Acanela customer Brynn Tweeddale sits down with us and shares with us her experience climbing Mount Kilimanjaro. She talks about how she prepared for her trek, the highlights of her trip, what she loves about Acanela Expeditions, and more! Listen to hear her Acanela Expeditions review!

In this episode, we discuss:

• Brynn’s most recent travel experiences (1:11)

• What hiking Mt. Kilimanjaro with Acanela was like (3:01)

• Brynn’s favorite part of the expedition (6:42)

• Brynn’s advice for someone going to Mt. Kilimanjaro (8:40)

• Where Brynn is going next (10:28)

Getting To Know Brynn

Dakota: Hey everybody. Welcome back. This is Dakota and today I'm here with Brynn who traveled with us last month on our casting call to Mount Kilimanjaro. Thanks for being with us today, Brynn.

Brynn: Yeah, thanks for having me.

Dakota: Awesome. We're excited to discuss your adventures and your future ventures that you might have. So to begin, tell us a little about yourself.

Brynn: So I'm 24, just graduated from college a few years ago, working a full-time job, but I've always really enjoyed traveling and being outdoors. So I've been trying to fit that in with the whole full-time job, new graduate thing. And I work as a designer and developer, but then I do some content creation and I actually own my own business on the side.

Dakota: Awesome. Does owning your own business allow you to travel more than, I guess if you didn't?

Brynn: Not with two other income streams, I'm pretty tied down. But it's a way to do the work that I really enjoy doing without having to find someone to hire me to do it.

Dakota: That's awesome. And you said that you're in Seattle, so that's your home base?

Brynn: Yeah, born and raised.

Brynn’s Most Recent Travel Experience

Dakota: Oh, cool. Where have you traveled recently?

Brynn: I would say, other than Kilimanjaro, my most recent trips, I studied abroad in Peru, actually in the rainforest so that was really cool. And my dad actually is really into breeding tropical fish so before I did that, we collected fish in the Amazon, which was a really unique experience. And then I also spent two months in the Philippines.

Dakota: Okay. So you've been a few places.

Brynn: Yeah.

Dakota: We're going to talk about your experience with Mount Kilimanjaro here in a sec, but is there any, I guess, any travel experiences that are most memorable to you?

Brynn: We were staying within Manu National Park in Peru in a pretty remote location, a research facility, that only allows about 40 people at a time and so it was very remote and we got to see a lot of animals because we were right in the rainforest. It was just a very unique experience that I wouldn't have been able to do by myself. I had to know someone who knew someone to get me there, so I think that was really cool and the experience that I will probably never forget.

Dakota: You mentioned that you did this with your dad. Did you like travel when you were younger a lot or has that been more recent?

Brynn: More recent, I would say. My dad and my mom sometimes traveled for work, so I'd get to go. My dad studied culinary Italy, so that was a good experience. But other than that, not too much when I was younger.

Brynn’s Experience Hiking Mount Kilimanjaro

Dakota: Tell us about last month and your trip to Africa and your hiking on Mount Kilimanjaro.

Brynn: I found out I was going to Kilimanjaro probably a month before, so around Christmas time, and I left February 3rd or something like that. So I was really nervous before I left for the physical challenge and am I going to make it, and am I going to get sick, is my family going to be worried? But overall, it was a very rewarding experience, a little bit scary because I went into it alone. I didn't know anyone, but everyone was so great. And it was just really rewarding to meet the people from Tanzania who were the kindest, most giving people that I've ever met. And I think that the big highlight of the trip was our guides and our porters, they really made it what it was. It wasn't necessarily all about climbing the mountain, which was cool, but I think the most rewarding experience was just meeting all these new people and seeing how selfless they were while we were climbing.

Dakota: That's awesome. So you said that you didn't find out till December. How did you end up preparing?

Brynn: Well, I was pretty worried because I mean, I'm a person who's pretty active, but I wouldn't say I'm a fitness... I don't know, I'm not super fit. So I started going to the gym at 6:00 AM, three times a week doing weightlifting because I knew I was going to bring my giant camera. I knew I was going to have to carry it up the mountain. So I was like, I'm going to need a little bit more arm strength. And then on the weekends, or sometimes at night after work, we would do hikes around my area.

Dakota: Okay.

Brynn: Yeah, most of our hikes are pretty steep, so I feel like it was a good preparation.

Dakota: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Was there any way for you to prepare for, I guess, the altitude?

Brynn: No, especially because it was a January. We have snow on all of our mountains, so there's no way to really hike high altitude. I did run Ragnar and Aspen last year so that was 8,000 feet and you go up to like 10,000 when you're running. So I had that experience. I knew how I reacted to altitude, but other than that, no.

Dakota: How did the summit day and I guess the whole trek go then, without that preparation for altitude?

Brynn: I feel like the first three days were really a breeze. They were a lot easier than I expected. And summit day, well the night before we left because we left at 1:30 AM, I had a super bad migraine, which is pretty normal for me, but I know it was because of the altitude. It was eight out of 10. I was like, "I'm not sure I'm even going to be able to go unless this subsides a little," but it did. And then after that, I was just so grateful that I didn't get super nauseous. It was hard to breathe, but I felt pretty good. So I would say most of it, I just felt really positive and grateful to be there and I really didn't have too many issues except for a slight headache.

Dakota: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Brynn: It was just really rewarding and I felt really maybe I had a little bit of adrenaline. So maybe that helped.

Dakota: Yeah. It definitely seems like it could help. Was that your first time in Africa?

Brynn: Yes.

Dakota: Besides Mount Kilimanjaro, how was the rest of the trip?

Brynn: It was great. I did a safari afterwards by myself and that was so amazing, especially since I do some photography so that was a photographer's dream, so many animals. And just in general, I found the people to be very nice. I felt really safe and everyone was just really helpful when I had to travel between towns and get around by myself. Yeah, it was all above my expectations.

Highlights From Mount Kilimanjaro

Dakota: That's awesome. You mentioned that you had the people and the porters and guides for your favorite thing, do you have any other highlights from the whole trek?

Brynn: I think every day the guides and the porters in the morning would do singing and dancing and get us involved and I think that was a really positive way to start every day of the trek. It just put everyone in a great mood and that carried on throughout the day. And other than that, I think my favorite part of the entire trip was probably day two. You hike through this area that's sort of misty and has all these streams and bridges and waterfalls and it was just so beautiful. And I just really enjoyed being in that environment and being able to see all this natural beauty, especially because it had rained a lot before we went. It was very green and there were flowers and it was just very beautiful.

Dakota: That sounds amazing. And I've heard from a couple of the other travelers who went on that trip that every day the landscape kind of changes. You have your rain forest and your desert and your moonscapes and stuff.

Brynn: Yeah. Yeah, it's really cool to see so many different environments within a short period of time.

Brynn’s Advice To Those Hiking Mount Kilimanjaro In The Future

Dakota: Awesome. It sounds really fascinating. Any advice for someone going to Mount Kilimanjaro in the future?

Brynn: I would say there's not a great way, unless you have one of those fancy altitude masks, there's no way you're going to train for 20,000 feet of altitude almost. But I was really thankful that I know some people didn't train and they felt okay, but I just felt so much stronger because of even the month of training. Even just a little bit, I felt very strong and I would also say I was a budget shopper for a lot of my gear and it all worked out for me. So you don't have to spend thousands of dollars on the best gear to make it up. You just need your essentials and there's ways to do it that are cheaper than...

Brynn’s General Travel Advice

Dakota: Yeah. Any advice for just, I guess, someone traveling in general out of the country? I know it's kind of scary for a lot of people.

Brynn: I think the biggest thing is to have an open mind, not get too caught up in what you don't have. I know a lot of people sometimes struggle if there's no AC or they're just not used to the food or being able to ask for certain dietary restrictions. You just have to be really open minded and realize that you're in a different culture. Time works differently. A lot of times things aren't on such a strict schedule compared to the U.S. so you just have to be able to be flexible and just remind yourself that you're learning about a new culture and open yourself up to that during the experience.

Brynn’s Next Adventures

Dakota: That's great advice, flexibility and being open-minded. So moving on from this trip, I guess, what places are on your bucket list?

Brynn: I'm really into food and so Japan is very high on my list right now. But other than that, I'm a spontaneous traveling. I don't usually plan out too much before I leave. I actually would like to see a lot of the U.S. I feel that's something that people don't explore as much. But yeah, no trips planned other than I am flying out to Hawaii today. So other than that...

Dakota: Awesome. Do you have any travel goals? You said you're spontaneous, but do you have travel goals besides Japan?

Brynn: I think one of the biggest goals is probably Antarctica, but it's one of those things that I want to do right. I want to have all the gear to just capture the beauty of it. So I'm holding off and hopefully, I would maybe not want to go alone.

Dakota: Yeah. I definitely recommend Japan and I hope that you have the opportunity to get there.

Brynn: Thank you.

Follow Brynn @br.yy

Podcast made in partnership with Acanela Expeditions

Theme Song - I’ll Just Be Me by Gravity Castle