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adventuresingoodcompany  
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AdventuresinGoodCompany 

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