This is where it started, in a way. Not Catch Yourself Smiling exactly — but the noticing. Three years and 80-plus episodes of talking to people about America’s public lands, and somewhere in all those conversations, I started paying attention to something bigger than the parks themselves: what it actually feels like to be outside, and why that feeling is so hard to find anywhere else.
The Parks Podcast is my invitation to discover, protect, and fall in love with public lands — not because you should, but because they’re one of the most reliable ways back to yourself that I’ve found. You don’t need a national park. You need a trailhead, a bench, twenty minutes, and something with leaves.
If you’re new here, this is a good place to start. It’s the on-ramp — the part of Catch Yourself Smiling that gets you outside before it asks anything else of you.