⛺ Psychological Safety + Democratizing Outdoor Access with Sally Steele of Outdoorithm | See Her Outside Podcast

Just because somebody is physically safe in the outdoors doesn't necessarily mean that they can access a sense of belonging.

Sally Steele is co-founder and CEO of Outdoorithm, a platform that makes it easy to find the right campground for your family, and of Outdoorithm Collective, a nonprofit bringing underrepresented families onto public lands for rest, nourishment, movement, and community.

Sally and Angie talked about:

• How slavery, then sharecropping, disrupted her family's relationship to land for generations
• Growing up without any exposure to national parks or outdoor recreation
• The barriers to belonging outdoors: logistics, the cost of gear, and physical and psychological safety
• Why "will I be physically safe" and "do I belong here" are two different, equally real questions
• Scarcity mentality, geotagging, and the difference between gatekeeping and entitlement
• Building a "Community Vibe Score" for campgrounds, modeled on the Negro Motorist Green Book
• Outdoorithm Collective's free family camping trips, and the mantras that anchor them
• Why cultivating belonging on public lands is part of what protects them

Check out these resources:

• Outdoorithm
• Outdoorithm Collective
• Outdoorithm on Instagram: @outdoorithm
• "Why Being Black and Outdoorsy Is a Whole Thing" — NPR
• "Embracing Our Relationships with Whiteness in the Outdoors" — Melanin Base Camp
• "The Achilles Heel of Trail Running" — Melanin Base Camp
• "Five Reasons Why You Should Keep Geotagging" — Melanin Base Camp
• "Does Geotagging Matter?" — Femignarly
• The Cairn Project on IG
• The Cairn Project's newsletter

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