colleen stinchcombe

In 2017, after three years and three promotions as an editor at a women’s lifestyle website, I quit my job to go hiking.

On paper, things were going well: I’d just received a 12% raise and I’d been single-handedly put in charge of one of my company’s biggest initiatives. But the truth was I was unhappy and feeling very stuck in my career. Since my mother’s death two years before, I’d been spending every free moment hiking in the Arizona desert mountains, trying to shake off a sense of personal and professional despondency.

It was July, 10 months before I put in my notice, when I decided I was going to spend the next summer hiking the Pacific Crest Trail.

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