I’m Mary Leavines (she/her.) I’m a storyteller, a thru-hiker, hostel-owner, photographer, Southerner, INFJ, and a whole host of other things.

Driven by a lifelong desire to see as much of the world as possible, I’ve been exploring public lands and far-flung wild places for over a decade. In 2022, I hiked 2,194.3 miles from Georgia to Maine along the Appalachian Trail; and in 2024, I will be attempting a northbound thru-hike of the Pacific Crest Trail.

There are three places in the world where I feel most at home: in written word, on trail, and behind the wheel.

For a long time, I believed that “home” was something I could find outside of myself. I believed that it could be found across state lines, within the heart of another human, or just around the next switchback.

After years of searching, I learned that the only true home I have is within myself. This required a reckoning, in which I confronted the ideas I held true about who I was — or the stories I believed were true. Through my world-shattering divorce and subsequent thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail, I’ve started to re-enter a space of deep remembering, and embarked on the authoring of a new story for myself.

My hope is that, by sharing this continued journey, I can hold space for others as they navigate back to the true home within them as well.