I’m 6’3”, I’m an ER nurse & I’m from Germany — none of that was supposed to be a travel brand — it just turned out to be the only honest way to describe the person telling you these stories.
Hey, I’m Shannon!
Who I am
I'm Shannon. I'm severely addicted to fresh air — if that means jumping on a flight to go bike through the Swiss Alps, I will. But international trips aren't the only kind of adventure that counts here. I grew up in Europe, where a two-hour drive gets you into a different culture, not just the next state over. Still had to figure all of this out myself, one trip at a time.
I love travel. I love the outdoors.I'm here to make both easier, more fun, and to help you go a little more prepared than I did.
Part of that comes from somewhere you wouldn't guess. I've stood in enough emergency rooms to know two things at once. I've watched life end too soon to believe that sitting at home, waiting for some perfect version of "ready," was ever actually the safer option. And I've also seen exactly what happens when people ignore the warning sign, skip the insurance, or make the call they shouldn't have made three thousand miles from home. Those aren't in conflict. Going anyway and being prepared when you go are the same idea. So when I tell you to get the travel insurance, or figure out where the nearest hospital is before you need one, it's not a line I read somewhere. It's a shift I remember, from both directions.
The 6'3" part is less profound and more consistently funny. The world was not built for me. Airplane seats. Hostel bunks. European doorframes I have personally lost to. Shower heads aimed squarely at my sternum. I'm basically a walking review of every space that assumed people stop growing at 5'10".
Add in growing up in Germany, and you get someone who has never quite fit the mold of any one place — which might be exactly why I've spent this long trying to see all of them.
I go places. I tell you what actually happened — not the polished version, not the one optimized for a caption. The version where my friend jumped into an Amsterdam canal after her bag, no hesitation, fully clothed. The version where I flew to Europe for my own birthday, spent two days with family, and then disappeared solo into the German Alps in winter — one night in a treehouse in someone's backyard, another reached by a solo gondola and a mile-long hike through mountainside farmland as it got dark and the signal dropped. I was terrified. I was also prepared.
That's the version I'm telling you. The hope is somewhere in it, you start thinking maybe you should go somewhere too.
Think of this less like a highlight reel and more like the debrief you get from a friend over drinks — the one who tells you what actually happened, including the parts that don't make you look good.
Some of what I write about is big, like that night in the mountains. Would I do it again? Without question. But I also knew where the nearest town was, I told someone where I'd be, and I never pretended a mile of dark farmland with no signal was nothing. Some of it is small enough that it barely counts as travel — a new coffee shop, a trail an hour from home, a Tuesday where "adventure" just meant leaving the house. I don't rank one above the other. The Alps and the coffee shop are doing the same job: getting you to move.
I'm not the expert in the room. I'm just the person who went first and came back to tell you what actually happened — what worked, what didn't, what I'd skip next time, what scared me right up until it didn't. You don't need an expert. You need someone willing to go before you and be honest about it after.
What TFT actually is
This whole thing, Tenderfoot Trekker, has been in my head for ten years. Not as a plan — more like a feeling I kept setting down and picking back up, usually somewhere between a layover and a trailhead, usually with a phone full of photos nobody but me had seen.
I kept talking myself out of it. So many people already asked me for advice — but then I'd think, there are people out there who've traveled more, seen more, adventured more than I have. Who am I to be the one giving advice? Eventually I landed somewhere better than either answer: I didn't need to be the most experienced person in the room. I just wanted to help people feel confident enough to go anyway. That's what Tenderfoot Trekker actually is — trying something new, and telling someone about it, whether that's mid-trip because they're right there with you, or over drinks with friends afterward. I was always going to tell someone the story. The blog was just making that official.
Separately, for the last decade, I'd been writing letters. Nothing organized — just a card here, a note there, whenever someone crossed my mind. This past summer I decided to make it a habit instead of an impulse: Mail Monday. Every Monday, two or three handwritten letters, out to friends and family. No occasion, no reason. Just an envelope, a stamp, and the idea that showing up for someone on purpose still means something.
Then those two things collided. Not a new idea — just the willingness to finally build both at once. I started working seriously on the blog, and at the same time asked myself: what if someone I hadn't met yet could get a letter too?
That question became Witness — a physical, monthly letter, landing in your actual mailbox instead of your feed. One story from the field. One printed photo from that same story. One sticker, pulled from that same photo. And a pre-stamped postcard, so you can write on it and send a piece of it along to someone else. The unfiltered version of whatever just happened, sent to people who want more than a scroll can give them — and a little more connection along with it.
It's not a newsletter with a nicer name. It's Mail Monday, just bigger — the same idea, sent to more people.
If you want one in your own mailbox, Witness is open.
Ten years, three months
If you're not sure where to start, Start Here will point you in the right direction.
If you want the letter in your own mailbox, Join Witness.
If you just want to see where I've been, [Field Notes] has the stories, and [Destinations] has everywhere they happened.
Tender feet. Always moving. Never stopping.
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