In this episode of Unpacked by Afar, host Aislyn Greene chats with the hosts of National Park After Dark, the podcast that inspires outdoor travels with stories of spooky National Park sites, haunted hotels and dangerous animal encounters. They share the stories that haunt them, their favorite hiking trails and how they leverage scary stories to inspire travelers to safely brave the outdoors.
Transcript
I’m Aislynn Greene and this is Unpacked, the podcast that unpacks one tricky topic in travel each week. And this week, we are looking at the creepy, morbid, and downright weird things that happen in America’s national parks. Our guides are Cassie and Danielle, the hosts of the podcast National Park After Dark. Cassie and Danielle launched their podcast in 2021 to share their passion for the outdoors and their fascination with all the things that can go wrong out there.
Since then, they’ve expanded into live shows and even community trips, but they’ve never lost their love for all things macabre. On this very special Halloween episode, they share their favorite hikes in America’s national parks, the spookiest park hotels they’ve ever visited, and the one story that continues to haunt them.
Aislyn: Danielle and Cassie, welcome to Unpacked. It’s so nice to have you here, fresh off of a trip.
Danielle: Yeah, thank you for hosting us.
Aislyn: Would you mind introducing yourselves and saying what it is that you do?
Cassie: We’re hosts for the National Park After Dark podcast. I’m Cassie.
Danielle: And I’m Danielle.
Cassie: And we’ve been hosting uh, the National Park After Dark podcast for a few years now, since 2021, where we talk about all the morbid outdoor things that happen within the national park system.
Aislyn: I love it. And was the trip that you were just on, was that for National Park After Dark?
Danielle: It was a mixture of both. So we had a group trip to Malaysia, specifically to Borneo, and sandwiched, we sandwiched that between some personal travels just to break up the flight a little bit, just because it’s so far away. So we did London first for a couple days. We went to Malaysia with our listeners and then on the way back we stopped in Germany.
Aislyn: Well, welcome back. And I want to hear more about your trips. But first, I’d love to just start with your background. So you’ve built this entire empire around your love of national parks, and the creepy and often deadly things that happen within them. So have you always been into the outdoors and national parks?
Is that a lifelong love?
Cassie: I wouldn’t call it a lifelong love because I didn’t grow up around national parks. I didn’t really know about them until kind of later in life, I would say, as I became more independent. After college was when I really started looking into national parks. I’ve always loved the outdoors, but national parks themselves are, within the past decade, I would say, have really been a love of mine now.
Danielle: Yeah, and for me, pretty similar vein. Always had a love for the outdoors, loved being outside. Specifically, I felt a really strong connection with wildlife my whole life. But as far as national parks, I didn’t visit my first national park until I was in high school with my family: traditional trip to Yellowstone with, multigenerational trip, uh, with my family.
So that’s kind of when I had my first introduction to the national park system.
Aislyn: And how did you decide to cross these two things, the morbid and this kind of burgeoning love of national parks, outdoors?
Danielle: As far as how the podcast was born and that idea specifically, I in particular have always been really fascinated with morbid and macabre parts of life. It’s been a little bit of an evolution over time, but I mean, I considered going to school for funerary arts for college.
Like, I had, I always had a different sense of interests. But as far as how they merged together, Cassie and I both met, we met after college, working in the veterinary field. We were both veterinary technicians for many years, and we went outdoors a lot together when we weren’t working.
And while we were in the outdoors doing hikes or travels or what have you when we lived in New England together, we talked a lot about the things that were happening and the locations that we were visiting, and those events weren’t the flowery, nice events, usually; they were darker, if they’re, you know, when people get lost, search and rescues, murders, deaths, things like that. And then we found that it added a lot of richness to our experience, um, when we were visiting. So that’s how the seed kind of began.
Aislyn: And Cassie? What about your experience?
Cassie: I would say her interests are a little bit more morbid than mine have been. I’ve never considered funerary, uh, uh, any, anything like that, but I also have leaned toward more morbid things as well—especially, mine has been more toward histories, I would say.
Growing up, I’ve always been really interested in some of the darker histories surrounding American history. I mean, I was, like, in fourth grade reading World War II books while everyone else was reading, like, Captain Underpants, you know? So I would say that I definitely have a morbid curiosity as well, it’s just slightly different, which has been really great because we’ve been able to merge both of those to create the podcast. We each kind of bring our own, very interesting histories and morbid takes on things, and we can form it into the podcast, and, uh, so that’s really how it got started, is both of us just enjoying learning about this stuff.
Aislyn: That’s amazing. And it sounds like you were destined to become friends and launch this podcast. How do you find and decide which stories to share?
Cassie: It really, it depends on what we’re both feeling inspired by at the time. We have, I mean, behind me, I have a bookshelf that’s filled with books I haven’t read yet, with stories of national parks and just ideas in that. Sometimes they’ll come from books that we’re interested in.
Sometimes I’ll be reading a book and there will just be a blurb of another story that I’m like, Hold on a second, what, what is that? For example, I was researching a story on John Tornow, who was this man in Olympic National Park who, years ago, he was called “The Beast Man of Olympic” because there was all this kind of lore around him that he was a murderer, and there’s a whole story behind it. But there was a book, and there was this one line that said that John Turnow went into Olympic the same day that Ishi came out of Lassen Volcanic. And then that was it, and that was the only thing it said. And I was like, Who is Ishi? Like, what is in Lassen Volcanic? What, what is the sentence that I just read?
So I went and googled it and I found this entire story of this Indigenous person who was the last of his people that emerged from Lassen Volcanic after the, um, settlers came in and decimated his family. And he has an entire book, uh, written about him and his story. So that launched into a whole other topic that I had never heard of before.
Aislyn: I see. Yeah. So one often spawns another.
Danielle: And sometimes our travels do that when we are . . .
Aislyn: Oh nice.
Danielle: . . . together or individually, if we’re ever at a park or a National Historic Site or any sort of wilderness space, we always make sure to read the informational boards, the kiosks, the trail markers, anything that has any sort of inscription on it. You never know what that is alluding to, and that’s, that’s been the source of many of our stories. It’s just quite literally stumbling upon a story.
Aislyn: So you’re just always in research mode?
Danielle: Definitely.
Cassie: Yeah. Yeah, we always have our eyes out. We’re like, What is this?
Aislyn: Well, I’m sure many people ask you this, but do these stories ever make you not want to go out outdoors because there’s so many, you know, crime or women wandering into the outdoors and never coming back? So has that changed your, your relationship, I guess, with the outdoors?
Danielle: It’s definitely, at least for me, I know I speak for both of us on this topic, but it’s heightened our level of preparedness across the board.
Aislyn: That makes sense.
Cassie: Yeah. I wouldn’t say that it has changed me wanting to be outdoors, and it definitely hasn’t deterred me in any way. I actually kind of like having this knowledge. It makes me feel more prepared, knowing these stories. But, like Danielle said, it makes us a little bit more weary and just more cautious of what’s happening there now that we know these stories.
And I think one of the big things for us is we’ve done so many bear stories, which has caused us to learn more about bear behavior and how to prepare ourselves in the outdoors, too. Whereas before, I might’ve walked around in bear country without bear spray. And now I know that I would not do that. And so it’s definitely prepared us in ways that we weren’t before.
Aislyn: It seems like so many of the stories tend to involve women. Are you trying to specifically help women prepare themselves to go out into the national parks and outdoors?
Cassie: I wouldn’t say that that is our complete goal, but as women ourselves, of course, we want to encourage women to get outdoors and, and do what they love. Especially, I love solo hiking and I want to encourage other women to do that. And I think because our, our listener base is mostly women, that women also like to hear these stories because it does give us this knowledge and preparedness to go out and do these things.
And it also, I found it with myself, it is very comforting knowing that there’s other women out there who want to do this.
Aislyn: Yeah.
Cassie: And it encourages me to do it as well. I know that if I’m on the trail and I want to go solo hiking, when I see other solo hiking women, I’m like, Hell yeah. Like, get out there. I’m so excited that we’re both, we’re not together, but I’m excited to see you out here . . .
Aislyn: Yeah. Yeah.
Cassie: . . . and we’re both doing the same thing.
Aislyn: Totally, and being well-prepared and I think listening to your intuition about things, that seems to be an important element through some of the stories. I was curious to know if there has been a story that has really stuck with you or haunted you over the years. One that you can’t really let go of?
Danielle: Oh, that’s hard now that we’re over, you know, well over 200 stories.
Aislyn: Yeah. Yeah.
Danielle: Um, there have been a few that have stuck with me for different reasons, but I think that one of the biggest ones for me . . . I can say subjects because the subject of animal encounters is always my favorite to research. Um, tying it back to my love of wildlife, lifelong passion for wildlife.
Big predators, which are usually the source of these episodes, tend to get a bad rap, and covering these stories always has a similar undertone of, Yes, this tragic encounter happened, but what can we learn from it? Why did it happen? And most often, it is, it’s way deeper than just a rogue animal attacking somebody brutally.
There’s always a deeper lesson, conservation-wise, human-wildlife-conflict–wise, and that is the topics that have always kept me awake and fueled my desire to—I don’t know, sometimes I ruminate on them, and sometimes it’s the fire I need to, to really make an engaging episode because it’s what I find I’m most passionate about.
Cassie: Yeah. For me, uh, a story that has left a lasting impact that I think about the most would be a story that I covered on Julia Butterfly Hill. And she, yeah, she was in Humboldt County, California, and she sat in a tree for over 200 days because they were trying to cut down this really large redwood tree that she loved, and a lot of people were trying to protect it, but she sat there under death, death threats.
I mean, she had all of these really scary people trying to get her down and she didn’t falter, and the tree is still standing today, and you can still see it in Humboldt County. And I just loved her story. I loved that she didn’t back down and I thought that it was a really great example of how one person really can change something.
Aislyn: I didn’t realize that the tree was still there. And it’s amazing because I remember that story.
Well, it is Halloween. So I’m wondering what you think are the most historic and haunted hotels in or around national parks. And I’m also wondering if you would stay in them or if you have stayed in them?
Danielle: Well, that’s so difficult to say as far as the most haunted national park hotel, but I could talk forever about this because I love historic hotels, and if they’re national-park–tied, even better. There’s just a huge charm with them, and it’s so true they don’t make them like that anymore.
I have to say that the one, one of the hotels that get a lot . . . it gets a lot of attention when it comes to this time of year is the Stanley Hotel outside of Rocky Mountain National Park. I don’t know if it’s the most haunted. I have been there multiple, multiple times.
Aislyn: Yeah.
Danielle: We’ve done two live shows there and . . .
Aislyn: Cool.
Danielle: I stayed there for my birthday last year. I do feel there’s something there. There’s a different energy to that space, but I find it really warm and comforting.
Unlike how it’s advertised, usually with, you know, Redrum and murder and . . .
Aislyn: Yeah. Totally.
Danielle: . . . spooky scary. Um, I have always found it extremely warm and inviting, and I love it there so much. And it’s not technically in the park, but it’s at the gateway of Rocky Mountain National Park. So that’s my vote for my favorite haunted hotel.
Aislyn: Interesting. Yeah. Like “haunted.”
Danielle: Yeah, quote unquote. I mean, there . . .
Aislyn: Maybe haunted by friendly ghosts.
Danielle: . . . there [are] accounts of other things, but that’s just my personal experience.
Aislyn: Yeah. That’s cool. I love that take.
Cassie: Yeah. I mean, I, I’ve been to the Stanley quite a few times and I am not a person who wants to be haunted or messed with. And I agree that the Stanley has really nice vibes, and I really, I am comfortable sleeping overnight there, and I trust that the ghosts aren’t going to mess with me too hard. So, I would have to second that, but I would say it’s not . . .
This one is not in a national park, um, a hotel that we’ve been to, but I would say is one of the most more haunted ones. It would be the Crescent Hotel in Eureka Springs in Arkansas.
Aislyn: Okay.
Cassie: And it’s pretty close to some national recreation areas. But it is not in a national park itself. And that one, we did a live show from a few years ago.
And it is an old hospital where the doctor there was running some really shady things. Like, I mean, he claimed to have all these cures for things and then was injecting people with, like, straight up, um, rubbing alcohol and, among, like, way worse things, and a lot of people died and it was horrific. And even up to a couple years ago, I think in 2019, maybe 2018, 2019, they actually found, um, a lot of remains on their grounds that they had to bury up from this history.
And when we were there, there were some funky vibes there. And even at one point we were standing, we were in the lobby, and we were standing in front of this elevator. And I was like, Did something happen here? Something feels really off.
I don’t know what it is. And, and we had done a lot of research, and nothing that we could find said anything had happened there. And we even asked, we [were] like, “[Did] anything happen by the elevator?” And it was like, “No, not that we know of.” And then I looked it up later, and someone had actually recently fallen down the stairs and lost their life, within, like, a couple months before that. Yeah. So it was, yeah, and there was a lot of ghostly things, apparitions in the hallways, some ghosts that didn’t like visitors in certain rooms, and they even have, like, a most haunted room that you can go into and where you’re, like, really messed with if you’re in there, like your stuff’s moved around, um, you’re touched, tugged on. . . . It’s just—yeah, there’s a lot going on in that.
Aislyn: Yeah. All right. I don’t know if I would stay overnight there. Can you? But you said you can stay overnight there?
Cassie: It’s an active hotel.
Aislyn: Yeah. Okay. Wow. And did you?
Cassie: We stayed overnight.
Danielle: We stayed in the doctor’s room, actually.
Aislyn: Oh. Would you do it again?
Cassie: Yeah. I will say though, I, there, so there it was a suite, and there were two bedrooms in it, and I slept in the same room as Danielle. I was like, “I am not sleeping by myself in here.”
Danielle: She was a little scared.
Aislyn: I’m not getting the warm Stanley vibes here.
Cassie: No, definitely not. But it was really cool and it was an interesting hotel.
Aislyn: Do you think that most historic hotels that tend to be within national parks have some kind of haunting story associated with them, based on the research that you’ve done?
Danielle: I would say overwhelmingly yes.
Cassie: It’s very common.
Danielle: There’s always one or two stories that, even if they don’t outwardly advertise themself as a haunted hotel or run ghost tours, a lot of hotels, if you, specifically, if you know who to ask or you talk to the employees or the rangers at the park, a lot of people have either personal stories or stories that are circulated around the park about, um, said hotels, and it’s, I mean, when things are built in the 1800s . . . you’re bound to have a rich history, and a lot of times, not-so-nice things happen there.
Aislyn: Well, you also do trail tales, and I love the kind of diversity of these stories. Can you tell me about how you decided to do these and what you think they represent in terms of your show and your listeners?
Danielle: We began National Park After Dark for . . . it had nothing to do with us, you know. We’re just giving voice to different stories and we, we love sharing the stories, but it’s not really about our direct experience a lot of the times, and the outdoors are for everybody, and we wanted to extend that. We wanted to hear other people’s experiences in the outdoors and give voice to that in a way that, you know. So we decided to do the Trail Tales segment because there’s so many, there’s only so many trips we’ve taken and so many experiences we’ve had in the outdoors. We want to hear from other people, and that’s, that has been, it’s just been a favorite, um, every, every other week when we put those out. We love reading through everybody’s submissions, and we get everything from, you know, weird encounters to near misses, near-death experiences, animal encounters, um, trail magic . . . just things that people have experienced here and abroad is really interesting to hear.
Aislyn: Are there any that you, that again, have really stuck with you over the years?
Cassie: I have one in particular that has always stuck with me, and it’s of this woman. She wrote in to us, and she had, uh, she was in her front yard with her child, an infant. It sounded like she had a long dirt road for a driveway, and she was sitting in there, and this car drove up very slowly and asked her for directions or—I forget exactly.
It’s been a while since this person wrote in. But he was talking to her, he was really creeping her out, and he ended up, like, getting out of his car and asked to photograph her, and he, like, opened his trunk, and he, like, grabbed a bag out of his trunk, and she was trying to play it off, acting, like, really cool, even though she had really bad feelings about this person. And he was like, he grabbed this bag and he was like, “All right, well, I want to go in the woods over there. So, like, come in the woods with me.”
And she thought very last minute to—she was totally alone—and she thought very last minute to say, “Okay, well my husband is sleeping inside. Let me just tell him really quick. So if he wakes up, he’s not worried, um, where I am, I’ll just let him know.” And he stopped for a minute and he, like, stares at her and then says, “Uh, never mind.”
And gets back in his car and very, very slowly drives away. And she was obviously very scared of this. I think she called the police and it scared her a lot. She ended up moving out of the house, but only after she was in, I think she was at the post office, or she was somewhere in town doing an errand, and she saw a flyer on, on the board with his picture on it that said that he was wanted for assault and murder.
Aislyn: Oh my God.
Danielle: Yeah.
Cassie: Yeah. And that one always sticks with me. Like, that’s so scary.
Aislyn: Right? And that split-second decision-making that maybe saved her life. Ugh. Woo.
Danielle: And the other part of Trail Tales that is really cool is, I mean, they run the gamut, but the biggest thing is, it just tells our audience that “Hey, you’re not alone.” You know, whether it’s an embarrassing moment or a really scary situation or something bizarre.
We have similar themes. Even if you think your story is so out there or, you know, you’re, you feel a lot of shame around it or whatever, or you made a really bad mistake, which happens to everybody—by sharing them, we’re trying to convey the message that, you know, we’re all human. Everyone encounters things that are sometimes beyond your control, or you mess up or whatever it may be.
And that it’s OK. And, you know, we’re on this journey through life and the podcast to, to learn and to do better.
Aislyn: Well, and it seems like, you know, a lot of your episodes do involve death, but as you mentioned just now and before, when you were talking about animal encounters, Danielle, like, a lot of the approach is kind of, What, what can we learn from this? Is that an important part of your thinking for every episode?
Cassie: We definitely try to weave that in. We love to add in some type of education or lesson, if we can, into a story. I wouldn’t say that every story that we’ve ever done has this underlying message.
Aislyn: Sure.
Cassie: Sometimes it’s just awareness of a story that happened, and sometimes it’s strictly for spooky, scary. Especially Halloween season, you know, talking about ghosts or cryptids or anything like that, I wouldn’t say that that’s necessarily woven in. But we definitely like to have that aspect if we can.
Danielle: Our intention is never to share stories to scare anyone, whether it be a true crime story or a brutal attack by an animal or a really horrific accident or a natural disaster or anything like that. Our intention is never to make anyone afraid to be outside or to be fearful of different wildlife species or anything like that.
Our intention is to inspire people to educate themselves about where they’re recreating [and to] have an appreciation for the space that they’re in and the histories that the land holds, um, throughout time—including Indigenous histories, settler histories, and forward. You know, there’s just, there’s a lot to learn and a lot to know. And we just hope that by sharing the stories we do, it has the similar effect of what it’s done to us. And that is just . . .
Aislyn: Yeah. Yeah.
Danielle: . . . increasing our level of awareness and preparedness and appreciation.
Aislyn: Well, I would love to share some of your advice. So would you mind sharing some of your favorite national parks and/or hikes around the United States?
Cassie: One that I did recently that I really liked, I went to the Grand Tetons, which is one of my favorite parks. I love it there in Wyoming. And it’s just such a beautiful landscape to be part of and to hike in.
And when I was there, this is a hike that is pretty. . . it’s one of the most popular hikes in the park, um, but it’s actually not technically an established trail within the national park system, which I didn’t know until I was there. So I feel like that’s important to know. But I did the Delta Lake hike, which has gotten very popular on social media because you hike out to this alpine lake with . . .
Aislyn: Wow.
Cassie: . . . the Tetons surrounding it, and it’s beautiful, and the lake is this turquoise blue.
So it’s gotten on social media a lot, but what I don’t think has really been posted that much is that it’s not technically an established trail within the park. And because of that, it’s not well marked. Once you get off a certain point to get there—because you, I believe part of the trail is established, and then you veer off into the unestablished part—so you have to be a little bit careful because you can get lost. But if you make your way through there, it’s a really fun hike. It’s pretty challenging, I would say. There’s a lot of switchbacks and steep parts. But, like, the worth-it challenge, you know, like, once you do it, you feel really accomplished. And then you get to these amazing views, and it’s one of those things where the Tetons is one of those parks where you can kind of, you can look at it from afar, you can drive past it.
You see how wonderful it is, but it’s not until you’re on these hikes and you’re really in the mountain range where you really feel like you’re part of the park.
Aislyn: Oh, that sounds amazing. But yeah, have a map or have your app.
Cassie: Make sure you’re putting up something like AllTrails, anything to make sure you can find your steps again, or you might get lost.
Danielle: I would say one of the most beautiful hikes that I’ve ever been on is the Skyline Trail in Mount Rainier National Park. Uh, it’s in the Paradise region of the park, and it is just absolutely stunning, especially during wildflower season.
And that trail, it’s super popular. So it’s really, I wouldn’t say it’s easy, um, depending on your, your hiking ability, but it’s very well marked, it’s very well traveled. So if you need something to, you want a scenic route but something that is accessible. . . . It’s not super far out there in the park. There’s other people around, it’s well marked. Um, it’s just under six miles, um, total, and it’s just, you get the best of the best views all in one hike.
Aislyn: Well, so you also do trips now, which is really cool. Can you tell me more about what those are? What led you to start them and, and what happens? ’Cause you’re, as you mentioned, fresh off of one.
Cassie: For our listeners of the show, we have been hosting trips. This is our second year doing it. Now we’ve been on quite a few. But basically we have listeners come out to these places. We have mostly partnered with TrovaTrip. But, um, basically we take groups out on these itineraries that we’ve picked, and we have a guide, and we go out and explore, camp, hike, stay in hotels—whatever, um, is in that area—and we try to gear it toward the local communities there.
So the money that we’re spending goes into the local communities of wherever we are. We’ve done Alaska, Canada, South America. We just got back from Borneo. We’ve done Acadia. We’re doing Colorado next year. So we’ve kind of beep-bopped around so far. And it’s been really fun. It’s been cool.
Danielle: Yeah, and our every trip is different, like Cassie said. We’ve done, kind of, a little bit of everything. Some trips are very focused on the outdoors. They’re strictly camping- and hiking-based. Whereas others are, um, you know, we went to Egypt and did a lot of museums and slept on the Nile and in hotels.
Aislyn: Yeah. Yeah.
Danielle: When we were in Patagonia, it was kind of a mixture of things.
So it all is dependent on the location.
Aislyn: Yeah.
Danielle: Our biggest trip that we have ever done . . . So we’ve been, I think we’ve done nine or 10 so far, over the last two years. But the one that’s upcoming that is our biggest trip of all will be Antarctica, and we’re doing that in March.
Aislyn: Wow. Cool. How many people are going?
Danielle: Sixteen?
Cassie: Sixteen.
Danielle: But yeah, we’re really excited to do that. It’s something that we never ever thought was possible, and to answer part of your question as far as what inspired us to do that, uh, I mean, we never thought that we would be successful in this podcast to begin with. Like, it’s, I mean, we’re so happy that we are, but since we began the show, our goal was to always just inspire others to want to travel or get outdoors. You don’t have to travel across the world, even if it’s getting outside to your local trail. You know, you don’t have to be a globe-trotter. But, um, now that we have the ability to do that, we really wanted to extend the opportunity to other people to meet like-minded individuals.
A lot of times, people are . . .
Aislyn: Yeah. Yeah.
Danielle: . . . really anxious to travel. For whatever reason, their friends at home or their family members may not be into it, and they’re afraid to go alone, or there’s different destinations that they’ve wanted to see but have been a little overwhelmed with the planning process or getting there or doing it on their own.
We have people who come with friends and, you know, maybe a significant other here and there, but . . .
Danielle: Or partners.
Danielle: . . . yeah, but overwhelmingly it’s individual travelers, a lot of times women, and . . .
Aislyn: Cool. I love that.
Danielle: . . . it’s really cool to see, especially because our travelers make friends on the trip, and they do their own trips with each other, and they do their own trips after ours.
Aislyn: Well, are kind of dark or morbid stories a part of this? I imagine history is probably a part of these tours, but do you weave in any of that or . . . ?
Danielle: We always ask our guides, um, if they have, because they’re the, they’re the experts on the location, you know.
Aislyn: Yeah. Totally.
Danielle: Sometimes we can do some surface-level research of where we’re going, but the guides really know, um, what’s up with their specific locations, and they’re the best source because they live there, they work there. A lot of times they’ve, you know, their family goes back generations in that location, so we usually bother them, like, “Hey, what’s up with this place?”
Aislyn: We need some, we need some dirt.
Danielle: Yeah.
Aislyn: Well, where would you like to take your podcast and your community? What do you see as the future of National Park After Dark?
Cassie: I feel like it could go so many ways. We have a lot of dreams of what this will become. I mean, I think short-term goals would be able to reach more people and do more live shows so we can meet people in person, for sure. We have dreamed of having more community events where we can get to know our listeners a little bit more, um, than we have so far.
Aislyn: Nice.
Danielle: And long-term goals: Creating some sort of physical space for people to visit and use as a launch point for their own adventure in some way—without giving too much away. But yeah, we definitely have ideas and visions for what we would like to create from our platform and our community that we’ve built so far.
Aislyn: Well, congrats on all your success, and I can’t wait to see where you take this. Thanks so much for joining us today.
Danielle: Thank you so much.
Cassie: Yeah. Thank you so much for having us.
And that was National Park After Dark. Thank you, Cassie and Danielle. In the show notes, I’ve linked to their website and npadpodcast.com as well as to some of the hotels and hikes they mentioned.
You can follow them on Instagram @nationalparkafterdark. And as they say, enjoy the view, but watch your back.
Next week, we’ll be back with packing tips from a master stylist and author of the book The Capsule Wardrobe:1,000 Outfits From 30 Pieces.
Wendy: I think when I talk about the capsule wardrobe, you, you can have different capsules for different occasions. So you can have a work capsule, you can have a weekend capsule—the, the principle and the philosophy is the same. Take a few really classic basic items, make that 80 percent of the base of your wardrobe, and then in that last 20 percent, you want to have accessories, fun pieces of clothing, accent colors, stuff that actually adds the jazz and the fun to your basic minimal pieces, and that’s the same philosophy for travel.
Eighty percent of what you’re going to pack are your staples, the classics, minimal colors, solid block colors, generally speaking, and then 20 percent of what goes into your suitcase is going to be the stuff that brings you joy and fun into your travel wardrobe: accessories, scarves, patterns, colors, that kind of thing.
Ready for more unpacking? Visit afar.com, and be sure to follow us on Instagram and Twitter. The magazine is @afarmedia. If you enjoyed today’s exploration, I hope you’ll come back for more great stories. Subscribing makes this easy! You can find Unpacked on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast platform. And be sure to rate and review the show. It helps other travelers find it. We also want to hear from you: Is there a travel dilemma, trend, or topic you’d like us to explore? Drop us a line at afar.com/feedback or email us at unpacked@afar.com.
This has been Unpacked, a production of AFAR Media. The podcast is produced by Aislyn Greene and Nikki Galteland. Music composition by Chris Colin.
And remember: The world is complicated. We’re here to help you unpack it.
