SUMMER IS HEEEERREEE!
For the first 10 years of my career, I worked almost every day, including weekends. I had no regular interaction with friends, no hobbies and the partners I was with at the time Hated their lives with me, with a capital "H". Imagine living with someone who's sole occupation was sitting in front of a computer all day, getting flabbier every day, severe vitamin D deficiency, and with a million excuses not to do anything else? Yes, that was me and I hated living with myself, too. In 2010-2011, something big happened in my life and a switch went off, and for the first time ever, I woke up to the fact that I needed to make a change. The change was extreme: almost every single weekend for the last 8 years, I've tried to make the most of those 2 days off by thinking of them as mini-vacations. And just like a vacation, by planning ahead, I would have something to look forward to during the week. And when the weekend got here, I didn't have to stress because everything was already set up.
Over the course of 400+ weekends - sh_t... I'd never counted it before - I've tried LOTS of things. And the biggest inconvenience for me has been having to search, vet, and plan around incompatible calendars for everything I wanted to do. If you wanted to go paddling, there are literally a half-dozen options, even here in NYC, including free ones. How could I pick one? And how could I coordinate it with my own schedule (not to mention my friends' schedules). So, that's how the idea for Outerthere started taking shape. As I've explained before, it is a form of therapy for me and became a safe space for others to escape for a day from whatever challenges they were facing. But today, it's also become the only place where you can see albums and watch videos of beginners trying almost everything outdoorsy to do in and around NYC. Over those 400 weekends, the Outerthere fam has helped me screen out the good, the bad, and the absolutely terrible, have helped me figure out itineraries and costs, and have given me invaluable feedback as I struggled to figure out how to make Outerthere work for everyone.
And after 400 weekends, there are more than 50 fully vetted outdoor adventures live right now on a single calendar for you to look forward to trying this summer. Plan your stress-free weekend, try something new, or just watch us figure all this sh_t out.
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Al Berrios
 Thank you #Ohana!
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