An Open Letter

Hello, and thank you for visiting.

After a year and a half of building this project, I have made the difficult decision to step away from Hike the Sunshine.

I started Hike the Sunshine with a simple goal: to encourage people to spend more time outdoors and to share the places that helped me reconnect with myself. What began as a personal journey quickly grew into something larger. Through photos, stories, videos, and conversations, I had the opportunity to introduce others to some of Florida's hidden gems and hopefully inspire a few adventures of their own.

For that, I am incredibly grateful.

Somewhere along the way, however, I lost sight of what was most important. What started as a passion became another obligation. The pressure to constantly create, document, and share slowly replaced the joy that inspired the project in the first place.

The truth is that I need to focus on myself.

Over the past year, life has demanded more of my attention, energy, and resilience than I expected. Continuing to maintain this project requires time and emotional bandwidth that I simply no longer have. Rather than continue half-heartedly, I believe it is time to let it go.

Effective immediately, this website will no longer be updated. Over the coming months, I will also begin phasing out the associated social media channels, with the intention of closing the project entirely by the end of the year.

This decision was not made lightly. I poured countless hours into Hike the Sunshine and genuinely gave it everything I could. But there comes a point when holding on no longer serves the person you are becoming.

I have learned a tremendous amount through this experience. I have visited incredible places, met wonderful people, and created memories that I will carry with me for the rest of my life. Most importantly, I rediscovered my own connection to nature, which was the reason this project existed in the first place.

I don't view this as a failure. Some journeys are meant to last forever, while others serve their purpose and come to a natural end. For me, this feels like the latter.

Thank you for following along, for your support, and for sharing part of this adventure with me.

Take care, get outside when you can, and keep exploring.